THREE:But Tolly did not mean to remain longer than was necessary for the inhabitants to have made a safe distance; he was afraid of Napoleon making a flank movement and cutting off his way to Moscow. In the night fires broke out all over Smolensk: they could not be the effect only of the French shells; and Buonaparte sat watching them till morning. Soon bridges, houses, church spires, all of wood, were enveloped in roaring flames. The next day, the 18th of August, the French entered the place whilst it was still burning around them. The dead, half consumed, lay around the smoking ruins; and the French army marched through this ghostly scene with military music playing, but with hearts struck with consternation and despair at this proof of the inveterate determination of the Russians to destroy their whole country rather than suffer it to be conquered. Here they were left without shelter, without provisions, without hospitals for the sick, or dressings for the wounded, without a single bed where a man might lie down to die; and all before them was the same. The Cossacks beset the flanks of march, and burnt down all villages, and laid waste all fields ere the French could reach them. Again the officers entreated that they might form an encampment and remain; but Buonaparte replied still, "They must make all haste to Moscow."
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THREE:Here, then, our history of the political transactions of the reign of George III. terminates. That reign really terminated in 1811, with the appointment of the Regency, which continued the ruling power during the remainder of his life. From that date it is really the history of the Regency that we have been prosecuting. But this was necessary to maintain the unity of the narrative of that most unexampled struggle which was involving the very existence of every nation in Europe. Of all this the poor old, blind, and deranged king knew nothinghad no concern with it. The reins of power had fallen from his hands for ever: his "kingdom was taken from him, and given to another." He had lived to witness the rending away of the great western branch of his empire, and the sun of his intellect went down in the midst of that tempest which threatened to lay in ruins every dynasty around him. We have watched and detailed that mighty shaking of the nations to its end. The events of the few remaining years during which George III. lived but did not rule, were of a totally different character and belong to a totally different story. They are occupied by the national distresses consequent on the war, and the efforts for reform, stimulated by these distresses, the first[119] chapter of which did not close till the achievement of the Reform Bill in 1832.
THREE:[105]
THREE:Whilst these events had been taking place in Spain and Portugal, Great Britain had been sending money and troops to oppose Buonaparte in other quarters. Early in the spring Austria was in the field; in July a powerful fleet, carrying an army, sailed from the Downs, to create a diversion on the coast of the Netherlands, and other operations were commenced in the south of Italy. The army destined for the Netherlands amounted to forty thousand men, attended by a fleet of thirty-five sail of the line and twenty frigates, to assist where they might be needed. Buonaparte had contemplated making a great port of Antwerp, and had expended much money and labour in docks and fortifications there; but finding that the port of Antwerp was not deep enough for first-rate ships of war, he undertook to render Flushing capable of receiving and protecting a large fleet. He still contemplated, by the co-operation of Denmark and Russia, the sending forth a fleet, some day, which might cope with the British navy, or enable him to invade England. For this purpose he was building ships at Antwerp and Flushing; and it was, no doubt, these circumstances which determined the British to direct their attack on Flushing and Antwerp. Captain, afterwards Sir George Cockburn, was of opinion that these preparations of Napoleon could never affect England; that no possession of Zealand, or any part of it, could be kept by England, from its extreme unhealthiness to foreigners, and even to Dutchmen; and that it was much better for Britain to let Buonaparte build ships, and take them whenever they came out to sea, than to sacrifice the lives of our troops for no permanent benefit in this region of bogs, stagnant water, and malaria. Had these forty thousand troops been sent to support Wellington, and half the money that this fatal expedition cost, they would have enabled him to drive the French triumphantly out of Spain, and create the most magnificent diversion for Austria, as well as the most honourable to England.