The Sun.
London, England, 1808-11-26 00:00:00

it wiicted i Was it by ? Not at all. Buo-
N.ApAxm had , discovered, during these three days
-of insurreCtion, that the armed forcewould have the
utmost difficulty to subdue a people risen en masse
against the brutal oppressors Who had reduced them
td despair by violating their most sacred rights.-=-
II -also learned, that if their resistance was pro-
kinged, his,army would be exposed to the greatest
dangers. What did he ? He flew to Milan. The
-instant of his. arrrival, he hastened to the Archbi-
shop, and compelled him to get into the coach with
He took the road to Pavia inunediatety, 'and
wherever he met any of the armed .peasan!,-,-. -Le
t
stopped the carriage. The Archbishop 't ed
himself at ,the window, and harangued the people.
The view of this respeaablerey-headed old 'man-
bad some effect, and they listened to him. He
ii:omiSed that their rights should be respealed, and
that they should no longer have any subjeel of com-
plaint. What the ArchbiShop promised, BUONA-
PARTE gave the most solemn assurances that he
would faithfully perform.- The agitation was
calmed, and the peasantry retired in peace to their
homes.

The coach Which carried the two pacificators ar-
rived at Pavia. This city had driven out the•Frencli
Garrison, and the viaorious inhabitants had exhi-
bited a degree of courage trely astonishing. A flag
, of truce was sent to the ramparts of the city, to in-
form the people that IkoNAPARtE and the Archbishop
of Milan were then at the gates of Pavia, and that they
were come. for the pUrpose of proposing an amica-
ble arrangement. The citizens returned a formal
refusal to hear them. BUONAPARTE instalnly fell
into 'a fit of consternation cloiely bordering on 'de-
spair : he apprehended that in losing time before
Pavia, he should afford an opportunity for BEAU-
LIEU to be informed of_ what had liappened,--and
to advance to the assistance of the insuigenti. • Fle
• feared, too, than the Milanese, who were, with dif-
fculty reEirained by the horrible precautions of Ge-
neral D-EPINoY,' would learn the success of the in-
surreaion at Pavia, and imitate the- example ; an •
event which would speedily render the revolt gene-
ral and 'irremediable.
_ The Archbishop, affeaed by the violent mat-1;s
of despair which BUONAPARTE exhibited, and what
is still more- probable, terrified by his menaces,
persuaded him to send a second flag of truce. This,
we lament to say; succeeded. It was the Arch-
bishop 'who drew up the propositions of pea- ce-:
-j-thlr were accepted, and it was agreed that the '
French should be re-admitted into the city on con-
dition that the terms which had been mutually
signed should be faithfully observed.
The agreement would not have been quite so
easily miide if the people had not been already in- '
dined to it, by the persuasions and insinuations of
many members of the clergy and nobility, who
were joined by great numbers of the wealthier in-
habitants. (When and where will this eternal repe-
tition of inzbecility and perfidy end?) We shall
speedily see how the people repented of having
listened to such unworthy advisers ; and how much
the advisers themselves repented of the pacific coun-
sel which they had so stupidly given.
The French re-entered Pavia ; and the first proof
whial they gave of their solemn adherence to the
terms of the treaty, was to order the inhabitants to
give up their fire-arms and weapons of every de-
scription. Once disarmed, a second order delivered
up the city .to pillage for the space, of twenty-four
hours. Let the reader now judge of what the
people of Pavia had to endure from soldiers under .
no controul, and who joined the allurements of
plunder to the raging thirst of vengeance—let him
judge of the booty which they made, of 'the enor-
mities which they committed, and of the horrible
atrocities which history will have to transmit' to pos-
terity ! I revisited, and examined with my -.own
eyes, in 1799, this city,, which had been the theatre
of so many horrors, and I shed torrents of tears at
the sight of such mountains of ruins, and at recog-
nizing, among the common beggars of the streets,.
many. respeaable families whom I had formerly
known to be the iichest in the place !
I owe BUONArARTE the justice to say, that he
was not present at the sack of Paviie, he only cam-
mantled it ; but, though absent, he took care not
• to lose his share of the booty, and" thii share must
have been very considerable, for nothing was spared.
The palaces of the' nobility, the shops of thearti-
zans, the magazines of the 'merchants, churches, `.
monasteries, all were sub;e6tedio the rigorous and
violent researches of the SOldiers:and all abandon-
ed so their insatiable rapacity. Over this pillage
, -
.presided a wretch • perfealy adapted to com Missions
• of this kind, a certain 'General RUSCA, who had
been formerly an ignorant and "starving apothecary,
and who was driVe,n into the army by the thirst and
ti, I want of i.:lutisiter.

This military execution was not confined to the
city of Pavia, it_txtended itself to all the neigh-

b•iurbood, to the and villages (11. 'Pro

Vince, to those very places where the 4,:relll?i,shop
had succeeded in calming the peasantry,' and in=,

ducing them to retire to their homes !, BUGN 1-

PARTE seized and shot vast numbers,of them.

boasig, in_ his official Report. of " having shot all
'those who were taken with arms in their hands."
But the people of the country will tell you, that
those who were armed would not be taken, and
that in the various 'contests which they sustained,
they chose rather to be cat to pieces on the
s
spot than to yield themselves prisoners. They
knew too well what they had to expeet ',from the
ferocious vengeance of BUONAPARTE.
There were many. villages not only sacked but
burnt. It was the Commander in Chief who, or-
dered fire to be put to them. _Hear how he ex-
presses himself on the subject, in his dispatches: to
the French Government.

"I instantly ordered the villages to be burnt to
t.
the ground. Though necessary, the spectacle
was not the less horrible ; I was dolorously" af-
‘.‘ feEled by it !"
That the villages were burnt to the 'ground can-,
not be doubted, since we have, the word of 800-
NAP/UTE himself for it ; but that he was dolorously
affeEled by it, may reasonably be doubted, notwith-
standing he affirms it. Believe who will in the sen-
sibility of this Corsican, for my own part, do
not believe hiM susceptible of it in the slightest de-
gree. His whole life is full of traits of ferocity and
barbarity. He was ferocious at Paris, when, in
1793, .he swept off thb inhabitants with repeated
discharges of artillery 'loaded with langridge, and.
deluged the streets of the capital with their blood.
Be was ferocioiis' in Syria, when, in cold blood,
lie ordered four or five thousand unfortunate prisoners
~ •
.to be massacred, whose bones, yet lying in heaps
.on the sea-shore, cry out for vengeance against
their executioner and their assassin. He was fero"-
clods to the bookseller PALM. He was more than
ferocious; when in the forest of Vincennes. And
it is this man who wishes us to believe in his sensi-
bility, when he ordered the villages to be set
on fire to which he " had solemnly ,promised
- a general pardon ! No ; ''he who tramples un-
der .
coot, in this manner, the holy laws of
,Inimanity, has never experienced the sweet im-
pressions of sensibility ! If he is determined to
pass for a man of sensibility on an occasion where
he has shown himself so fell and barbarous, Jet us
grant that he has precisely that kind of it which
NEtto displayed when, from the roof of hiS palace,
he contemplated the burning of Rome, .which he
had himself commanded.

Could any one believe that BUONAPARTE, Who
had such recent and essential obligations to the
Archbishop of MILAN, would dare to charge the
-Ministers of Religion with having been the authors
of this popular fermentation This calumnious ac-
cusation is inserted not only in his Official, Report
to the liire6lory, but in the two PeoclamatiOns
which he addressed to the Milanese ! He there says,
that " this insurreaion, so speedily subdued, is to be
attributed solely to the insinuations of the Priests
and Nobles! ! !" He would have been much nearer
the truth, if he had said, that, without the'lVlinisters
of Religion, this conflagration would not have been
extinguished, and that he himself would have been
devoured by it. But this revolutionary General al-
ways aspired to speak the language of the Revolu-
tion—to speak as the Direaors used to speak, and
as ROBESPIERRE (his great prototype) spoke-before
them. It was one of the first principles of the Re-
voltition to excite the' public odium against the two
first classes of the State, in order to be enabled to
seize their spoils. BUONAPARTE did then, in Italy,
what he had done in France`; and from the same
motive, because these two orders were the most
rich, and because the Generals of the-French army
did not yield in greediness and -rapacity to the early
plunderers of the Nobility and,Clergy of France.
For the rest, if we, wish to bow the real authors
and instigators of the insurrection' of Pavia, we have
only to consult the inhabitants of the country.—
They will tell Us that BUONAPARTE and his army
are the true, the only culprits. He announced
himself in Italy as a deliverer, and he was an op-
pressor. He announced. himself as a ‘respeeler of
all property, and he spared none. Fortune, liberty,
tranquillity, surety, the honour of women, all were
violated, and it was necessary to suffer all without
complaining for, either the complaint was not
heeded, or it becaMe a plea for new vexations.---
What could hurhan creatures do, oppressed in this
hOrrible manner by cut-throats, and seeing no term
to their Miseries !, Is there a patience capable of
supporting for ever such a succession of injuries, in-
soli's, outrages, humiliations, and sufferings ? At
length. nations are wearied out, and end by pre-
-Terring a prompt and violent death to a continuance
of-their torments. The conflagration. bursts forth,
the volcano explodes : then tyrants, in` amazement,
recollect the cause of the hatred which tollows them,
and learn,- at their proper expence, that the remedy
of tyranny is to be found in its own excess.
To bec;ntinzted.]