y time when he was attacking Hamburg Napoleon said
of him at Dresden, "If I were to lose Vandamme I know not what I would
give to have him back again; but if I had two such generals I should be
obliged to shoot one of them." It must be confessed that one was quite
enough.

As soon as he arrived Vandamme sent to inform Tettenborn that if he did
not immediately liberate the brother and brother-in-law of Morand, both
of whom were his prisoners, he would burn Hamburg. Tettenborn replied
that if he resorted to that extremity he would hang them both on the top
of St. Michael's Tower, where he might have a view of them. This
energetic answer obliged Vandamme to restrain his fury, or at least to
direct it to other objects.

Meanwhile the French forces daily augmented at Haarburg. Vandamme,
profiting by the negligence of the new Hanseatic troops, who had the
defence of the great islands of the Elbe, attacked them one night in the
month of May. This happened to be the very night after the battle of
Lutzsn, where both sides claimed the victory; and Te Deum was sung in the
two hostile camps. The advance of the French turned the balance of
opinion in favour of Napoleon, who was in fact really the conqueror on a
field of battle celebrated nearly two centuries before by the victory and
death of Gustavus Adolphus. The Cossacks of the Elbe could not sustain
the shock of the French; Vandamme repulsed the troops who defended
Wilhelmsburg, the largest of the two islands, and easily took possession
of the smaller one, Fidden, of which the point nearest the right bank of
the Elbe is not half a gunshot distant from Hamburg. The 9th of May was
a fatal day to the people of Hamburg; for it was then that Davoust,
having formed his junction with Vandamme, appeared at the head of a corps
of 40,000 men destined to reinforce Napoleon's Grand Army. Hamburg could
not hold out against the considerable French force now assembled in its
neighbourhood. Tettenborn had, it is true, received a reinforcement of
800 Prussians and 2000, Swedes, but still what resistance could he offer
to Davoust's 40,000 men? Tettenborn did not deceive himself as to the
weakness of the allies on this point, or the inutility of attempting to
defend the city. He yielded to the entreaties of the inhabitants, who
represented to him that further resistance must be attended by certain
ruin. He accordingly evacuated Hamburg on the 29th of May, taking with
him his Hanseatic legions, wh