Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

From the Charleston Courier.

RUSSIANS AND BONAPARTE.

In all the former wars Waged or conducted by Bonaparte, we have had bulletins announcing the progress of his army from day to day, until the consummation of them all was found, in the annunciation, that he had dictated the terms of peace to his adversary. We except the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns, where he showed the first, but not the last instance of his deserting a beaten and ruined army. His discomfiture and the ruin of his plans in Syria & Egypt, are matters of historical record, as well as his base abandonment of his soldiers and the assassination of Kleber, universally attributed to his arts, lest Kleber should, as he threatened to do, expose the atrocious character of General Bonaparte to all Europe.

We come to this present Russian war of his Majesty the Emperor and King.

Paris papers have reached us of dates far in January, but they give no news, no bulletins from the Grand Army since the twenty-ninth, dated the 3d December. Arrivals of fugitive generals, dukes, counts, princes, &c. &c. are to be found in French journals, which even condescend to notice the safe delivery, in Paris, of the bodies of some aids-de-camp and colonels. Where the grand army may be in the mean time, no man can know from French papers. They may be in Astrakhan or St. Petersburgh, or at Tobolsk, on their route to the harbor of St. Peter and St. Paul, not far from the Oonalaska Indians of North-America—or the grand army may be dead in Poland—you can get the Paris Moniteur and Journal de L'Empire to say nothing about the business. Perhaps its grand commander, his majesty Joachim Murat, is safely arrived at the capital of the Russian Empire. Triumphant, laurelled conqueror—how thou art greeted by the proud statue of Peter the Great whose mounting steed does dash out the life of the serpent that dares to touch the granite rock that forms the base of the monument of Russia's father and of Russian glory.

It so happens that France does not control all the world, and that we are relieved from our anxiety about the Grand army, by information from Russia and England. The grand army is accounted for: What of this army are not dead, are prisoners of war. Nine days after the date of the last bulletin that will ever come from an army of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Russians entered Wilna, killing, wounding, and making prisoners on their march and on their entry into Wilna, somewhere about 50,000 of the grand army, then becoming a small army. This accounts entirely for the silence of French papers on the subject of the Emperor Napoleon's grand army.

It is impossible not to admire the active valor and the stern perseverance of Russia in this her greatest contest.

What a spirit, what a zeal, what an unconquerable ardor, what fearless courage, and what immensity of strength did it not require for Russia to meet and to ruin the efforts of 400,000 disciplined soldiers, from the heart of Europe, directed against her and led by the most experienced commanders in the world!

She has not only ruined their efforts, but has destroyed the engines of those efforts. The hundreds of thousands of machines are annihilated—the flower of Europe has perished—there is not a hamlet, nor a mansion, nor a palace in its continental circuit, that does not hear the railings of fathers and mothers and kindred, for the untimely death of their dearest relatives, lost to them forever, in the vain effort of a tyrant to make the world succumb at the footstool of his throne, and tremble and worship.

Not less to be admired is the great generalship displayed by the Russian Commanders. If Turenne and Conde and Eugene and Marlborough and Frederick had risen from their tombs, and had, in the full blush of their glory, lead the Russian army to vengeance, they could not have more completely accomplished their object, than have the Generals Kutusoff, Tschitschacoff, Wittgenstein, and Platoff.

The parallel line marched by Tschitschacoff on the left flank of the retreating French, and that of Wittgenstein on the right flank, with Kutusoff pressing with his main body on their harassed rear, and Platoff with his light troops (the cowardly Cossacks) out-marching the whole, and intercepting every thing destined for the distressed enemy, complete in one whole, a vast military manoeuvre, which when performed with so much success, crowns with everlasting laurels the head that planned, and the heads to which were entrusted the execution of those plans.

Bonaparte boasted at the opening of the campaign against Russia, that he would in two months plant his Eagles upon the walls of St. Petersburg.

Vain wretch! Quem Jupiter vult perdere prius dementat. Never was more madness, and never has madness been followed by more vast a ruin.

He has boasted, by his trumpeter, the Marshal Massena, Prince of Essling, &c. &c. of planting these same Eagles of his on the towers of Lisbon.

He has boasted of closing the Continent of Europe against all foreign commerce.

He has boasted that Russia & France were inviolably allied for peace and for war.

He has boasted of having Ships, Colonies, and Commerce.

He has boasted of conquering the Liberty of the Seas.

He has boasted of his Invincibility.

He has boasted of the eternity of his dynasty.

Never did so great and presumptuous a boaster quit this world, without the signal vengeance of Heaven lighting on his head.

The preponderance and the dictatorial power of France are extinguished; her allies have deserted her: her debts are enormous, and the waste of her population is a proverb in Europe. She cannot stand nor bear the heavy weight that will be brought against her, and France will say to Bonaparte, "it is you that has thus afflicted and so ruined us, cursed be you and your posterity."

When France speaks thus, the Emperor Bonaparte dies, and the world shall repose.

TIMOLEON.