The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1807-09-03 00:00:00

w•es ♦do

LERESTING FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS.

coaaacrio PIINCIP•LLY BY ♦N SYS WITNESS.
vsay IItrCIINTLY RITIJaVED raosa THE CON.
TIMENT.

TILSIT, MILMILL, RIGA• iva.•u, illitTot.•` O: stet •00

woun•ao, &C

On the French soldiery taking possession of Til-
sit, the town was given up to plunder for two days,
and scenes of excess, equally shocking to decency and
humanity, took place : Order, however, was at length
restored, and a new scene of things opened to the
view of the astonished inhabitants ; the French troop,.
(about 95,000 in number) released from the hardships
Oa campaign, undertook to exemplify in a very sin-
gular way, that versatility of charaaer for which they
',aye long been proverbial amongst their neighbours:
they colleeted in the suburbs of Tilsit, the wreck of
some hundreds of villages, (chiefly wood), wantonly
destroyed in their progress, and with those they raised,
in about thrm days, and as it were by magic, an exten-
sive town, after the German fashion, with many
streets, and sufficiently large to accommodate their
whole body; they next cut up a very fine wood in
the neighbourhood, consisting of several thousands
of trees, which they transported to the scene of their
operations, and planted, in their luxuriant foliage,
fn avenues in every street of this new Pandemonium;
end to complete the whole, every man who had
any thing like a tt Stock in Trade," opened a shop.
Bonaparte': entering Tilsit. he took up his
abode in the house of a person of respeEtalsilityl who
expressed his regret, that, in consequence of the
plundering of the place, he had it not in his power
to accommodate him in a suitable stile, a soldier
having stolen all his plate; the Emperor expressed
himself quite satisfied with his sitnatfon. His host
took the liberty of introducing the subje& of his
stolen plate a second and a third time, in hopes of
having it restored ; at last the Emperor silenced
him by a contemptuous answer ; at supper, the
great man ask- 'ter some particular kind of wine;
his hostess sea is a very submissive message to
iallerm him, that they had been plundered of
thee wine ; he said, it must be forthcoming.....
Panetta MOW instantly dispatched through the
town to procure it. but returned without sue-
sew ; he then ordered them to send to such a man
(ate of his own thieves), in such a street and house,
sad they wou)d bad what he wanted : this was ac-
sordingly done, and the wine was procured.-43nr-
jog the period of the negotiations. the two Em-
perors and the sing of Prussia dined together al-
most daily, and were seldom separated s dew of
the party appeared determined to en)o# every luxury,
whiles, at the same time, their armies. and espe-
cially the wretched and unsheltered inhabitants of
the surrounding country. were experiencing all the
horrors of famine. In Tilsit provisions were enor-
mously high ; amongst the rest. lump sugar was
6s per pound, and porter ss. a bottle; forage was
aearly exhausted, the little hay which was left.
sold at is. per pound, and the French dragoons
fed their horses with rice.

At Memel, every thing was confusion and dis-
tress ; all the churches (one excepted) were filled
with the sick and wounded soldiers, and the wood.
votk torn up, and converted into fuel, which was
essecesliligly scarce and dear. And at Riga, for
tuany dAys, hundreds of small waggons came in,
laden with the Russian soldiery, ink, or suffering
fit m wounds; these were deposited es the beach,

in ordcr to their being shipped for their own country,
mid, in this situation, they lay, exposed to the
ieorching rays of the sun by day, and the chilling
dews by night ; very few of them had a hat, or any
other covering than a worn-out watch-coat, and
tearcely a dressing to their wounds; in this situ.
anion, they continued three days and n4l ts. dutin±
which short period no .est than forty terminated
their miseries in death, alid w-re w cesacely thrown
into large holes dug i:: the sand for the purpose.
One of these wretched beings, e' bei,:g placed in
be grave with his lifeless companions, made a strug-
gle to extricate himself fr.im pr. mature inter.mnit,
and was taken out, and survived tong enough to be
carried nn board a transport; another, from the
agony he suffered, was induced to beg, for pity's
stake, that he might be buried Wier; which was ac-
cordingly complied with!!! The survivors bad no
other sustenance than bread made of the worst part
of rye, so lard, that it could not be eaten, and so
c 'arse, that the French soldiers declared it was
only fit for Rstsiama a il A ee . In surveying this
scene of supreme wretchedness, its company with a
llus.ian gentleman, our informant was accosted by
one of these miserable beings, apparently in the
last agonies of death, b tt ignorant of his languages
oinion for an explanation; the
begs you, for Christ's sake, to
buy a little fresh bread." Affea-
must be to a mind possessed of the
ipity, the .urroitmling multitude
mast stnpid and anfeeliag in-
ner ialuosaat emphati,:alljr
iglishutaa would taut have treated

his q with that inhumanity, which the brat* Rus-
sian soldiers experienced from their countrymen
end neighbours.
With the circumstances and result of the battle of
Freydlaad, the public are already pretty well ac-
quainted. It appears to have been sanguinary almost
heyoed example ; it continued until boil' armies, as
if hcrror•struck, and by mutual consent, ceased
from the work of destrutlion, and stood gazing on
each other, in awful silence, far a considerable time;
on renewing the contest, the Prussians gave way,
and Bonaparte, with his usual promptitude and pre-
sence of mind, instantly turned thtrn, and gained a
dear-bought, bet decisive viecry. Another such
would have been his ruin $ for it is well known, that
he has drawn net of France, since the commence-
ment of hostilities with Prussia, at least 200,000 na
tive Frenchmen, scarcely 25,000 of whom will ever
return home.

About six weeks after the battle of Eylats, an
English Gentleman was led by cariosity to visit Ilse
place, which was almost deserted by its inhabitants'
the frost was just breaking up, and the streets pre-
sented a scene which chilled him wit► horror; they
were covered with hundreds of the slain, most of
which were naked, and exhibited the destradive of.
fells of the bullet, the bayonet, and the tabre. The
countenances of many were marked with all the
fierceness of savage, and the agonies bf expiring na.
ture ; one very tall and athletic man, he observed,
had had his skull eleven by the stroke of a sabre,
which was not stopped till it reached the lower jaw.
He remarked, that the Russians and French were
easily distinguishable by the difference in colour.
After the battle, the French cut large holes in the
ice, and threw hundreds of their deadinto the river;
these, on the breaking ap of the frost, floated, and
rendered the river a setae of horror, equal with that
of the streets.

he applied to hie cnm
sumer 1125, " lie la
• ewe him a grog to bu
lig match a scene mt
SA bon spirit ,it hnmani
surveyed it with zh •
difference ; our
.;I %rad, that an FAO
•