tion, combined their own wrongs with those of their country. They reprobated the idea of entering into a confederacy against France, at a time when Sweden was oppressed with taxes. Why should the Swedes consent to weaken it still more, by an additional waste of its blood and treasure, in order to support or revive a government which had been so instrumental in fettering them with the chains of unlimited monarchy? Such were the avowed sentiments of the nobles. But secret councils and cabals were held, in which it was resolved, that their vengeance, which they dignified by the name of a love of their country, should be expressed otherwise than by unavailing words. And a ready instrument for their bloody purpose presented in the person of Ankerstrom. John Jacob Ankerstrom was a gentleman by birth, and had been an officer in the guards. He had been convicted of high treason, and sentenced to an imprisonment of twenty years; but afterwards pardoned. The prosecution for his crime made a deeper impression on his mind than his pardon. Nor did he affect to deny or conceal his resentment on this account; at the same time that

"Sire,

he professed to be guided wholly by patriotic views in his public conduct. Several attempts were made against the life of the king, without success. Suspicions began to be entertained of some lurking treason. The public mind was alarmed by reports of plots and conspiracies; and the king was, from time to time, cautioned by his friends not to expose his person unnecessarily to danger. To all such cautions he would not listen: but remarked, “ that were he to give ear to every idle rumour of plots, he should be afraid to drink even a glass of water." On the 16th of March (1792) at supper with some persons of his household, before he went to the masquerade at the opera-house, he received an anonymous letter, written with a pencil in good French, advising him not to attend the masquerade that evening, as a plot was formed for his assassination. He showed the letter to those who were about him, treated its contents with ridicule, and, in spite of the earnest entreaties of his friends, went to the Opera-house, which he entered arm in arm with baron de Essen, his master of the horse.Scarcely had he taken two or three

turns

turns in the room, when he found himself surrounded by a crowd which pressed upon him violently, and was shot by a person behind him, in the left side. Gustavus was not killed on the spot; but falling on a bench near him, immediately gave orders for all the doors to be shut, and every person to be unmasked. He was afterwards led to an adjoining apartment. On the floor of the room was found a pistol and a dagger; both of which the assassin was supposed to have dropped, after the perpetration of the horrid deed. Every person, as he left the room, was compelled to unmask, and give in his name. Ankerstrom was the last person who left it, yet he left it without being discovered. Next morning

the arms that had been found were submitted to public examination. A gunsmith of the city of Stockholm deposed, that he had repaired the identical pistol for Captain Ankerstrom; and a cutler, that he had made the dagger at the request of the same person. The assassin was immediately arrested, and without hesitation confessed and gloried in his crime. He had intended, he said, to have dispatched the King, after the discharge of his pistol, with his dagger; but his hand trembling, as he tried to point it to the breast of Gustavus, he involuntarily dropped it on the floor. He denied that he had any accomplices; but afterwards, when threatened with the torture, he disclosed many circumstances of the conspiracy, and the names of several con

spirators; among whom was the author of the anonymous letter, Mr. Lilejehorn, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Guards, and who had been brought up in the household of the King. Besides Lilejehorn, the following noblemen were ar rested on suspicion: Count Horn, Count Ribbing, Baron Bielk, Baron Pechlin, two brothers of the name of Engerstroom, the one Counsellor of Chancery, the other Secretary to the King. Baron Bielk, previously to his being arrested, had taken poison, and soon after expired. A curious circumstance is related by the Marquis of Bouillé, which shews, that even the strongest and most cultivated minds are not, on occasions of extreme danger and alarm, wholly superior to the influence of superstition. Just before the King set out for Geffle, his fortune was told by a woman named Harvisson; and he was advised to beware of the month of March, and of the first person he should meet on leaving the palace. That person was Count Ribbing.* It was by orders from the King, who recollected the warning of the woman, that the Count was taken into custody, before he was mentioned among those who were accessary to the conspiracy,by Ankerstrom.

Though the sufferings of the King must have been excruciating in the extreme, as the pistol had been loaded with seven nails, besides two balls, and some small shot, he bore them with unexampled courage and resignation, and displayed

played a presence of mind the most astonishing.

While he waited for the arrival of his surgeons, in an apartment adjoining to the saloon of the opera-house, several of the foreign ministers presented themselves; to whom he said, "I have given orders, Gentlemen, that the gates of the city shall be shut. You will, therefore, not take it ill if you should be unable to send couriers to your courts until after three days. Your advices then will be more certain, since it will probably be known whether I can survive or not." His conversation then related to the effects which the accident might produce in Europe; and the -love of fame, which was always his predominant passion, was percep

tible in his remarks.

General Baron d'Armfeldt, one of his most affectionate friends, entered the room pale with horror, and unable to utter a word. As he approached, the King, stretching out his hand to him, said, "What's the matter, my friend? Be not alarmed on my account. You know, by experience, what a wound is." Thus flatteringly alluding to the wound which the General had received in Finland. Finding that he was not likely to survive, he settled all his affairs, as a man does who is preparing for a journey, with all the composure imaginable. He sent for his son, the Prince Royal, and addressed a

speech to him on the nature of a good government, in a manner so truly affecting, that all those who were present were dissolved in

tears.

The wound which the King received was not at first pronounced to be mortal, and some faint hopes were entertained of his recovery: but on the 28th a mortification took place; and on the following morning, sensible of his approaching dissolution, he confessed himself according to the usage of the Lutheran church, to his High Almoner, with a sincere, but calm and unostentatious devotion. After which he said to his confessor, "I doubt whether, in the eyes of my Maker, I have any great merit; but at least I have the consolation to reflect, that I never wilfully injured any person." It was his desire to receive the blessed sacrament, and to take leave of his queen, who, by the advice of the physicians, had not been admitted to him while his fate remained undecided. That he might be prepared to support these important duties with dignity and fortitude, he endeavoured to compose himself for taking some repose; when, immediately after bidding adieu to the nobleman in waiting, he expired.*

The King, during his illness, appointed his brother the Duke of Sudermania, during the minority of his son, Regent of the kingdom. He gave it in strict charge to the Duke

Duke to pardon all the conspirators not excepting even the assassin himself. But on the expostulation of the Duke, he agreed to the necessity of making him an exception. He was condemned to be deprived of his right of nobility, and of a citizen, with infamy, to be pilloryed and whipt in different places, to have his right hand cut off, and afterwards to be beheaded. Ankerstrom, until his strength was exhausted by his sufferings, shewed great firmness of mind, and read a paper, in which he declared his deliberate sentiments on what he had done, and was about to suffer. He justified the act he had committed, as the only means left for delivering the nation from a tyrant; and predicted a time when the present disgrace of his family would be compensated by the future applause and gratitude of the Swedish nation.

Gustavus III. was a prince of great natural talents, highly improved by education. To a great fund of easy and impressive eloquence, he united the most insinuating manners; and the extent of his knowledge and solidity of his judgment excited the admiration of all who had access to his conversation. The various journies which he made into different parts of Europe, as well as into almost every corner of his own dominions, made him thoroughly acquainted with mankind; and he

possessed sufficient sagacity to profit by his observations, and to apply them to the purposes of government. He seemed to inherit from his mother all that was most admirable in the character of his uncle, Frederic the Great, King of Prussia:-the same love of the arts and sciences; the same fertility of invention, presence of mind, intrepid courage, and devotion to military glory. But whatever may be thought of the doctrine respecting the physical transmission of mental qualities, there can be no doubt but the character, conduct, and maxims of his illustrious maternal uncle were ever present to his mind, as well as those of his heroic predecessors on the Swedish throne. One maxim of Frederic he was wont to repeat to his confidential friends with great approbation: "That in great affairs, no man, however discouraging the circumstances in which he may be placed, needs to be afraid to strike à blow, provided that he does it with prudence and perseverance; as friends and conjunctures will arise, which, rightly improved, will carry him through all difficulties." It is on this solid maxim that he seems to have acted from his accession to the throne in 1772; soon after which he destroyed, in the space of an hour, that powerful aristocracy which had imperiously ruled Sweden for near sixty years, and recovered the authority which

had

had been wrested from his ancestors, to his attack on Russian Finland in 1788, and the more recent period, when he determined, and was prepared, to throw himself with only a small army, for the scale on which war is now made, on the coast of France.

It was this military ardour and thirst of fame, as we have had occasion before to mention, that formed his predominant passion; and which may seem to explain, if not to apologize, for his desire of power, and his invasion of what had become the actual constitution of his country: for this seemed absolutely necessary to the emancipation of himself, as well as of his people, from the overbearing pride and power of the nobility, and the danger and dread of the domineering ambition of Russia. It was not in order to exercise tyranny and oppression that a prince of so great humanity and clemency of disposition sought to strengthen his hands: but that he might be enabled to pursue what he conceived to be for the interest of Sweden: for although the real happiness and prosperity of a nation do not consist in pursuits of military renown, yet some great effort appeared to be necessary on the part of the Swedish nation, for securing their political independence, without which no state or kingdom can long enjoy the highest degree of excellence, virtue, or happiness and as the Swedish nation would share with him in the glory of his exploits, he did not establish one standard of what was good and desirable for himself, and another of what might be good and

:

desirable for them; but proposed to exalt their minds to the love and pursuit of the great and sublime in moral conduct. For such a heroic system, and at such a juncture, when the two imperial courts threatened total destruction to the political balance of Europe, there were not wanting plausible arguments. In the inaugural oration which the King pronounced before the academy which he instituted at Stockholm,* he says,-" Such indeed is the nature of man, that he can be animated only by action, and must have his mental powers excited by strong motives. A state of tranquillity has a strong tendency to enervate the understanding; unless mankind are impelled to utility by the most powerful motives, and are prevented by the prospect of fame from sinking into a lethargic slumber, equally dangerous to individuals and to the community at large." But though this Prince had determined to live, as it were, in the storm of war, as such a conduct was imperiously demanded by the circumstances of the times, he was not inattentive to the arts of peace. It was not only to the liberal arts and the sciences that he extended his attention, but to agriculture, commerce, and the mechanical or useful arts. He introduced sundry wise regulations into the various departments of government. He enforced the most perfect impartiality in the administration of justice; and, on the whole, the people saw with the greatest satisfaction, the power of an aristocracy, whose influence they had experienced, transferred into the hands of a monarch