174] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1S12. 



remained at night master of the 

 field of battle. The village of Boro- 

 dino gives the Russian appellation 

 to this terrible conflict. Both sides 

 made the usual demonstrations of 

 success by acts of pious gratitude, 

 which are always understood as 

 addressed more to earth than to 

 heaven ; and it is left to the test 

 of consequences to determine which 

 was the chief gainer or loser by 

 the event. One result which cer- 

 tainly was not expected at Peters- 

 burgh when they were singing Te 

 Deum, was, that seven days after, 

 being the 14th, at midnight, the 

 French, after no other contest than 

 some skirmishing with their ad- 

 vanced guard, entered Moscow. 



Of tlie circumstances attending 

 the capture and conflagration of 

 this great city, very diff"erent ac- 

 counts have been given. In the 

 French bulletin which first relates 

 the event, it is said that the gover- 

 nor, Rostopchin, wished to ruin the 

 city when he saw it abandoned by 

 the Russian array — that he armed 

 3,000 malefactors from the prisons, 

 and 6,000 satellites, and that the 

 French advanced guard, when ar- 

 rived at the center of the city, 

 were received with a fire of mus- 

 ketry from the Krendin, or cita- 

 del — that the King of Naples or- 

 dered a battery to be opened, which 

 soon dispersed this rabble ; and 

 that complete anarchy prevailing 

 in the city, some drunken madmen 

 ran through its different quarters, 

 every where setting fire to them, 

 the governor having previously car- 

 ried off" the firemen and engines. 

 A subsequent bulletin gives the 

 following account: " On the 14th, 

 the Russians set fire to the Ex- 

 change, the Bazar, and the Hos- 



pital. On the 16th a violent win J 

 arose : three or four thousand ruf- 

 fians set fire to the city in 500 

 ])laces at once, by order of the 

 governor. Five-sixths of the houses 

 were built of wood ; the fire 

 spread with a prodigious rapidity ; 

 it was an ocean of flame. Churches, 

 of which there were 1,000, above 

 1,000 palaces, immense magazines, 

 nearly all have fallen a prey to the 

 flames. The Kremlin has been 

 preserved. Above a hundred of 

 the incendiaries have been appre- 

 hended and shot ; all of them de- 

 clared that they acted under the 

 orders of Rostopchin, and the di- 

 rector of the police." The horrid 

 circumstance is added, that 30,000 

 sick and w^ounded Russians had 

 been burnt ; but it is to be hoped 

 that this is an exaggeration. A 

 subsequent French account from 

 Moscow says, that .300 incendiaries 

 had been arrested and shot : they 

 were provided with fusees six 

 inches long between two pieces of 

 wood, and also with squibs, which 

 tliej' threw u])on the roofs of 

 houses. The fires subsided on the 

 19th and 20th, but three-fourths of 

 the city had been destroyed. It is 

 afterwards said that only one-tenth 

 remained unconsumed. 



While the shock occasioned by 

 this terriblecatastropheof oneoftlie 

 most populous cities in Europe was 

 still recent, the friends to the Rus- 

 sian cause were willing to impute 

 the disaster rather to the fire of 

 the assailants, or to the con- 

 fusion and anarchy prevailing in a 

 captured city, than to a premedi- 

 tated purpose on the part of the 

 governor or the court; but when 

 the proofs seemed to accumulate 

 of a commanded agency in spread- 

 ing 



