not with the assurance,-with the impression only on his mind, that another mortal would do for the prisoner what he (Hulin) ought to have done himself*; it was consummated by the seven officers composing the court, who, with an ignorance that will transmit their names with eternal infamy to posterity, did not object to perform what, in every step they took, from their want of knowledge, they must have felt that they were wholly incompetent to execute; it was consummated by those who, carried away by their own ungenerous alarms, did not feel the shame of affixing their signatures to a decree which gave birth to an inefficient tribunal;—it was consummated by those counsellors who, bold only in wickedness and strong only in vice, took upon themselves the awful responsibility of advising the violation of an independent country, without first trying the efficacy of a less rigorous measure;—it was consummated by Napoleon, who suffered the biassed sentiments of his ministers to confirm his own opinions, and who, unwittingly the tool of ignoble souls, finally availed himself of a force which ought solely to have marched in honourable pursuit, for the dastardly work of seizing a prince whom, if innocent, he had no right to molest, and who, if guilty, might surely have been pre

Memoire de M. le Comte Hulin, p. 14.

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vented from committing any act by which Napoleon's safety could have been endangered.

To these persons, whatever their rank, whatever their stations, we ascribe the early close put to the gallant d'Enghien's career; let each bear his portion of the reproach, but let not justice be transformed into its opposite extreme, and the guilt of many be heaped, as the Editor of the New Times fails not to cast, upon the head of one. We endeavour not to screen Napoleon; let only each agent in the havoc take the share which belongs to him, and the unprejudiced mind, we are confident, will not be long in deciding with whom, out of the number that sought the ruin of the best of the Bourbons, the greatest blame remains.

Napoleon carried with him to the sepulchre the sting that knows no relief; the death of the Duke d'Enghien was the most reprehensible act of his reign, and, like that of our second George to Byng, and of our first Charles to Stafford, can never be wholly defended, although it may admit of palliation.

CHAP. IX.

EXECUTION OF THE RUSSIANS AT MOSCOW.

"When the Russian inhabitants set fire to Moscow, which they had every right in the world to do, and which they did by the lawful command of their lawful superior, Buonaparte acted with the same wantonness of cruelty; and he speaks of it with the same unconcern:- I caused about two hundred of these wretches to be shot.' The levity of this word, about, is really painful: a few murders more or less are matter of no account with him."-New Times, September, 1822.

AGAIN we have to complain of another false colouring, given by the Editor of the New Times, to a fact which, whatever may be thought of its moral turpitude, will at all events find more than one of equal barbarity in modern warfare. Amongst the many contests which distinguish the history of Europe for the last century, no campaign will be found to have been more sanguinary than that of the French against the Russians in 1812: and because Napoleon, who led hosts innumerable to the combat, alluded in 1815 to Mr. O'Meara, but with hesitation, respecting an event which happened three

years before at Moscow, he is instantly pronounced by the Editor a traitor to human nature, and possessed of an insensibility truly demoniacal. We have never heard that his Grace of Wellington, or any other celebrated commander, could always carry the exact amount of the killed, wounded, and missing, in the tablet of his memory; nor have we ever before been told, that the hero of his age would incur the risk of being branded for a savage, if, questioned on the battles gained by him in the infancy of his glory, he had found his recollection fail him as to the precise number of the slain in any one of them: yet Napoleon ventured to employ the modest word about, and forsooth he must be a monster! How illiberal! Does the Editor think that Napoleon could, in waging war, consider the death of two or three hundred Russians of such overwhelming importance?—or that, engaged in operations on which the fate of empires hung, he could employ so large a portion of time in perusing regimental returns, as to implant in his mind, never to be forgotten, the precise loss of the Russians on every occasion?

The real interest of the subject, however, does not lie in Napoleon's memory, but in the right which he possessed to execute summary judgment on the individuals described by the Editor. What is the truth? The French penetrated the

Russian frontier, beat the forces opposed to them in several pitched battles, and finally captured Moscow. The success of the war-the very existence of the whole invading army-depended on being able to pass the winter season in the capital. Under these circumstances, the Russian government caused several hundred criminals to be liberated, on condition that they should become the instruments of burning the town. Proposals so tempting, it will be easily conceived, were not likely to meet with refusal. Those who had forfeited all civil rights were but too happy to redeem them, by undertaking to produce a state of things which, in addition to liberty, offered fresh objects for plunder. Moscow glowed in reddened heat-the conflagration was universal. The imps of hell maintained inviolate their word, and, charged with phosphorus, crept into every corner, lighting afresh whatever would otherwise have become extinguished. Nothing escaped the zeal and fury of these infernal agents; and the growth of many a century was anon one pile of smoking ruins !*

-Thus far the Russians. We regret the sad alternative to which they conceived themselves driven: they were, nevertheless, perfectly justified in overwhelming their mother city; and we are far from

* Narrative of the Campaign in Russia,-Eugene la Beaume, pp. 222 and 223.