GENERAL HISTORY. 



[47 



This convention was ratified by 

 the Danish and Swedish princes. 

 Prince Christian, on August I6th, 

 issued a proclamation to the Nor- 

 wegians, in which he informed 

 them of the steps which brought 

 on the war, of the circumstances 

 attending the Swedisli invasion, 

 and of the events which had ren- 

 dered necessary the acceptance of 

 the conditions proposed in the ar- 

 mistice and convention. He far- 

 ther mentioned having, by a re- 

 script, summoned an extraordinary 

 diet to meet at Christiana on the 

 7th of October next; and con- 

 cluded with assuring them, that 

 nothing but imperious necessity 

 could have induced him to act as 

 he had done, and that their welfare 

 had always been the object which 

 he pursued. Although it was evi- 

 dent that the Danish prince had 

 not given up the cause of Norwe- 

 gian independence until its main- 

 tenance was placed beyond all hu- 

 man probability, there was still the 

 remnant of a party which, in the 

 disappointment of their eager 

 hopes, regarded the termination 

 of the contest as the result of per- 

 fidy. Some persons, who in the 

 Swedish account are qualified as 

 *' professing the principles of Jaco- 

 binism," excited on the 19th a po- 

 pular tumult in Christiana, in 

 which the house of General Haxt- 

 hausen, the friend and confident 

 of Prince Christian, was attacked, 

 and its windows and furnitnre de- 

 stroyed. The General being at 

 that time at his country-house, the 

 mob pursued him thither, and his 

 life was saved only by the speedy 

 arrival of a body of Norwegian 

 cavalry. The Crown Prince, in- 

 formed of this occurrence, intimat- 

 ed to the council of state at Chris- 



tiana, that if they did not possess 

 sufficient authority to preserve the 

 public tranquillity, he should be 

 obliged to order his troops to pass 

 the line of demarkation, in order to 

 protect the peaceable inhabitants 

 of the capital. Haxthausen, it 

 appears, was charged with having 

 suffered the Norwegian army to 

 be three days without provisions. 

 Among the circumstances preced- 

 ing the convention of Moss, it is 

 mentioned that the commandant 

 of Frederickstadt gave up his for- 

 tress without a shot ; that two ge- 

 nerals behaved so ill that they 

 were cashiered ; but that the com- 

 mandant of Frederichstein, Gene- 

 ral Ohme, had declared that he 

 would defend himself to the last 

 extremity ; and that Colonel Kreds 

 had assembled about 10,000 pea- 

 sants near Kongsvinger with the 

 intention of falling upon the rear 

 of the Swedish army. But this 

 would have been a fruitless at- 

 tempts against such regular troops 

 as the Swedes, and such a general 

 as the Crown Prince. Further, if 

 the war had been protracted by 

 drawing it to the northern parts of 

 the kingdom, the blockade of the 

 ports would have involved those 

 steril regions in the miseries of fa- 

 mine. The mercantile part of the 

 nation deserted the cause of inde- 

 pendence as soon as they found that 

 England had declared against it. 



The Diet of Norway having as- 

 sembled. Prince Christian, whose 

 health and spirits had been affect- 

 ed by the mortifications he had un- 

 dergone, sent in liis resignation ; 

 and on the next day set out for 

 Lauwig, accompanied by General 

 Haxthausen and several others of 

 the late ruling members who vvould 

 not quit him. Although a British 



