LON 
their own. The "battle Toon became general, and laded 
till night, with a dreadful carnage on both fides. Batte¬ 
ries were taken and retaken, entrenchments carried and 
recovered, and in the end each party claimed the victory. 
The French, who named this the battle of Mojkzoa, triumph 
without referve ; but general Kutufoff fays, that the refult 
was, that the enemy, with his fuperior force, in no part 
gained an inch of ground, and that he himfelf remained 
at night maker of the field of battle. The village of Bo¬ 
rodino gives the Ruffian appellation to this terrible con¬ 
flict. Both fides made the ufual demonflrations of fuccefs 
by adts of pious gratitude, which are always understood 
as addrefled more to earth than to heaven; and it is left 
to the teft of confequences to determine which was the 
chief gainer or lofer by the event. One refult, which cer¬ 
tainly was not expected at Peterfburgh when they were 
finging Te Deutn, was, that feven days after, being the 
14th, at midnight, the French, after no other contelt than 
fome fkirmilhiiig with their advanced guard, entered 
Mofcow. 
Of the circumftances attending the capture and confla¬ 
gration of this great city, very different accounts have 
been given. In the French bulletin which firft relates 
the event, it is faid that the governor, Roflopchin, wilhed 
to ruin the city when he faw it abandoned by the Ruffian 
army—that he armed 3000" malefadfors from the prifons, 
and 6coo fatellites; and that the French advanced guard, 
when arrived at the centre of the city, were received with 
a fire of mufketry from the Kremlin, or citadel—that the 
king of Naples ordered a battery to be opened, which loon 
difperfed this rabble; and that, complete anarchy prevail¬ 
ing in the city, fome drunken madmen ran through its 
different quarters, every-where fetting fire to them, the 
governor having previoufly carried off the firemen and en¬ 
gines. A l'ubfequent bulletin gives the following ac¬ 
count: “On the 14th, the Ruffians fet fire to the ex¬ 
change, the bazar, and the hofpital. On the 16th, a vio¬ 
lent wind arofe; three or four thoufand ruffians fet fire to 
the city in 500 places at once, by order of the governor. 
Five-fixths of the houfes were built of wood ; the fire 
fpread with a prodigious rapidity ; it was an ocean of 
flame. Churches, of which there were 1600, above 1000 
palaces, immenfe magazines, nearly all have fallen a prey 
to the flames. The Kremlin has been prefervtd. Above 
•a hundred of the incendiaries have been apprehended and 
ffiot; all of them declared that they adled under the or¬ 
ders of Roflopchin, and the director of the police.” The 
horrid circumftance is added, that 30,000 Tick and wounded 
Ruffians had been burnt; but, it is to be hoped that this 
is an exaggeration. A l'ubfequent French account from 
iMolcow fays, that three hundred incendiaries had been 
arrefled and fhot ; they were provided with fufees fix 
inches long between two pieces of wood, and alfo with 
fquibs, which they threw upon the roofs of houfes. The 
fires fubfuled on the 19th and zoth, but three-fourths of 
the city had been deltroyed. It is afterwards faid that 
only one tenth remained unconfumed. 
While the fhock occafioned by this terrible cataflrophe 
of one of the molt populous cities in Europe was ftill re¬ 
cent, the friends to the Ruffian caufe were willing to im¬ 
pute the difafter rather to the fire of the aflailants, or to 
the confufion and anarchy prevailing in a captured city, 
than to a premeditated purpofe on the part of the governor 
or the court; but, when the proofs feemed to accumulate 
of a commanded agency in fp reading! the flames, then ar¬ 
guments were not wanting to fliow that, on fuch emergen¬ 
cies, facrifiees of this kind, however fevere, were not only 
juflifiable, but were the trueft patriotifin ; and that the 
depriving an inveterate foe of a comfortable abode during 
the winter In the heart of the country, was a point of fuch 
eflential donfequence, that it could fcarcely be gained at 
too high a price; and the fequel will render probable the 
juftnel's of this reafoning. It may be added, that nothing 
could more convincingly prove the fixed determination 
of the Ruffian government to enter into no compromife 
Vol. XIII. No. 907. 
t) O N. *)Q7 
with the invader, than a refciution rather to deftroy the 
venerable capital of the empire than to bargain for its 
faf'ely. 
'The impreflion made at Peterfburgh by the fall of Mof- 
cow was neceflarily that of great alarm, of which the 
court feems to have participated, even whilft it was en¬ 
deavouring to tranquillize the people. A fupplement to 
the Peterfburgh Gazette of Odtober 2, under the title, 
“For information, by fpecial command,” acquaints the 
public, that meafures are adopting in that city for the re¬ 
moval of certain neceffary articles ; not, however, from 
any apprehenfion of danger to the metropolis—and it 
proceeds to ftate the circumftances by which its fafety is 
fecured—but through timely forefight, to be beforehand 
with the freezing of the rivers. After fome attempts at 
diftinguifiling between no prefent, but poffible future, 
danger, it concludes with expreffing a determination, 
“ whatever may be the progrefs of the enemy, rather to 
drain the laft drop of the cup of mifery, than, by a fcan- 
dalous peace, to lfibjedt Ruflia to a foreign yoke.” Ano¬ 
ther precautionary meafure, not only important in itfelf, 
but as it included a pledge of inviolable fidelity to, and 
confidence in, a new ally, was that of fending the whole 
naval force of Ruffia to winter in the Englifh ports, where 
it arrived fafe at the latter end of the year. 
Napoleon continued at Mofcow, and flattering accounts 
appeared in the French papers of his fuccefs in reftoring 
order and procuring plenty in the place; at the fame time 
it is certain that he began to find his fituation very uneafy, 
and feverely felt the difappointment refulting from the de- 
ftruclion of fo large a portion of the city, and the flight 
of its inhabitants. An extraordinary and atrocious proof 
of the acutenefs of his feelings on this occafion, appeared 
in his appointing a military commiffion at Mofcow, on 
September 24, to try a number of poor wretches who had 
been apprehended in the adt of fpreading the flames through 
the city on the days when the French entered it. Though 
a principal objedt of the inquiry was to produce evidence 
that the conflagration was ordered and directed by the 
governor, yet thefe men were capitally condemned for ex¬ 
ecuting commands, to them lawful; and ten of them 
were put to death with the ordinary forms of juftice. 
After this mean adt of vengeance, Napoleon employed 
himfelf as if it were his intention toeftabiifh winter-quar¬ 
ters in the ruins of Mofcow. If fuch had not been his 
plan, it muft be regarded as infatuation, or indecifion un¬ 
worthy of his former character, which induced him to 
poflpone the movement of his vaft army to a feafon imme¬ 
diately bordering upon a northern winter. But, w hatever 
might have been his fecret purpofe, his determination was 
precipitated by the event of an adlion on the iSth of Oc¬ 
tober.—General Kutufcff, having received information of 
the march of a French corps under general Vidtor, from 
Smolenlko, to reinforce the grand army, refolved to attack 
the advanced guard, commanded by Murat, and laid to 
confift of 45,000 men, before they could be fupported by 
the main army. The attack fucceeded, and left in the 
hands of the vidlor a contiderable number of priloners, 
and thirty-eight pieces of cannon, which the badnefs of 
the roads prevented the French from carrying away. The 
conlequence of this vidtory wms, that on the 2zd the corps 
of general Winzingercde entered Mofcow, which was eva¬ 
cuated by the French garrifon in fuch ha lie, that they left 
the hofpirals in the power of the foe. About the lame; 
time other fuccefles attended the Ruffian caufe. Count 
Witfgenftein, after two days’ hard fighting with theFreneh 
under marlbrd Gouvion St. Cyr, in .which lie drove the 
enemy front his entrenchments, and purified him to Po- 
lotzk, carried that place by ftorm on the zoth of Odfober. 
While the French emperor was triumphing amidft the 
ruins of a hoftile capital 1500 miles' dilhtnt from his own, 
an attempt was made to lubvert his power at borne, which, 
for a time, bore a formidable afpett, and, if trot ipeedi 1 y 
lfipprefl'ed, might have been the commencement ol a new 
revolution.-—Early in the morning of Odiober 23, three 
