THREE:The Pitt Ministry figured with less success as regarded the encroachments of Russia on the Turkish empire. The undisguised policy of Catherine was to press on her operations against Turkey till she had planted herself in Constantinople. Pitt continued as inactive as if there were no danger at all, and the same policy actuated Holland and Prussia. The least support given by these Powers to Gustavus of Sweden would have effectually checked the Russian designs in the East, and have raised Sweden into a position capable of acting as a dead weight on Russian aggression. By very little aid Gustavus would have been able to recover all the territories on the eastern side of the Baltic which had been wrested from Sweden by Russia, and would thus have kept a formidable power always, as it were, at the very gates of St. Petersburg. But Gustavus was left, with his brave heart but limited forces, to contend with Russia alone. He kept down his disaffected nobles by cultivating the interests of the people at large, and maintained a determined struggle with Russia. He sent over the Prince of Anhalt with a small army of about three thousand men at so early a season that the ground was covered with ice and snow. The prince pushed on boldly towards St. Petersburg, and made himself master of the strong forts and defences at Karnomkoski, on the Lake Saima, within two days' march of that capital. In April they were encountered by ten thousand Russians under the command of General Ingelstrom, whom they defeated after a desperate battle, leaving two thousand Russians dead on the field. But the Prince of Anhalt was killed, and the Swedes were not able, with a handful of men, to advance on St. Petersburg, which was in fearful panic. Gustavus was more successful at sea. He and his brother, the Duke of Sudermania, fought the Russians with a very inferior force of ships off Revel, and afterwards off Svenskasund. A considerable number of English officers were serving in the Swedish fleet, amongst them one destined to rise to high distinction, Sidney, afterwards Sir Sidney, Smith. After two days' sanguinary fight at the latter place, Gustavus beat the Russian Admiral Chitschakoff so completely that he took four thousand prisoners, destroyed several of the largest Russian ships, and took or sank forty-five galleys. Catherine was now glad to make peace, which was concluded at Warela, near the river Kymen, but with very different results to what would have been obtained had Gustavus found that support which it was the obvious interest of the whole civilised world to afford him. He agreed that each Power should retain what it possessed before the war, thus conferring on Russia the provinces torn from Sweden. Gustavus complained bitterly of his treatment, and with ample cause.The Allied sovereigns and their Ministers met at Vienna, in the opening of the year 1815, in congress, to settle the boundaries of all such States as had undergone disruptions and transformations through the will of Buonaparte. They were proceeding, with the utmost composure, to rearrange the map of Europe according to their several interests and ambitions. Austria, Spain, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden had their sovereigns or their representatives there. Those for Great Britain were the Duke of Wellington, the Lords Cathcart and Clancarty, and Sir Charles Stewart. All at once a clap of political thunder shook the place, and made every astute diplomatist look aghast. It was announced that Buonaparte had escaped from Elba, and was rapidly traversing France on the way to Paris, and that his old soldiers were flocking with acclamation to his standard. It was what was certain to occurwhat every man not a cunning diplomatist must have foreseen from the first, as certainly as that a stone thrown up is sure to come down again. Yet no one seems to have foreseen it, except it were Lord Castlereagh, who, not arriving at Paris before this foolish scheme was adopted, had protested against it, and then yielded to it. On the 13th of March the ministers of the Allied Powers met, and signed a paper which, at length, was in earnest, and showed that they were now as well convinced of a simple fact as the dullest intellect had been ten years beforethat there was no use treating Buonaparte otherwise than as a wild beast. They now declared him an outlaw, a violator of treaties, and an incorrigible disturber of the peace of the world; and they delivered him over to public contempt and vengeance. Of course, the British ambassadors were immediately looked to for the means of moving the armies of these high and mighty Powers, and the Duke of Wellington to plan and to lead the military operations against the man who had once more developed himself from the Emperor of Elba into the Emperor of the French.
FORE:The Whigs were as active to bring over the Electoral Prince of Hanover as they were to drive the Pretender farther off. With the Prince in England, a great party would be gathered about him; and all those who did not pay court to him and promote the interests of his House would be marked men in the next reign. Nothing could be more hateful than such a movement to both the queen and her ministers. Anne had a perfect horror of the House of Hanover; and of the Ministers, Bolingbroke, at least, was staking his whole future on paving the way of the Pretender to the throne. When the Whigs, therefore, instigated Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian envoy, to apply to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt for a writ of summons for the Electoral Prince, who had been created a British peer by the title of the Duke of Cambridge, Harcourt was thrown into the utmost embarrassment. He pleaded that he must first consult the queen, who, on her part, was seized with similar consternation. The Court was equally afraid of granting the writ and of refusing it. If it granted it, the prince would soon be in England, and the queen would see her courtiers running to salute the rising sun; the Jacobites, with Bolingbroke at their head, would commit suicide on their own plans now in active agitation for bringing in the Pretender. If they refused it, it would rouse the whole Whig party, and the cry that the Protestant succession was betrayed would spread like lightning through the nation. Schutz was counselled by the leading WhigsDevonshire, Somerset, Nottingham, Somers, Argyll, Cowper, Halifax, Wharton, and Townshendto press the Lord Chancellor for the writ. He did so, and was answered that the writ was ready sealed, and was lying for him whenever he chose to call for it; but at the same time he was informed that her Majesty was greatly incensed at the manner in which the writ had been asked for; that she conceived that it should have first been mentioned to her, and that she would have given the necessary orders. But every one knew that it was not the manner, but the fact of desiring the delivery of the writ which was the offence.DEPOSITION OF MEER JAFFIER. (See p. 316.)
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