To James Madison from Peter Kuhn Jr., 27 October 1805 (Abstract)
From Peter Kuhn Jr., 27 October 1805 (Abstract)
§ From Peter Kuhn Jr. 27 October 1805, Genoa. “The present serves to convey you the Bulletins Nos 10 & 11 of the Grand Army of France,1 which has been addressed to his Serene Highness the Arch Treasurer of the Empire of France by expresses of last night & this afternoon from the French Emperor.
“Genl. Massina has crossed the Adige and arrived at Vicenza without penetrating further.
“The Circuitious rout of Bordeaux, which is preferable, (to that of Leghorn) by which I forward my letters makes me diffident in Communicating the political events which occur in this quarter upon the supposition that you receive Sir the same information much earlier from the Consuls at more approximate ports to the United States, to whom certain oppertunities offer.
“The Mail being upon the eve of Closing, I beg leave to refer you Sir to my Next for a translation of the decree of the Arch-Treasurer relative to the Conduction of the Porto Franco of Genoa.”
RC (DNA: RG 59, CD, Genoa, vol. 1). 2 pp. In a clerk’s hand, except for Kuhn’s complimentary close and signature.
1. The Tenth Bulletin, issued at Augsburg on 22 Oct. 1805, listed the military supplies captured and number of prisoners taken when Gen. Joachim Murat defeated the armies of Gen. Franz von Werneck and Archduke Ferdinand Karl Joseph of Austria-Este. Werneck surrendered, but the archduke escaped. The Eleventh Bulletin, printed in the 1 Nov. 1805 Moniteur universel, announced the arrival of Napoleon at Munich on 24 Oct. and his praise of the French troops who left untouched 200,000 guilders they had found in order to pursue the Austrians; mentioned that escaped Austrian soldiers in Franconia had “occasioned great disorder”; that all the Austrian baggage was seized; and added that the Grande Armée was “in full march for the Inn” (Cobbett’s Weekly political Register 8 [1805]: 726–28, 791).