150 LON 
in one well-concerted plan of aJlion, their defign might 
not have proved abortive. 
It is, however, not phyfical but moral force that go¬ 
verns the world : hold conception, a juft difcrimination 
between difficulty and impoffibility, profound combina¬ 
tion, unity of defign, promptitude and rapidity of aflion. 
It was not phyfical force, but fublime genius and an af- 
cendancy over the minds of men, that gave energy and 
fuccefs to the meafures of Alexander of Macedon, Han¬ 
nibal, and Julius Cselar. All great refults fpring from 
fmall, and at firft imperceptible, origins ; one conftant iin- 
pulfion, conftantly and uniformly accelerating. In con¬ 
federations there is generally fomething that milgives ; 
fomething falfe and hollow. It is feldom even polftble 
for the confederating parties to form, as emergencies arife, 
a concert of wills in time, and feldomer ftill that they 
fubmit without referve to the will of one dictator. The 
fragility of confederations had been proved by three coa¬ 
litions againft the ruler of France ; and the ifl'ue of a fourth 
■was now to be added to the number. 
The pofition and ftrength of the French and Ruffian 
armies, were threatening a molt bloody conflidl; and, af¬ 
ter the battles of Jena, Bergfried, and Hoff, the great de¬ 
feat at Eylau (book the continent, and rebounded to the 
very centre of London, by damping the hopes of trade, 
and raifing new fears of the common enemy. 
The character and refult of this laft battle feem to be 
exhibited with great candour in a letter written by a Ruf¬ 
fian officer of the army, three days afterwards. “Our 
army has performed prodigies of valour; though our lofs 
has been very great. It is generally agreed, that it was a 
miracle we did not lofe more; which is afcribed to the 
excellent difcipline and order that prevailed even in the 
hotteft of the action, and in the midft of fuch a fire as 
was never perhaps witneffed before. For thefe three days 
we have been enquiring of each other, on which fide 
the viftory lay. This queftion may appear lingular; but 
in truth it is impoffible for me to fay which of the two 
armies fought with the greateft courage and obftinacy, 
and did the greateft milchief to the other.” It is a very 
remarkable circutnftance in the battle of Eylau, that there 
was little or no engagement between the infantry of the 
two armies. The battle was fought by the artillery and 
cavalry. The following day prefented a horrid fcene of 
dead and dying men: to bury all the dead, required im- 
menfe labour. A great number of Ruffian (lain, were 
found with the infignia of their orders. Forty-eight 
hours after the battle, there were ftill upwards of 5000 
wounded Ruffians, whom the French had not been able 
to carry oft'. Brandy and bread were carried to them, 
and they were fucceffively borne away to the ambulance , or 
train of carriages. On the fpace of a fquare league were 
feen 9 or 10,000 dead bodies; 4’or 5000 horfes killed; 
whole lines of Ruffian knapfacks ; broken pieces of 
mufkets and fabres; the ground covered with cannon¬ 
balls, howitzer-lhells, and ammunition ; twenty-four 
pieces of cannon, near which lay the bodies of their drivers, 
jkilied at the moment when they were endeavouring to 
carry them off. All this was the more confpicuous, as the 
ground was covered with fnow. The 5000 wounded 
Ruffians were all conveyed in fledges to Thorn, and to 
the French hofpitals on the left bank of the Viftula. The 
■furgeons obferved with aftonifliment, that the fatigue of 
this conveyance did no harm to the wounded. At the 
fame time that marftial Davouft attacked the elevated 
ground, the poffeffion of which was fo warmly difputed, 
marfhal Ney came round by Altorf, driving before him 
the fame column which he had attacked at Deppen, and, 
in the evening, occupied the village of Schoneditton. 
The Ruffian general therefore, harailed on his flanks by 
Davoult and Ney, who threatened to cut oft’ his rear¬ 
guard, ordered feveral battalions of grenadiers to make an 
attack on Schoneditton; which was accordingly done at 
eight o’clock at night, but without effieft. The next day, 
(February o,) the Ruffians were purfued as far as the ri- 
D O N. 
ver Frifcheling, while they retreated behind the Pregel,, 
The French Gazette fays in conclufion : “This expedition 
is ended. The enemy is beaten and driven back eighty 
leagues from the Viftula. The French army is going to 
return to its winter-quarters.” 
That the main body of the Ruffian army—not abfolutely 
the whole, as will prefently appear—was forced to fall 
back eighty leagues from the Viftula, is true ; but it is 
alfo true that Bonaparte did not find himfelf in a condi¬ 
tion, at this time, again to attack them, and hazard ano¬ 
ther battle. The Ruffian army, without any material lofs, 
affected its retreat to Koniglberg. Bonaparte was now 
only a fliort diftance from Koniglberg, a grand depofitory 
of the enemy. The fteeples of this place, which had 
been held out as a rich prey to the French foldiers, were 
feen from the heights of Eylau. Nothing could have 
been more defirable than to take a place which would at 
once have been a molt advantageous military pofition, 
furniffied abundance of proviiions and ftores, and grati¬ 
fied the army by pillage. And that the reduction of 
Koniglberg was accordingly, in fa£t, his objeiff, appears 
from a letter addreffed to the emprefs Jofephine, by Ber- 
thier prince of Neufchatel, the moll confidential minifter 
of Bonaparte, on the evening before the battle, dated at 
Great Glandau, 7th February : “ At the approach of his 
imperial majefty, the Ruffian army fell back. On the 
evening of the 6th it had paffed Landfberg, with the in¬ 
tention of continuing a retreat during the night. The 
emperor, who commanded the advanced guard, ordered 
an attack on the rear of the Ruffians, which had been 
lately re-inforced. It was unable to refill the vigour of 
an attack condufled by his majefty in perfon. To-morrow 
we Jhall be at Konigjberg .” And an attempt on Konigf- 
berg would, no doubt, have been made, if, after the battle of 
Eylau, Bonaparte had conceived that he poffeffed means for 
ac.complifliing his objedl. But this was, in truth, a drawn 
battle; and the fevereftjcheck he had received fince the 
commencement of his career, which was in Italy, in 1796. 
It was not, however, without fome degree of plaufibility 
that both fides claimed the victory, or at lead a difeomfi- 
ture of the defign of their opponents. It was the defign 
of Bonaparte to take Koniglberg : he was forced to fall 
back on the Viftula. It was the defign of the Ruffians to 
drive the French back beyond the Viftula, to retake El- 
bing and Thorn, and to force them to rail'e the fieges of 
Colberg, Graudenz, and Dantzic : by a feries of fuccef- 
five actions, they had been driven back by the French 
as far as Eylau, and, on the day after the battle, beyond 
the Pregel. The French had buried the Ruffian dead; 
collected and taken care of the greateft part of their 
wounded ; taken a number of their cannon difmounted in 
the action ; and, finally, remained feven or eight days 
on the field of battle. 
According to his ufual policy, Bonaparte after this fuc¬ 
cefs made pacific overtures ; but they were rejected, and 
the demon of war raged with new fury in the north of 
Germany upon the very frontiers of the Ruffian empire. 
The fall of Dantzic and Stralfund gave great advantages 
to Bonaparte; and the defeat of the Swedes feemed at 
one time to feal the flavery of Germany under the French 
emperor. But while Gultavus, who had come down to 
Stralfund after the French had left the place, was employ¬ 
ed in reviewing and promoting his brave and loyal Swedes, 
he was himfelt not a little animated, it may be prefumed, 
by the arrival at Stralfund of the Englifh general Clinton, 
with affurances of fpeedy fuccours of all kinds from the 
Britilh government, in the adminillration of which, there 
had been, on the 24th of March, a great change. The 
minilters of England, who were delirous, above all things, 
of peace, and who had been amufed with a negociation by 
Bonaparte until he was prepared to take the field at the 
clofe of September 1806, were exchanged for others, bet¬ 
ter difpofed, it was generally imagined, to afford fuccour 
and co-operation with the confederacy againll the tyran¬ 
ny, and Itill growing ambition, of the ruler of France. 
I On 
