sent from St. Petersburgh and Novogorod, for the strengthening of the forces under Count Wittgenstein, have behaved themselves, especially at Polotzk, and other places. We have besides, and with heartfelt satisfaction, perceived by the reports of the Commander-in-Chief of the armies, and from other Generals, that in several governments, and particularly in those of Moscow and Kalouga, the country people have armed themselves, chosen their own leaders, and not only resisted all attempts at seducing them, but also sustained all the calamities that have befallen them with the perseverance of martyrs. Often have they united themselves with our de tachments, and assisted them in making their enterprises and attacks against the enemy. Many villages have secreted their families and tender infants in the woods; and the inhabitants, with armed hand and inconceivable courage, under engagements on the Holy Gospel not to leave each other in danger, defended themselves, and whenever the enemy shewed himself, have fallen upon him, so that many thousands of them have been cut to pieces, and dispersed by the peasants, and even by their women, and numbers taken prisoners, who were indebted for their lives to the humanity of those very people whom they came to plunder and destroy.

“So high a purpose, and such invincible perseverance in the whole nation, does it immortal honour, worthy of being preserved in the minds of posterity. With the courage of such a nation, we entertain the most wellfounded hopes. Whilst we, jointly with the true church, and the holy synod and clergy, supplicate God's assistance, that if our inveterate enemy, and the mocker of God's temple and holiness, should not be entirely and totally destroyed in Russia, yet that his deep wounds, and the blood it has cost him, will bring him to acknowledge her might and strength.

"Meanwhile, we hold it to be our bounden duty, by this general publication before the whole world, to express our gratitude to the valiant, loyal, and religious Russian nation, and thereby render it due justice."

On the 20th of November Buonaparte quitted Oroha, and on the 28th arrived at the left bank of the Berezyna, his forces reduced to 60,000, where they sustained a further defeat.-Buonaparte caused a bridge to be thrown over the river at Keubin, fifteen wersts above Borizoff, and crossed immediately. The horrors of this pas sage will ever be present to the memory of the French army: it 'lasted two days. At its commencement, which was in the greatest confusion, numbers were drowned; but on the appearance of the Russian army, the confusion was beyond all imagination. The artillery, baggage waggons, the cavalry, and infantry, pressed forward without the least order to cross the river. Every thing appeared to be lost sight of but the wish to escape from the Russian army.-The batteries of the latter now began to fire on the bridge and the banks of the river, and thus stopped the further passage of the enemy. An entire division of seven thousand five hundred men, belonging to Victer's corps, with five Generals, surrendered by capitulation; several

thousand were drowned and killed, and an immense quantity of cannon and baggage remained on the left bank of the river. The passage of the Berezyna cost the French upwards of 20,000 men, killed, wounded, drowned and prisoners, 200 pieces of cannon, and a very considerable booty*.

* ITINERARY FROM PETERSBURGH, THROUGH MOSCOW, TO TULA AND VORONETZ. On the morning of the 3d of April 1800, we (Dr. Clark and Mr. Cresp) left Petersburgh on our road to Moscow, and thence to Tula and Voronetz. This is the great southern road of Russia, which, commencing at Petersburgh, and terminating on the sea of Asoph, extends across the whole Russian dominions, lengthways, i. e. from North to South. From Petersburgh to Moscow is about 500 miles, from Moscow to Tula 120, and from Tula to Voronetz 170.

We arrived with great expedition at Tsarskoselo. In setting out from Petersburgh for the south of Russia, the traveller must bid adieu to all thoughts of inus, or even houses, with the common necessaries of bread and water.-He must not always hope to find even clean straw. He will do well, therefore, to take every thing with him. A pewter tea-pot should be the first article, not a silver one, or it would be sure to be stolen; to this he should add a kettle, a saucepan, tea, sugar, cheese, and some bread baked into rusks. If he travels in winter, he may carry frozen food, such as game and fish, which being congealed, and as hard as a flint, will not suffer from the jolting of his carriage. Wine may be used in a cold country, but never in a hot one. He should likewise take with him a small cruet of good vinegar, as a spoonful of vinegar in a glass of pure water will give him instant coolness and spirits, when his tongue is parched with heat or thirst, and his blood in a ferment by the motion of his long journey.

Novogorod, 120 English miles from Petersburgh, was the next place of any consequence through which we passed. It was half buried in snow when we reached it on the morning of the 5th of April. We managed, however, to get to the cathedral, to see the pictures and idols of the Greek church, and which, with many others dispersed through Russia, were introduced long before the art of painting was practised in Italy. I had given a few pounds to a Russian officer for his god; this consisted of an oval plate of copper, on which the figure of a warrior was beautifully painted on a gold ground. This warrior proved afterwards to be St. Alexander Nevski, and there was hardly a hut or a post-house along the road, which did not contain one or more of the same kind of paintings; the figures on a gold ground, and sometimes protected in front by a silver coat of mail, leaving only the faces and hands of the images visible.

The cathedral of Novogorod, dedicated to St. Sophia, in imitation of the name given to the magnificent edifice erected by Justinian at Constantinople, was built in the eleventh century. Many of the pictures seem to have been there from the time in which the church was finished. Little can be said of the merit of any of them; they are more remarkable for singularity than beauty. In the dome of a sort of anti-chapel, as you enter, are seen the representations of monsters with many heads; and such a strange assemblage of imaginary beings as might be supposed in a Pagan, rather than a Christian temple. The different representations of the virgin throughout Russia, will shew to what a pitch of absurdity superstition has been carried. There are principally three: the Virgin of Vladimir; the Virgin with the Bleeding Cheek; and the Virgin with Three Hands.

It is not only in the churches that such paintings are preserved, every room

Admiral Tchichagoff pursued that part of the French army which had crossed the Berezyna, without intermission, and gained

throughout the empire has a picture of this nature, large or small, called the Bogh, or god, stuck up in one corner; and to which every person who enters offers adoration, before any salutation is made to the master or mistress of the house. This adoration consists in crossing and bowing the head in a very ludicrous manner.

The contrast of the present state, and ancient history of Novogorod, has excited the melancholy feelings of all travellers. It is known in Russian history by the name of Novogorod the Great, and in former days it seems to have merited it. Nomade Slavonians were its founders, about the time that the Saxons, under the invitation of Vortigern, first came into Britain. Four centuries afterwards a motley tribe from the plains and marshes of the Finland gulf made it their metropolis. Nearly a thousand years have passed away, since Ruric the Norman, gathering thenr together at the mouth of the Volchova, laid the foundation of the Russian empire, and fixed his residence and metropolis in Novogorod.

Vladimir, a succeeding sovereign, divided his estates between his twelve sons, upon which there arose three independent princes, and a number of petty confederacies. The seat of government was successively removed from Novogorod to Suzedal, Vladimir, and Moscow. Novogorod then adopted a mixed government, partly monarchical, partly republican, like that of Florence in Italy. In the middle of the 13th century it was distinguished by the victories of its grand Duke Alexander Nevski, over the Swedes, on the banks of the Neva, and by its remote situation escaped the ravages of the Tartars in the 14th. In the 15th century it submitted to the yoke of Ivan the First; and in the 16th was ravaged and desolated by his successor, Ivan the Second. The building of Petersburgh, by attracting all the commerce of the Baltic to itself, fully accomplished the ruin of Novogorod.

The fortress of Novogorod is large, but of wretched appearance. It was constructed after the plan of the Kremlin of Moscow, towards the end of the 15th centnry, and contains the cathedral. Upon the bridge leading to this fortress from the town, is a small chapel, where every peasant who passes deposits his candle or his penny. Devotees may be seen during the whole day bowing and crossing themselves before the pictures it contains. The superstition of this people is astonishing; that of a Roman Catholic country will bear no comparison with it.

The snow increased very fast in our way from Novogorod to Tver, but we had afterwards barely sufficient to pass on, and in some places the earth was bare. As the seasons in Russia are always the same, this may be taken as the established state of the weather at this time of the year, that is to say, in the beginning of April.

It is perfectly a mistaken notion that the road from Petersburgh to Moscow is a straight line, through forests; the country is generally open, a wide and fearful prospect of hopeless sterility, where the fir and the birch are apparently the only trees. The soil is for the most part sandy, and apparently of a nature to set agriculture at defiance. Towards the latter part of the journey corn fields appeared, of considerable extent. Our progress, instead of being in a straight line, was as devious as possible. In all the province or district of Valday, the land is hilly, not to say mountainous. The heights of Valday is the common term in the country, for this part of the road.

The female peasants in Valday have a costume which resembles one of Switzerland. It consists of a shift with full sleeves, and a short petticoat, with coloured stockings. Over this, in winter, they wear a pelisse of lambs-wool, as white as the snow around them; it is lined with cloth, and adorned with gold buttons and lace.

repeated advantages over the enemy, who retired by Pletschinitza, Molodetschno, and Smorgoni, to Wilna. Major-General Lanskoy,

The hair of the unmarried women, as in most parts of Russia, is braided, and hangs to a great length down their back. On their heads they wear a handkerchief of coloured silk. The married women wear their hair trussed up. The male peasants of Russia are universally habited, in winter, in a jacket made of a sheep's hide, with the wool inwards, a square-crowned red cap, with a circular edge of black wool round the rim: these, with a long black beard, sandals made of the bark of the birch-tree, and legs bandaged in woollen, complete the dress.

The whole journey from Petersburgh offers nothing that will strike a traveller more than the town or village of Jedrova: it consists of one street, as broad as Pic cadilly, formed by the gable ends of wooden houses, (whose roofs project far over their bases) and terminated by its church. This is a specimen of all the secondary towns in Russia; the houses are only so many wooden stables, having their gable ends, instead of their fronts, to the road, and having only small wooden holes instead of windows.

The forests, for the most part, consist of poor stinted trees, and the road, in summer, is described as the most abominable that is possible. It is then formed by trunks of trees laid across, parallel to each other; it may easily be conceived what horrible jolting it occasions to the traveller.

The breaking of our sledge at Poschol furnished us with an opportunity of having an interesting peep at the manners of the peasantry. The woman of the house was preparing a dinner for her family, who were gone to church. It consisted of soup only. Presently her husband, a boor, came in, attended by his daughters, with some small loaves of white bread, not larger than a pigeon's egg; these, I supposed, the priest bad consecrated, for they placed them with great care before the Bogh. Then the bowing and crossing began, and they went to dinner, all eating out of the same bowl. Dinner ended, they went regularly to bed, as if to pass the night there. Having slept about an hour, one of the young women called her father, and presented him with a pot of vinegar, or quass, the Russian beverage, This picture of Russian manners varies little with reference to the prince or the peasant. The first nobleman of the empire lives a mode of life little superior to that of the brutes. You will find him throughout the day with his neck bare, his beard lengthened, and his body wrapped in a sheep-skin-eating raw turnips, and drinking quass. Sleeping one half of the day, and growling at his wife and family the other. The same feelings, the same wants, the same gratifications, charac terize the nobleman and the peasant-the system of the government, whatever may be the personal character of the prince, is despotic through all its orders, and the people are all slaves. They are all, therefore, high and low, rich and poor, alike servile to superiors-haughty and cruel to their dependants; ignorant, superstitious, cunning, brutal, dirty, barbarous, and mean. The Emperor canes the first of his grandees-princes and nobles cane their slaves--and the slaves their wives and daughters. Ere the sun dawns in Russia, flagellation begins; and throughout its vast empire cudgels are going in every department of its population, from morning till night.

Vishnei Voloshok is a place of considerable importance, remarkable for the extensive canals, forming the great inland navigation of Russia. A junction has been formed between the Tvertza and the Masta, uniting, by a navigable canal of four thousand miles, the Caspian with the Baltic sea. There is not in the world, I believe, an example of inland navigation so extensive, obtained by artificial VOL, II,

who had been sent on the 26th of November by Fourieff to Pletschenitza, after having gone twelve miles by cross-roads, on the

means, and with so little labour, for the Volga is navigable almost to its source; and two miles and a half is all that has been cut through in forming it. The town itself is full of buildings and shops; it is spacious, and wears a stately, thriving appearance.

From Vishnei Voloshok we came to Torshok, about fifty miles distance, remarkable for a spring, superstitiously venerated, and attracting pilgrims from all parts. It has no less than twenty churches, some of which are built of stone. It is altogether a thriving town.

At Tver, about forty miles farther, there is a decent inn, to which is annexed a shop, as is sometimes seen in more northern parts of Europe. The situation of Tver, upon the lofty banks of the Volga, is very grand. It has a number of stone buildings, and its shops, as well as churches, merit particular regard. The junction of the Volga and the Tvertza is near the Street of Millions. Pallas speaks of the delicious sterlet taken from the Volga, with which travellers are regaled in this town, at all seasons of the year.

The journey from Tver to Moscow, in the winter, with a kibitka, is performed in fifteen hours. The road is broad, but, in certain seasons, such as at the melting of the snow, it is as bad as possible.

About 60 miles from Tver, we came to a small settlement between two hills; this is marked in the Russian map as a town, and called Klin. It hardly merits such a distinction. On the right, as we left it, appeared one of those houses, constructed for the accommodation of the Empress Catharine, on her journey to the Erimca.

The rising towers and spires of Moscow, greeted our eyes four miles before we reached the city. The country around it is flat and open, and the town, spreading over an immense district, equals by its majestic appearance that of Rome, when beheld at an equal distance. As we approached the barrier of Moscow, we beheld on the left, the large palace of Petrossky, built of brick. It wears an appearance of great magnificence, though the style of architecture is cumbrous and heavy. It was erected for the accommodation of the Russian sovereigns, during their visits to Moscow. It is about three miles from the city.

Arriving at the barrier, our passports were examined. This entrance to the city, like most others, is a gate with two columns, one on each side, surmounted by eagles. On the left is the guard-house. Within this gate a number of slaves were employed, removing the mud from the streets, which had been caused by the melting of the snow. Peasants with their kibitkas, in great numbers, were leaving the town. Into these vehicles, the slaves amused themselves by heaping as much of the mud as they could, thrown in unperceived by the drivers, who sat in front. The superintending officer chanced to arrive and detect them in their filthy work, and we hoped that he would instantly have prohibited these insults to the poor fellows. His conduet, however, only served to afford a trait of the national charac ter. Instead of preventing any further attack upon the kibitkas, he seemed highly entertained by the ingenuity of the contrivance; and, to encourage the sport, ordered every peasant to halt and to hold his horse, whilst they filled his kibitka with the mud and ordure of the streets, covering with it the provisions of the poor peasants, with which they were going peaceably to their families. At this unexampled instance of cruelty, some of the peasants, more spirited than the rest, ventured to murmur: instantly, blows, with a heavy cudgel, on the head and shoulders, si lenced the complaints of these poor wretches.