return thanksgiving in every ship, for the victory with which Almighty God had blessed his Majesty's arms. Many of the French prisoners, belonging unfortunately to an infidel nation, (for such it was then,) were affected by the performance of this solemn duty; and some of the officers remarked, it was no wonder such order was preserved in the British navy when the minds of our men could be impressed with such sentiments after so great a victory, and at a moment of such confusion.

Part of the Orient's main-mast was picked up by the English ship Swiftsure. The captain -Hallowell—had a coffin made of it for Nelson, and sent it to him.

Nelson at first ordered it to be placed upright in his cabin, and to be carefully preserved; and, after the battle of Trafalgar, when Nelson put a final period to the hopes of Napoleon to force the Straits of Dover, and settled the point of English pre-eminence on the seas; and when the hero sealed that grand achievement with his death at the moment of victory, the coffin, made of the main-mast of the

French admiral's ship, enclosed the last relics of the deliverer of his country; and Nelson was buried, as the giver of the coffin had desired" in one of his trophies."

THE BURNING OF MOSCOW.

THOUGH baffled at sea, Napoleon continued his amazing triumphs on land, until he had placed an imperial crown on his brow, and aroused the vengeance of all Europe. Having discovered that he could not pass the Straits of Dover, he resolved to close all England's continental resources, to deprive her of all her allies, to reduce our sea-girt isle to a state of complete isolation; and thus, in the words of M. Thiers, conquer the sea by land."

This was the ultimate object of his invasion of Russia in 1812. He had entered as a conqueror Vienna and Berlin; he must also tri

umph in Moscow, if he would hope to rule in London.

By the conscription, nearly every family in France was compelled to send their young and brave to swell his host for the Russian invasion, and, with 420,000 men, Napoleon entered the great Northern Empire, over the mud plains, through the dense forests of Poland.

The French troops, indeed, found their vast numbers, in those thinly-peopled and poor regions, increase the difficulty of subsistence, but they hesitated at no crime in order to relieve their pressing wants, and forced their way, until Napoleon, from a hill called the Hill of Salutation, gazed for the first time on the capital of all Russia.

"The half-barbaric Moscow's minarets

Gleam in the sun, but 'tis a sun that sets."

The copper domes of thirty temples of public worship glowed like gold above the Asiatic palaces of the Muscovite nobles and the mud huts of their serfs; above broad and noble streets, and beautiful groves and gardens.

Moscow, seated on the river Muscova, was then one of the very largest capitals of the world, and was surrounded by the best provinces of the Russian empire.

Here Napoleon expected that his difficulties would be at an end, and Europe entirely vanquished.

But he met with such a resistance from the Muscovites as he scarcely expected; however, he compelled them to retreat, and followed them into Moscow.

Doubtless, the great conqueror of nations was elated as his foot for the first time pressed the soil of Moscow, and he could say to himself," Russia too is mine!" whilst distant England rose brightly before his dazzled imagination.

But why are the streets, the squares, the roads, all so silent, so deserted? Where are the Muscovite soldiers? where are the people? And what means that thick dark column of smoke ascending from the very heart of Moscow?

The Exchange, with all its rich and valuable

M