AFFAIRS IN THE NORTH.

Sweden was filled with discontents, and divided into factions. The generals Bodenbrock and Lewenhaupt were beheaded, having been sacrificed as scape-goats for the ministry. Some unsuccessful efforts by sea and land were made against the Russians. At last the peace of Abo was concluded; and the duke of Holstein-Utin, uncle to the successor of the Russian throne, was chosen as next heir to the crown of Sweden. A party had been formed in favour of the prince of Denmark; and the order of the peasants actually elected him as successor. The debates in the college of nobles rose to a very dangerous degree of animosity, and were appeased by an harangue in Swedish verse, which one of the senators pronounced. The peasants yielded the point, and the succession was settled on the duke of Holstein. Denmark, instigated by French councils, began to make preparations of war against Sweden; but a body of Russian auxiliaries arriving in that kingdom, under the command of general Keith, and the czarina declaring she would assist the Swedes with her whole force, the king of Denmark thought proper to disarm. It had been an old maxim of French policy to embroil the courts of the North, that they might be too much employed at home to intermeddle in the affairs of Germany, while France was at war with the house of Austria. The good understanding between the czarina and the queen of Hungary was at this period destroyed, in consequence of a conspiracy which had been formed by some persons of distinction at the court of Petersburgh, for removing the empress Elizabeth, and recalling the princess Anne to the administration. This design being discovered, the principal conspirators were corporally punished, and sent in exile to Siberia. The marquis de Botta, the Austrian minister who had resided at the court of the czarina, was suspected of having been concerned in the plot; though the grounds of this suspicion did not appear until after he was recalled, and sent as ambassador to the court of Berlin. The empress demanded satisfaction of the queen of Hungary, who appointed commissioners to inquire into his conduct, and he was acquitted; but the czarina was not at all satisfied of his innocence. In February a defensive treaty of alliance was concluded between the princess and the king of Great Britain.

GEORGE II. 1727-1760