Note 25 — Chapter XIX

So little do the Russians know of the true state of affairs, that, since writing the above, I have received two letters from Russia, in the first of which my friend begs me to “excuse the faults, for she is so much interrupted by the cannonading in honour of their great victories over the Turks.” In the second it is stated that “thirteen thousand English have been slain near Anapa!” which, according to the writer, took place about a month before the army left Varna; and I was further told that “the manner in which we treat the prisoners of war, in giving them neither food nor money, is disgraceful to a Christian country.” To one of these epistles is a postscript, giving me to understand that the British fleet were too frightened to remain before Cronstadt, &c.