282 ADVENTUKES AND MISEOETUNES OF A COBNISHMAN. 



interested in reading how he accomplished his journey to Moscow, 

 through a country torn and distracted by the horrors of active 

 warfare, to a city which was so soon to be devastated and made 

 historical by the lurid disasters of the retreat of the French army. 

 It was a time when England stood alone, cast entirely upon her 

 own resources, and when the odds against her seemed almost 

 insurmountable. A little later the genius of Jervis and Nelson 

 won the great battle of St. Vincent, and in 1805, six years alter 

 this letter was written, the crowning victory of Trafalgar once 

 more gave Great Britain the supremacy of the seas. 



