those of a successful general; in peace, his attachment to the frivolities of dress and exterior decoration, indicated an inferior understanding and trifling disposition. To Buonaparte he was recommended as the unscrupulous executioner of whatever measures were calculated to support his domination, amongst which it is sufficient to mention the execrable murder of the citizens of Madrid on 4th May, 1808. During the campaign of Russia, Murat began to decline in Buonaparte's regard, and appears even then to have looked round for some means of securing himself on the throne of Naples, independently of his brother-in-law's alliance. The discord between them came to a head when Murat's division of cavalry was surprised and defeated by the Cossacks, previous to Buonaparte's evacuation of Moscow. It was then that Murat, assuming an air of independence, offered to the Russian general to withdraw the Neapolitan forces, on condition that a separate truce should be concluded with him in his character of King of Naples. This proposal was regarded at the time as a gross attempt to impose upon the credulity of Russia; yet after incidents have shewn that there was something more serious in Murat's proposal, and that even then he meditated desertion from the cause of Napoleon. Still confidence was not entirely broken between them, if it can be termed a serious mark of it, that, on quitting the wrecks of his army in Poland, Buonaparte consigned to Murat, in the first instance, the task of conducting these shattered and broken forces to some point of safety. But he had scarcely assumed this delegated command before he was deprived of it in the most insulting manner by an imperial decree, which, while it superseded Mu rat and placed Eugene Beauharnois at the head of the army, assigned the inferior capacity of the former as a rea

son for the change. Murat, as was to have been expected, after so gratui tous an insult, quitted the French army, and returned to his capital of Naples.

From this period Murat carried on negociations with Austria, and announced his defection from the continental system by opening his Italian ports to the commerce of England. Still, however, nursing vague ideas of ambition, which he had neither prudence to relinquish nor talents to realize, he continued a secret negociation with Buonaparte and Beauharnois, in which he stipulated, as the price of returning fidelity, the addition of Tuscany and the Roman states to his kingdom of Italy. Not even the approaching crisis of his fate could induce Buonaparte to take conciliatory measures with his relation. The demands of Murat were haughtily rejected, and he became from necessity more serious in his treaty with the allies. The mediation of Austria extracted from Britain a reluctant acquiescence in the terms which he proposed. It is believed the latter state did not see with pleasure the central ports of the Mediterranean left under the authority of a revolutionary potentate; but she did finally acquiesce in the guarantee granted to Murat of the kingdom of Naples, and in the terms of his treaty of alliance with the court of Vienna, where his pretensions on Ancona and the Marches of Campagna were recognized, and he became bound to supply, in return, an auxiliary army of 30,000 men. His defection ruined all chance which Eugene Beauharnois might otherwise have had to accom. plish a diversion in Italy in favour of Napoleon. The French army, after various actions, which will be more particularly mentioned in our account of the affairs of Italy, was forced to retreat upon the line of the Adige, and, without any military incidents of

consequence, became altogether isolalated and paralysed. It has been usually supposed that Murat was more anxious to observe the letter of his treaty, than sincerely zealous in the cause of the allies. His conduct exhibited symptoms of procrastination and indecision, and, like weak men in similar circumstances, although he did enough seriously to injure the cause of France, yet his efforts were attended with an obvious reluctance and hesitation, which deprived them of merit in the suspicious eyes of his new allies. Meantime, in the neutralization of Eugene Beauharnois, the confederates reaped the most important advantages which could have been expected from the secession of Murat. Buonaparte, therefore, was cut off from all hope of assistance from those Italian states over which he still retained a nominal dominion. This, with the counterrevolution in Savoy, and similar movements among the states of Switzerland, limited Buonaparte's resources on the south-eastern frontier to those which could be derived from France herself, and shut that door through which he had so often transferred the war into the north of Italy, and thence into the Austrian provinces.

On the north-eastern frontier another soldier of fortune, on whose head the Revolution had placed a crown, held a line of conduct not altogether dissimilar to that of Murat in Italy. We are far from placing either the title or talents of Murat on a level with those of Bernadotte. The former owed his crown to the sword of his brother-in-law; the latter was called to the regal succession of Sweden by a solemn resolution of the diet of that kingdom; adopted doubtless with the purpose of gratifying the French ruler, or of sheltering themselves from his indignation, but uninfluenced ei ther by violence or direct solicitation. Murat's praise-worthy qualities were

limited to courage and activity in the field of battle, whereas Bernadotte had shown the talents both of a general and statesman. Yet, both children of the Revolution, and both natives of France, their situation has some resemblance, and both were in some degree objects of jealousy to those who accounted the French Revolution, and the system of general rapine and violation of the ancient rights both of the rulers and the people which it had introduced, to be the original moving cause of all the complicated evils which had for so many years afflicted Europe. There had been also, on the part of the Crown Prince of Sweden, a certain degree of hesitation at the outset of the campaign of 1813, and to his withdrawing the Swedish garrison from Hamburgh, in the spring of that year, it was owing that that unfortunate city fell into the hands of the French. When appointed to the command of the united forces, entitled the Army of the North of Germany, Bernadotte acted with spirit and energy; and, although it was observed, that he cautiously avoided exposing his Swedish forces, where opportunities occurred to employ others, upon services of danger, yet no charge could be brought against him during the campaign of 1813, of indifference to the common cause, and he is acknowledged to have contributed greatly in every respect to the decisive victory under the walls of Leipsic. But when the treaty with Denmark had given the Crown Prince of Sweden a near prospect of possessing the private and peculiar object in which he was interested, his zeal in the general cause of the allies seemed to suffer some abatement. The cession of Norway was wrung from Denmark after a brief warfare, in which the allied troops conquered Holstein, over-run Sleswick, besieged Rendsborg, and were on the point of invading Jutland,

when at length, submitting to superior force, Denmark entered into a treaty with England, and another with Sweden, by which last she ceded for ever her rights over the kingdom of Norway, and assigned that country in full sovereignty to the crown of Sweden. We shall hereafter say a few words on this subject; in the meanwhile it is sufficient to observe, that the Crown Prince, like the soldier of Horace, found little inclination to put himself forward in peril, after having gained the reward for which he had fought. Leaving General Beunigsen, however, to form the siege of Hamburgh, with an army of about 40,000 men, the Crown Prince moved forward to the Rhine with the rest of the army of the north of Germany, consisting of the Russian corps of Winzengerode and Bulow, with his own Swedish divisions, and those auxiliaries which Denmark had furnished in compliance with her new engagements. Jan. 10. He reached Cologne in 1814, and on the 1st of February he issued a bulletin, in which he announced his intention to unite the whole army under his orders, upon a line between Soissons and Rheims, in support of that of Silesia, which, as we have stated, was manoeuvring in that direction, but still more to the westward, and to which the army of the north would thus have formed a reserve.

The 12th of February found Bernadotte still at Cologne, and still employed in issuing proclamations to the French people. He was, as some of our diurnal politicians expressed it, constantly in the paulo post futurum tense, always about to advance, but never actually moving forward. His language, in private, is said to have intimated the same vacillation and uncertainty; now talking of storming Maestricht, and planting the first lad.

VOL. VII. PART I.

der with his own hand, and now expressing himself coldly, both on the objects and prospects of the war. Various reasons were assigned for this sudden alteration of conduct and manner at so important a crisis. It was thought that, as a Frenchman, Bernadotte might shrink from an active part in inflicting the evils of invasion upon the land of his birth; that as Crown Prince of Sweden, he might be willing to husband the resources of his future kingdom, and reluctant to embark in a succession of bloody actions a Swedish army, which, if destroyed, could hardly be replaced, in a kingdom thinly peopled at all times, and now exhausted by late events; and that, as a revolutionary prince, and one who held his power by a tenure somewhat resembling that of Buonaparte, he might be unwilling to be over urgent in the cause of legitimacy, and, contented with having contributed to humble his fellow-soldier, might not desire that he should be absolutely crushed. And there were some who pretended to discover in the irreconcileable conduct and language of Bernadotte at this crisis, some symptoms of that disordered imagination which the Moniteur had represented to be hereditary in his family. More lately it has been believed, that Bernadotte was dissatisfied with the subordinate part assigned to him in the grand drama of invasion-that he was desirous to be placed foremost, as the hero on whom the hopes of France were to rest, and under whose standard those Frenchmen should be called upon to rally, who, weary of the domi nation of Buonaparte, were willing to aid in shaking it off. If the adherents of Louis XVIII. are to be credited, the ambitious schemes of the Crown Prince of Sweden rose still higher, and he entertained hopes of exchan ging, in the course of events, the prospect of his northern kingdom for an

immediate succession to the throne of Napoleon. According to this class of politicians, he was disgusted at the cold reception which these wild hopes received from the allied monarchs, and became thenceforward lukewarm in the common cause. It is, however, certain, that, from whatever motives, the active exertions of Bernadotte ceased all at once. He removed his headquarters from Cologne to Liege, and there remained with the Swedish army in complete inactivity, while the great events of the campaign of Paris were rapidly succeeding to each other. From this unexpected circumstance, the operations of the allies on the side of Hol. land and Flanders were not only on a scale greatly inferior to their gigantic undertakings upon the higher Rhine, but for a time were only partially successful.

The general alarm of the French, on perceiving how widely the patriotic insurrection in Holland had spread, and how eagerly the natives of Flanders waited for a similar opportunity of emancipation, accelerated the deli verance of the United States more than the military operations of the allies. Indeed, the French garrisons were so much reduced by the repeated draughts which Buonaparte had made to reinforce his army during the last campaign, that it became wisdom to evacuate the more distant fortresses, however defensible, in order, by a concentration of their remaining soldiers, to man sufficiently those which their reduced numbers were capable effectually to defend. This concentration was the more necessary, as the French garrisons in Holland and Belgium were menaced on the northern frontier by two Russian corps, under Winzengerode and Bulow, and on the eastern shores by the troops which Britain, hastening to support the Dutch revolution, had, so soon as a long tract of contrary winds permitted, disembarked at the mouth

of the Scheldt, and united to the insur gent patriots. General Decaen, to whom Buonaparte had entrusted the defence of Holland, judged it necessary to evacuate the strong and wellfortified towns of Breda and Williamstadt, in order to insure the assembling a sufficient garrison at Antwerp. Both towns were instantly occupied by the allies, united to the patriots, and Williamstadt became a point of communication between Britain and Holland, where Sir Thomas Graham speedily disembarked with 5000 British soldiers, hastily assembled upon the joyful tidings of the insurrection in Holland. This able and experienced general had retired from the peninsular war, in which he had made so conspicuous a figure, in consequence of bad health, which did not, however, prevent him from accepting a command in the Low Countries, so soon as he was informed that the country required his services. He arrived in time to secure Breda, of which the French general had made a desperate attempt to repossess himself. Being turned and repulsed, he was obliged to retreat to Hoegstraten, where he took a line of defence betwixt Breda and Antwerp, for the purpose of covering the frontiers of Belgium. A Jan. 11. joint attack was made upon this position by the united forces of Bulow and Sir Thomas Graham, by which the French were dislodged, and obliged to retire upon Merxem, where they occupied a line betwixt that village and Antwerp. Here a second action took place, in Jan. 13. which the village of Merxen was carried by the British at the point of the bayonet; and the enemy, defeated along his whole line, was forced to retire upon Antwerp with considerable loss. General Maison, the French commander-in-chief, now seemed to renounce all purpose of defending Belgium, for, after leaving a suffi