The Sun.
London, England, 1812-12-11 00:00:00

A.:

FLO:VI 7;73riTITERII,7 POST OF oc.rotri:
(Nov 1.1), 1812.

111o;cow, Oct. 17 (29)•

The enemy has not remained long in'Moscow—.:
only one month and eight days ; but he has left
behind him such marksiof brutality and rage, as
will, in_ the annals of nations, cover ils country=
men: and his posterity: with everlasting'shathe and
infamy. A. inatif a virtuous mind-trernhles and
ttirns his -eyes from so -cleteStal)le. an object, and ,
endeavours to erase it troll his memory, that the
purity. of -his thoUghts may pot be defiled by the
contemplation of it., .Taking a of- ail
these horrqrs,-- we cannot. be ;Said to wage
war with an enemy. , Such au expression would
convey too faint an idea of_ the deeds
that tqe perpetrating. wer sAjects the hu-
man race to innumerable miseries ; neVerthg'-.
less, among enlightened nations at least, this.
evil- has some limits set: to it 'by the princii.
pies of dignity and humanity.-- The pride of
one nation is Apposed to the pride of another
but even in the heat of the most, violent conflicts,
both sides, amidst their Woggles for victory and
the glory of their army, have paid;some :regard to'
:theirhonout atuOgood name. The sword subdu-
ed the strong,' but honour taught -to spare and. to ,
protect the weak. 'A military Man would have
thought-it;the highest indignity and shinne to be
reckoned a pilinger fand robber. A colqueror
wouldtake town .that defended itsr.:l-; but havz
. . - .
mg gained it, would gr:1111.- protection to per-
sons. and property. The peacealite_ countryman
sometimes lost his 'provisions; but hits fields, his
house, his wife, and his eh , have remained
uninjured. In the wars with .the Swedes; Peter
the Great,: on taking Narva,\bathed his sword in
the blood of his ;own sithjectS, for haVing dared to
dishonourstheniselves by pillage. In the reign of.
Catherine the Second, one of our Commanders re-
ceived the severest reprimand. for having burnt a
.SWedish 'village. The Swedes; in 'the like in:in-
,
nerion taking the effects of an individual, have
been known to send them back' again,to us. In
the last war -With England, the eaenis 'always paid •
in ready money for whatever they took from pri-
vateindividuals ; and while they weye at Nargen,
having observed a fire on that island,•sentimme-
diately•Sothe men from their orin Ships to assist in
extinguishin it. .
Such was the natui•e of -1-!e warfare carried on
between nations who have a regard for the honour
of their name nay, even among savage nations,
who:resembie, brutes 'more than men, Inore in
clination is observahlt towards pillage than to to-
tal destruction of every thing,. They invade their
neighbours, plunder and murder them; but do
not destroy 'vbat they cannot carry away. In en-
lightened times like the present, and in a peop'e
who atone time were distinguished for the .agree-
ablenss of their manners, we see instances of
ferocity anewickediiess., for which we shOuld look
in vain in the accounts of the mostsavage inhabi-
tants of Africa or America. Moscow alone will
present. us
,with' a lamentable picture. of the most
unheard of enormities.

The enemy entered it without the smallest op--
position on the part of our forces, as well as with-
out any resistance of the inhdoitants, who had
mostly quitted the city' beforehand,. No blood
that the enemy had shed there, had given him any
motive for rage or revenge. Que would imagine,
that in such circumstances; mere regard for the
honour of his country woad have induced him to
preserve this, ancient metropolis, which had stood
and been' embellished by ages ; for none; surely,
-but a.madman would covet the glory of Erostra-
tus, who set the Temple of Diana on fire at Eplae,-
Sus: But what was the case ?. Hardly bad he
entered it, when his furious soldiers, officers, and
even Generals, ran pillaging about the houses,
breaking;binisin, cutting in pieces,andscattering
like niadMen, in all directions, 'every thing that
th ey could not carry away; looking-glasses, crystals,
pircelain, paintings, furniture, earthenivare, &et ;
wines, which they could neither drink nor take
with them, they let into the streets ; books they
rent, fore, 'and threw about. But this was not,
enbugh : unhappy Moscow, a prey to 'these de-
predations, burst out into flames in numerous
places ; numbers of magnificent buildings were
reduced to ashes, as well as those very houses,
where, but a little time before, their own cotni-
trymen, notwithstanding it Was time. of war, were
peaceably carrying OR. their trade But this Was
still not enough :' the of those houses which
had been plundered, and which had not been en-
tirely destroyed by the fire, they took the. pains
-to batter down with cannon. Even with 'this
their brutality was not yet satiated : to plun-
der and destruction they added inhumanity and
Cruelty. When they had gathered. a Leap of things,
they would set the, load- on some old and
maimed man whoni they caught in the streets,
and force him to carry .it to their- station.; and,
when he has sunk under the' burthen, they have ,
been known to cut him down With their naked
swords. A certain nobleman, a man in years,
who had teen struck with a paralytic stroke, was
not able to get, Out of •MOSCO,W, and remained in
his own house: A number of men came to
anil plundered and, set it on fire under his own
eyes. With difficulty he, got into' the_ street,
where immediately' another band fell Upon
tore off his great coat, all his clothes, boots,
and stockings, and were proceedinr,,to pull his.
shirt off his back, when the wretched man, press-
ing it to his body in sign of earnest entreaty,
received a blow of a sabre on his face, and
was stretched naked, all bloody and senseless,
to the ground. In' many places numbers of wo-
men were lying violated, mutilated and dead ; in
others the tombs and coffins were broken open
for thesake of plundering the bodies of the-de-
ceased. Neither were these abominations and en-
°ratifies yet sufficient;' the doors of the temples of
God were forced open,—the images stripped of
their ornaments;—priests' vestments torn to
pieees,-,-the holy shrines of Saints destroed and
scattered on the floor. But let these execrable
acts be hidden from our eyes. by an impene-
trable veil : to insult the sanctuary of God,
is the height of human madness and perver-