there was a marsh between him and the enemy the paffing of which would be found impracticable. Their anxiety for his fafety would not permit them to fuffer him to expofe himself to fo great a danger; and they hoped his regard for his fubjects would prevent him from facrificing their lives to no purpose. The king was deaf to their reprefentations; and at length, throwing off the mask, they declared that they could not engage in an enterprise fo contrary to law, as an offenfive war without the confent of the ftates. From the officers the king turned to the troops. But they were already gained. One regiment fet the example, and the greater part of the army laid down their arms. Guftavus found himself obliged immediately to defift from his undertakings. He broke up the fiege of Fredericfham, he diffolved the blockade of Nyflot, and precipitately put an end to his offenfive operations. The bufinefs of the campaign was concluded in a moment. Having cantoned his troops in the frontier of Ruffia, the king foon after fet out for Stockholm. Previously to his departure he published a manifefto against the czarina, confiderably more energetic in its ftyle than the papers which had preceded. He charged her with having, previoufly to the Turkish war, exprefsly conceived the project of annexing Swedish Finland to her dominions. He added, that he had hitherto been unable to prevail upon himself to difclofe to the eyes of Europe the errors into which a part of his fubjects had been led, rather by the intrigues of Ruffia, than by any difaffection inherent in themfelves. Accustomed to regard his people with the eyes of paternal ten dernefs, cherishing his fubjects as his children, he felt how much it coft a father to discover faults, that he would willingly have buried in oblivion. But nothing fhort of this could illuftrate the unjuft conduct of a neighbouring power and the injuries fuftained by the king. The intereft of the nation at large demanded, that Europe fhould be informed of the extent of the calamity with which the ftate had been menaced, of the plots that had been formed under cover of an infidious peace even against the perfon of the king, and of the true nature of that conduct, which Ruffia had pursued under the guife of moderation, of that conduct, which concealed purposes abundantly more deftructive, than the calamities ordinarily attendant upon war. During the progrefs of thefe hoftilities count Rafomoufski still continued to refide in the capital of Sweden. At first he refused to depart till he was recalled by his court; and that obftacle being removed, he infifted upon returning home through the province of Finland, while the king, refufing this, gave him his choice of every other route. It is now fufficiently vifible why count Rafomoufski laid fo much ftrefs on this circumftance, or at least why the king was naturally jealous of his prefence with the army. Meanwhile his refidence at Stockholm was it seems more use ful than his departure by any other road; and accordingly having continued there till he faw his projects advanced to confiderable maturity, he quitted the capital and kingdom on the eleventh of August. The motive, which had obliged the king fo precipitately to withdraw himfelf from the army in Fin land, land, was chiefly derived from the unexpected determination of the court of Denmark. Gustavus, as we have remarked, had been extremely affiduous in cultivating the friendship of the prince royal, is whofe hands the regency was vefted, and every exterior token feemed to imply the fuccefs of his efforts. The prince fet out upon a tour in Norway in the month of June, and he was every day expected to pay a friendly vifit to the frontiers of Sweden, whither Guftavus had fent certain officers of his court to compliment him upon his arrival. Prince Charles of Heffe, brother of the reigning landgrave, and the Danish viceroy of Norway, had preceded him in this tour; and, being received with great urbanity and politenefs by the Swedish officers, had vifited the fortifications of Warberg, Elfsburg and Gottenburg. But all thefe amicable appearances were fuddenly changed. The prince royal put an abrupt period to his tour in the beginning of Auguft, the Ruffians applied for the fuccours ftipulated as it fhould feem by treaty, their demand was granted by the Danish court, and it was refolved that the troops fhould be, not tranfported into Ruffia for the defence of her territories, but marched against the fouthern frontier of Sweden, which was altogether unprepared for defence. Difficulties on every fide feemed to arife to crush the falling monarch. The Swedish conftitution was of a peculiar nature, and, previously to the revolu tion of 1772, had placed all the subftantial power in the diet, where from the actual state of Sweden the nobility ufually more than overbalanced the other three orders, and during the recefs of the diet in the fenate, the members of which were all per fons of hereditary diftinétion. At the revolution the king, in order to annihilate the irrefiftible influence of the fenate, had made it an article in the new form of government, that no meafure belonging to the ordinary functions of adminiftration fhould be carried in oppofition to the king, unless the fenate were unanimous in approving it; and it could hardly be fuppofed, that a monarch, poffeffing all the influence annexed to his office, could in any cafe fail to gain one fenator to his party. But by a frange overfight the cafe of the king's abfence from his capital was entirely unprovided for; and, as he poffeffed no conftitutional mode of opposing their refolutions by proxy, their power became in that event as formidable as ever. Accustomed to be guided, the fenate of 1788 for fome time fhewed themfelves fufficiently docile, explicitly approving all the meafures of the king in the Ruffian war. But they at length caught the contagion that infected the army, and refolved without the privity of Guftavus to affemble a diet, under pretence of fettling the mifunderstandings and contentions of the kingdom. No fooner had the king quitted the army in Finland than the officers entered into an avowed correfpondence with the court of Ruffia. They fent deputies to Peterburgh propofing a ceffation of arms, till the Swedish fenate fhould have determined on the meafures it would be proper to adopt, to bring back the fovereign to his dependence on the conftitution, and to oblige him to abandon a war which he had rafhly and unjustly commenced. The reprefentatives of the army were received with great cordiality by the czarina, czarina, and their request readily granted. The negotiation was carried on under the eyes and in defiance of the counteraction of the duke of Sudermania, who had come on fhore to affume the command of the army in the absence of his brother, and who thought proper in the fequel to confirm the articles of convention, defigning by that means to conceal as much as poffible the anarchy and difobedience that had erected their standard in Sweden. The royal army retreated from the frontiers of Ruffia, and the enemy took immediate poffeffion of the defiles and paffes through which only their country could be penetrated. One officer alone, lieutenant general Platen, declared his diffent from the capitulation, and maintained his ftation in Carelia, declaring that he could not submit to be bound by the fignature of his commander in chief, when that fignature was extorted from him. The first measure of the king of Sweden under this complicated difficulty was to dispatch a meffenger to Copenhagen, probably fubfequent to their decifion upon the demands of Ruffia, but before the decifion was declared, requiring the mediation of that court, in order to his obtaining a juft and equitable peace with the emprefs of Ruffia. He next entered his metropolis, and by his fudden arrival annihilated the refolution of the fenate for affembling a diet. At Stockholm he indeed found a strong party of the nobility inimical to him, but the people at large were enthufiaftically prepoffeffed in his favour. Some of the officers, who had refigned their commiffions, repaired to the metropolis, where they could not appear in public without experiencing the moft mortifying reception. The very fight of a cockade was fure to be a mark for the hiffes and fcorn of the populace, and every one that wore it was exclaimed upon as the penfioner of Ruffia. The king arrived on the firft of September ; and, having immediately marched all the regular forces of the capital to the defence of the fouthern provinces, he addreffed the inhabitants, expreffing his entire confidence in their loyalty and affection, and declaring that he deemed the royal family not lefs fafe under the protection of the citizens of Stockholm than under a military guard. He therefore requefted them in this emergency to take the defence of the capital up. on themselves; and the inhabitants, grateful for thefe marks of his attachment, fpeedily enrolled themfelves to the number of two thou fand, clothed themselves in a uniform, and affumed in all refpects the appearance of regular troops. The king refided for a few days during thefe tranfactions at his country feat of Haga in the neighbourhood of Stockholm, and on the twelfth fet out for the province of Dalecarlia, the moft wefterly divifion of the kingdom of Sweden. This province, celebrated for its mines of copper, had been the retreat of Guftavus Vafa during the ufurpation of Denmark, and had at all times been diftinguished for its attachment to its fovereigns. The king upon this occafion threw himfelf upon their generofity; he defcended into the mines, and addreffed their laborious inhabitants. The Dalecarlians offered him a guard of three thousand select young men, and promifed that that numbershould be doubled if neceffary. The king replied, that he hoped he fhould never ftand in need of a guard against his own fubjects, but that, if they would follow him in the defence of their country, he would gratefully, accept of their affistance. From Dalecarlia the king proceeded with this new body' of volunteers to Wermlandia, the adjoining province on the foutherly fide, where he still farther recruited his forces; and arrived on the twenty-fixth at Carlstadt. A confiderable reinforcement from Swedish Pomerania was also tranfported to Calmar and the other garrifons upon the Baltic, and the whole kingdom wore the face of hoftility and refiftance. Meanwhile Gustavus had received the notification of the court of Denmark, which feems to have been dispatched previously to their receiving his request of mediation; and he replied on the eleventh of September, the day before he fet out for Dalecarlia, that after what had paffed he had little expected to fee a peace of fixty years continuance wantonly violated; that he had till this moment been ignorant of the alledged engagements of Denmark and Ruffia; that in the mean time if the king, as was the ufage of all civilized ftates, fent his reinforcements to the territories of Ruffia and the existing theatre of hoftility, he would confent, as the king of Denma.k required, to the regarding him merely as an auxiliary; but that, if on the contrary a direct invafion was made on the territory of Sweden, he would regard the peace as violated, and the Dane as the aggreffor. The auxiliaries to be furnished by the court of Copenhagen confifted of a fleet to the amount of fix fhips of the line and an army of twelve thoufand men; and the period fixed for the commencement of hoftilities was 1789. the twenty-fourth. Vice-admiral Prince Charles of Heffe Caffel, commander in chief of the land forces of Denmark, failed from Jutland to the province of Norway in the beginning of September; and was accompanied in his campaign by the prince royal. He entered the territories of Sweden on the day appointed, and on the twenty-fixth took poffeffion without oppofition of the port town of Stromitadt. The head quarters of the army ftationed to oppofe him under general Hierta were at Wennerfburg, and a de tachment was placed in a ftrong point nearer to the fea at Quiftrum. This force, which confifted of about feven hundred men, the prince of Heffe was fortunate enough to furround, and on the twenty-ninth they furrendered at difcretion. The prince immediately fent forward an officer to fummon the town of Uddewalla, an advantageous poft about forty miles from Gottenburg, which he entered on the first of October. He next fummoned Gottenburg itfelf, which was the principal object of his expedition, and refpecting which it had even been reported, that it was promifed by the czarina to be guaranteed to the crown of Denmark, to indemnify them for the expences of the war. The officer, who was fent to fummon the fortrefs of Gottenburg to -furrender, reached that place on the fifth, and was introduced to the king of Sweden in perfon. The - monarch_had travelled one hundred miles on horfeback, almost alone, and not without danger of being taken by the enemy, to prevent the catastrophe of this important place. He found that the governor had before his arrival called together the inhabitants, and recommended to them an immediate fubmiffion. The king reached Gottenburg on the night of the third, and the next morning, having affembled the citizens, he informed them that he regarded their town as one of the moit precious jewels in his crown, and adjured them to affift him in preventing it from falling into the hands of the enemy. The effect of this proceeding was immediate. They declared that they would fubmit in every thing to his direction; and the king, having first changed the governor of the fortrefs, proceeded to make every preparation for an obftinate defence. But the termination of this bufinefs was more propitious than it might be expected to have been. The king of Sweden had probably been encouraged in his hoftilities against Ruffia by the courts of London and Berlin; and they did not defert him in this emergency. The British government had received repeated affronts from the emprefs of Ruffia, none of which were forgot. It was fingular that at this.time Carlitadi.. |