mainder of the conspirators, disguised in black masks and cloaks, rushed in a body towards the doors of the hall. Gustavus called out as the shot struck him, "I am wounded; seize the traitor;" but when his attendants on recognizing his voice pressed around him, he declared that he did not think he had been hurt. The result proved, however, that he had been fatally wounded, and after suffering extreme agony for thirteen days in consequence of the jagged and rough surfaces of the broken bits of lead with which the pistol had been charged, he died on 29th of March, 1792, at the age of forty-six.

Gustavus showed great fortitude in his sufferings, and devoted his last hours to the settlement of the affairs of his kingdom. He appointed a regency for his only son, then scarcely fourteen years old; and named his brother, Duke Charles, to be president or chief director of the administration. The duke was an able, upright man, but he had visionary ideas on many subjects, and had no confidence in his own judgment, which led him to intrust all important matters of state to his favourite, Baron Reuterholm, who by his haughty, overbearing temper soon drew upon himself the dislike of the old friends of the former king. The regent showed great indulgence to most of the conspirators concerned in his brother's murder, but Ankerström was made to expiate his crime by a barbarous and cruel mode of death, and bore the infliction of his sentence with a fortitude worthy of a better cause. In nearly all respects the regent followed a policy directly opposite to that of his brother, and he entered into an alliance with the leaders of the French republic, assuring them of his good-will; while he joined the Danish king in forming a compact of armed neutrality for the defence of the shipping of their respective kingdoms. By these measures, Sweden gave offence to Russia, and a war between the two countries was only averted for the time by a proposal made by Baron Reuterholm to the empress, that the young king should marry her granddaughter, the Grand Duchess Alexandra. Gustavus went to St. Petersburg with his uncle, and everything seemed settled for the betrothal of the young couple, which was to be publicly announced at a court ball. But when the evening appointed for the ceremony arrived, and the empress, surrounded by her court, was ready to receive the

young king, he did not appear, and after waiting for him for several hours, the company dispersed. The duke then had to explain to the imperial family that his nephew had refused to sign the marriage contract, because it secured to the future queen the free exercise of her own religion, and allowed her to have a chapel fitted up in accordance with the rules of the Greek Church, to which she belonged. The empress refused after that to hold any further communications with the young king, who therefore had to return to Sweden without celebrating his betrothal. He soon afterwards chose a wife for himself, and in 1796 was married with much state to the Princess Frederika of Baden, who was only sixteen at the time. This princess, who was celebrated for her great beauty and her sprightly disposition, was a Lutheran like himself, and therefore Gustavus was not called upon in marrying her to make any concessions of which his conscience disapproved.

PART II.

TROUBLES IN SWEDEN.

Gustavus IV., 1792-1809.-The first act of Gustavus after he began to reign independently of the regency was to dismiss all who were known to be supporters of the duke, and to recall his father's former friends and companions. At first his people had great hopes of having better times under him, for he was simple in his habits, very averse to show or extravagance, and upright in his conduct; but they soon found that his pride and obstinacy led him to take steps which proved most calamitous to his kingdom. The main cause of his troubles was the strong aversion which he felt towards Napoleon, and his resolution to devote all his energies to the ruin of the emperor. Gustavus had taken up some strange ideas in regard to the meaning of prophecy, and he looked upon Buonaparte as the Great Beast spoken of in Revelation. At first the Swedish king's conduct excited only ridicule, and was looked upon as a procf of his religious insanity; but when he joined The Triple Coalition, formed by Austria, Russia, and England against France, Napoleon sent an army under his general,

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Marshal Brun, to seize upon Swedish Pomerania and drive the Swedes out of this last of their German possessions. Soon afterwards Gustavus brought still greater troubles upon Sweden itself by opening his ports to English ships without heeding the conditions of a compact which Russia, Prussia, and other lesser powers had been forced to make with Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807 to keep British traders out of foreign markets. As Gustavus continued in defiance of all warning to keep up an active trade with the English, and to allow them to make Göteborg a free port for their trading ships, Russia declared war against Sweden, and the Russian emperor, Alexander, sent an army into Finland, which thenceforth became the chief theatre of the war in 1808-9. The Swedes, under Adlerkreuz, fought with desperate valour, and gained several great victories; but the overwhelming numbers of the enemy forced them to fall back, and at last to evacuate the whole of Finland. Gustavus, more interested in finding passages in Scripture that pointed, as he believed, to the French emperor, than in attending to the welfare of his people, left the army to melt away before the Russian forces; and when, by the treachery of its commandant, the fortress of Sveaborg, which was regarded as impregnable, was given up to the enemy, the fate of Finland was decided, and the whole of northern Sweden was laid open to the attacks of the Russians.

While these events were passing, war was being feebly carried on between Sweden and Denmark on the Norwegian frontiers, where the Danish stadtholder, Prince Christian of Augustenburg, drove back the Swedes under their commander Armfeldt. England sent troops to help Sweden, and Napoleon threw an army under General Bernadotte into Jutland, on pretence of supporting Denmark. The English forces, numbering 10,000 men, which were under the command of Sir Thomas Moore, returned, however, to England without striking a blow, as soon as it was found that Gustavus wanted to send them into Finland to fight against the Russians, while the French and Spaniards in Napoleon's army did nothing to help Denmark; and after a year spent by them in mutiny and in pillaging the Jutlanders, disappeared from the provinces without having done any fighting except among themselves.

Gustavus forced to abdicate.-The unhappy results of the Russian war and the senseless obstinacy of Gustavus, which nearly brought him into a quarrel with his best ally, England, excited universal anger in the minds of the Swedes against their king, and a conspiracy was formed to force him to abdicate, which consisted of a large number of officers, headed by the Generals Adlerkreuz and Adlersparre. The object of the conspirators was at first not merely to remove the king, but to unite Sweden and Norway under the rule of the Danish stadtholder, Prince Christian Augustus of Augustenburg, who is believed to have been aware of the plot, and At all events the prince to have given his sanction to it. allowed the war to be carried on in a very inactive manner against Sweden, and consented to a truce with Adlersparre, immediately after which the latter hurried to Stockholm to carry out his designs. On the evening of the 13th of March, 1809, while Adlersparre was keeping his troops under arms. before the gates of Stockholm, Adlerkreuz with six attendants entered the king's apartment and announced to him that he had come in the name of the army to insist that the king should not carry out the design which he had in view of going to Skaania to superintend preparations for further hostilities, since the Swedes would not go on with these useless wars. Gustavus on hearing this drew his sword, and called aloud for "help against traitors," but Adlerkreuz's men closed in around him After an hour's detention he succeeded in and disarmed him. making his escape through a concealed door in the wainscoting, and hurried into the courtyard to rouse the watch. He was, however, pursued and carried back to his apartments, and the following day conveyed under a strong guard to the palace of Drottningholm, where he was forced to sign a deed, renouncing the Swedish throne for himself and all his descendants. No attempt was made from any quarter to help him, and in the same year he was formally banished the kingdom, and forced to leave the country. After wandering about the Continent and leading a strange, restless life, he died in obscurity in the year 1837 at St. Gall, in Switzerland, under the name of Colonel Gustafsson, which he had assumed on leaving Sweden.

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PART III.

GREAT CHANGES IN SWEDEN.

Charles XIII, 1809-1818.--When this new revolution had been completed without bloodshed or disturbance of any kind, the Estates met, and in accordance with the general wishes of the nation invited Duke Charles of Sodermanland to undertake the administration until more lasting arrangements could be made for the disposition of public affairs. In a diet held in 1809, Gustavus IV. was declared to have forfeited the crown, and Duke Charles was proclaimed king, after having agreed to accept the charter drawn up by the Estates, which gave to the sovereign the administrative power, and left to the diet, which was thenceforth to consist of the four orders of nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants, the right of legislation and the power of assessing taxes. At this diet the Danish Stadtholder of Norway, Prince Christian Augustus of Augustenburg, was elected successor to the childless king, Charles XIII., as a reward for his friendly conduct towards Sweden during the late war with Denmark. This prince had carried his goodwill so far that, in defiance of stringent orders from the Danish king, Frederick VI., to advance, he had abstained from attacking Vermland when his road lay open to that province. Peace was concluded between Sweden and Denmark at the close of 1809, when the Augustenburg prince went to Stockholm, and, under the name of Charles Augustus, was received by the people as their future king. His sudden death at a review near Helsingborg in the spring of the following year excited a very strong feeling among the citizens of Stockholm, to whom he had greatly endeared himself, and, under the idea that he had been poisoned, a great disturbance broke out on the day of his funeral. The suspicion of the populace was chiefly directed against the old, rich, and proud Count Axel Fersen, who was much disliked for the haughtiness of his manners; and in their fury they literally tore him to pieces, and could scarcely be kept from treating the prince's medical attendants with equal cruelty.

After the death of Charles Augustus, the government pro