REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA.

The Russians had been for some time discontented with their government. The late czarina was influenced chiefly by German councils, and employed a great number of foreigners in her service. These causes of discontent produced factions and conspiracies; and when they were discovered, the empress treated the authors of them with such severity as increased the general disaffection. Besides, they were displeased at the manner in which she had settled the succession. The prince of Brunswick Lunenberg Bovern, father to the young czar, was not at all agreeable to the Russian nobility; and his consort, the princess Anne of Mecklenburgh, having assumed the reins of government during her son’s minority, seemed to follow the maxims of her aunt the late czarina. The Russian grandees and generals, therefore, turned their eyes upon the princess Elizabeth, who was daughter of Peter the Great, and the darling of the empire. The French ambassador gladly concurred in a project for deposing a princess who was well affected to the house of Austria. General Lasci approved of the design, which was chiefly conducted by the prince of Hesse-Hombourg, who, in the reigns of the empress Catharine and Peter II., had been generalissimo of the Russian army. The good will and concurrence of the troops being secured, two regiments of guards took possession of all the avenues of the imperial palace at Petersburgh. The princess Elizabeth, putting herself at the head of one thousand men, on the fifth day of December entered the winter palace, where the princess of Mecklenburgh and the infant czar resided. She advanced into the chamber where the princess and her consort lay, and desired them to rise and quit the palace, adding that their persons were safe; and that they could not justly blame her for asserting her right. At the same time, the counts Osterman, Golofhairkin, Mingden, and Munich, were arrested; their papers and effects were seized, and their persons conveyed to Schlisselbourgh, a fortress on the Neva. Early in the morning the senate assembling, declared all that had passed since the reign of Peter II. to be usurpation; and that the imperial dignity belonged of right to the princess Elizabeth: she was immediately proclaimed empress of all the Russias, and recognized by the army of Finland. She forthwith published a general act of indemnity; she created the prince of Hesse-Hombourg generalissimo of her armies; she restored the Dolgorucky family to their honours and estates; she recalled and rewarded all those who had been banished for favouring her pretensions; she mitigated the exile of the duke of Courland, by indulging him with a maintenance more suitable to his rank; she released general Wrangle, count Wasaburgh, and the other Swedish officers who had been taken at the battle of Willmenstrand; and the princess Anne of Mecklenburgh, with her consort and children, were sent under a strong guard to Riga, the capital of Livonia.

Amidst these tempests of war and revolution, the states-general wisely determined to preserve their own tranquillity. It was doubtless their interest to avoid the dangers and expense of a war, and to profit by that stagnation of commerce which would necessarily happen among their neighbours that were at open enmity with each other; besides, they were over-awed by the declarations of the French monarch on one side; by the power, activity, and pretensions of his Prussian majesty on the other; and they dreaded the prospect of a stadtholder at the head of their army. These at least were the sentiments of many Dutch patriots, reinforced by others that acted under French influence. But the prince of Orange numbered among his partisans and adherents many persons of dignity and credit in the commonwealth; he was adored by the populace, who loudly exclaimed against their governors, and clamoured for a war without ceasing. This national spirit, joined to the remonstrances and requisitions made by the courts of Vienna and London, obliged the states to issue orders for an augmentation of their forces; but these were executed so slowly, that neither France nor Prussia had much cause to take umbrage at their preparations. In Italy, the king of Sardinia declared for the house of Austria; the republic of Genoa was deeply engaged in the French interest; the pope, the Venetians, and the dukedom of Tuscany were neutral; the king of Naples resolved to support the claim of his family to the Austrian dominions in Italy, and began to make preparations accordingly. His mother, the queen of Spain, had formed a plan for erecting these dominions into a monarchy for her second son Don Philip; and a body of fifteen thousand men being embarked at Barcelona, were transported to Orbitello, under the convoy of the united squadrons of France and Spain. While admiral Haddock, with twelve ships of the line, lay at anchor in the bay of Gibraltar, the Spanish fleet passed the straits in the night, and was joined by the French squadron from Toulon. The British admiral sailing from Gibraltar, fell in with them in a few days, and found both squadrons drawn up in line of battle. As he bore down upon the Spanish fleet, the French admiral sent a flag of truce, to inform him that as the French and Spaniards were engaged in a joint expedition, he should be obliged to act in concert with his master’s allies. This interposition prevented an engagement. The combined fleets amounting to double the number of the English squadron, admiral Haddock was obliged to desist; and proceeded to Port-Mahon, leaving the enemy to prosecute their voyage without molestation. The people of England were incensed at this transaction, and did not scruple to affirm that the hands of the British admiral were tied up by the neutrality of Hanover.*

* In the month of July, two ships of Haddock’s squadron
falling In with three French ships of war, captain Barnet,
the English commodore, supposing them to be Spanish register
ships, fired a shot in order to bring them to; and they
refusing to comply with this signal, a sharp engagement
ensued; after they had fought several hours, the French
commander ceased firing, and thought proper to come to an
explanation, when he and Barnet parted with mutual
apologies.

In the course of this year a dangerous conspiracy was discovered at New York, in North America. One Hewson, a low publican, had engaged several negroes in a design to destroy the town, and massacre the people. Fire was set to several parts of the city; nine or ten negroes were apprehended, convicted, and burned alive. Hewson, with his wife, and a servant maid privy to the plot, were found guilty and hanged, though they died protesting their innocence.