Note 11 — JOHN QUINCY ADAMS IN RUSSIA

This statement illustrates the slowness with which news then traveled in Russia, or the degree to which information was suppressed during the campaign of 1812. St. Petersburg is about four hundred and fifty miles from the river Niemen, which constituted the boundary between East Prussia and Russia. Mr. Adams occupied an official position at St. Petersburg. What remained of Napoleon’s army had succeeded in effecting its escape by the crossing of the Beresina during the closing days of November. On the fifth of December Napoleon had left his army at Smorgoni, a town in the Russian province of Vilna, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles east of the river Niemen.

At the time this letter was written he had been thirteen days in Paris, having reached that place on the evening of December 18. Thus tidings of what had occurred on the fifth of December, in Russia, less than four hundred and fifty miles from St. Petersburg, had not reached St. Petersburg and become generally known on the thirty-first of that month.