The National Register.
London, England, 1814-01-02 00:00:00

Our Mug, Conatitutiou, aim tabs.

N 0.30.

POLITICAL DISWISITION.

RETROSPECT OF THE YEAR.

How rich a field will the year that- has just elapsed present
to the researches of future historians ! How great the action,

bow vast its theatre, huw varied the characters engaged in
its devel..peinent ! Nations appear in it, like individuals,
moving with a single will and the same spirit. All separate

interest seems to be forgotten among them, and the general

advantage to give the sole impulse and form the sole end of
-their mighty and unrelaxed exertions. On the side of the
opponent, we see a Commander bred to war and victory from
his youth ; covered with the laurels of an hundred battles ;
hitherto followed by his soldiers and encountered by his

enemies u invincible and superior to all human changes.
We see him making his first acquaintance with disaster, and
preserving in the midst of uilamities the same unbenfling
obstinacy and sava cnergy which marked his career at the
hour of triumph, when his will bad become the law el the
continent and nations trembled at his name. We view him

PUBLISHED AT NO. 11# NEWCASTLE-STREET, STRAND.

SUNDA V, JANUARY 2,1814.

Pfzrem

invaded Russia. *The defection. of Prussia ha(i supplied him
f,r a pretence to demand freiii conscriptions, and three hun-
dred victims to their Ruler's ambition. besides detachments
from Spain, and the national guards, had been collected
between the Mayne and the Rhine, and reinfOrced by the
troops of the Confederation, had begun their march-far the
Elbe. Napoleon was once more at their head, and the
hostile armies, each under the eyes of their Sovereigiv,
'encountered in the plains of Lut4en, where the hopes or
Europe were once more for a time confouncial, and vic-
tory hung an ensanguined wreath on her favourite's brow
Austria beheld his proves% .with alarm, hut was not yet in a
condition to oppose it. Unchecked in his advance, he re-en-
tcred Dresden, and regained at once the suspended co opera-
tion of the Saxons and the countenance of tl;eir monarch.
Thus strengshened, his hopes of universal empire revive;',
and the double t rattily!) which awaited him on the io'rencli«i
heights of Bautzen and Wurtschen, seeme4 in his opinion to
have' closed the war; for, trusting, that his opponents had
been too much weakened to he able or willing to extrir: t
themselves in any other manner than by negotiation and
submission, lie granted them an armistice, which left him
deed, in possession of one half of Silesia and all Lusatia, of
liamburgh, and the whole course of the Elbe, and which re-
lieved the fortresses he still held on the Vistula and the 0d,..r,
from the immediate pressure of a siege and of want, but nl-
- deprived him of the fruits of his late triumphq, by
giving a hi eathing time to his enemies, and enabling them to
seek and to urocure new allies.
The jea!ousy of Austtia had increased with the successes of
France. Site did not wish the downfal of the latter but the
reduction of her power, too formidable so be resisted by a sin-
gle continental power, but which the union of a few might
repress, Had Napoleon pursued his victories, and, gt the
time Le was able, entirely destroyed the P.ussio-Prussian
Grand Army, which, after the battle of Wurtschen, did not
amount to Ce,ooo men, Austria would have been too much
overawed to continue bar hostile preparations, and the conti-
nent would have once more received the law from the con-
queror. But the armistice gave time to the allies to rreruit
their farce. The Swedish army, whose co-opermixna hail been
purchased by the cession of the island of d .....tia_a,ettpe on:our
part, landed in Pomerania and advanced to Bet tits, w'•
joined Gen. Ipucber's corr., and remained stationed
,f the ezplt^!. The 4U5511111 reserves arrived

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