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agreement was preceeeded by an interview between Napoleon and Alexander, on a raft in the river Niemen, where the two emporers met and embraced, as did their officers and attendant soldiers in imitation. The conclusion of the treaty on the 7th July 1807, by which Russia and Prussia engaged to keep their ports closed against the English, and to adhere to the continental blockade, followed this cordial salutation.
Napoleon now turned his attention to Spain, and affected to meet the king and his son Ferdinand at Bayonne, to adjust their family differences. The result was the abdication of Charles IV, and the forced resignation of Ferdinand, who was most treacherously and indetensibly made a captive, on a general plea, which, if admitted, would put an end at once to the theory of national independence, but which, while truly denounced wicked on the part of Napoleon, has been closely imitated by his successors. He they sent an army of 30,000 men into Spain, and soon seized all the strong places, and being in possession of Madrid, he suppressed the convents and all the religious orders throughout the kingdom. On the 25th October 1808, he announced, that with the assistance of God, he intended to crown his brother king of Spain at Madrid, and to plant the eagles of France on the towers of Lisbon. The Spaniards nevertheless tenaciously, if not skilfully, resisted; and Napoleon leaving the pursuit of the English army under Sir John Moore to marshal Soult, returned to Paris. As the object of this abridgment is to follow the personal movements, rather than the general progress of his wars, no attempt will be made to describe the desultory hostilities, so honourable to British skill and valour, which followed in Spain and Portugal. The next aggression of
