l8o VISIT TO DENMARK [1799. 



plan is extended to sailors who are quartered along 

 the coasts ; but this does not answer so well, and it 

 makes the navy full of old men, as the young take 

 care to get employed among the merchants, who are 

 obliged, however, in time of war to furnish a certain 

 quota of men to the navy. The army in Sweden is 

 thus extremely economical. The king's guards them- 

 selves are only paid twopence per day when on duty; 

 and at other times have to work for themselves. 

 However, the soldiers are often supported by the 

 public works, in some of which they are the chief 

 labourers, as at Trollhatta. The officers are for the 

 most part very poor, though men of family. Thus, a 

 lieutenant has only 120 rix-dollars per annum. The 

 chief officers at present in the Swedish service are 

 Count Fersen; Flatten, the governor of Pomerania; and 

 Shlimpston, the commander-in-chief in Finland. The 

 navy is powerful in proportion to the other establish- 

 ments : 40 sail, chiefly frigates, of which the greater 

 part are at Carlscrona, one of the finest harbours in the 

 world, though some are laid up in ordinary at Stock- 

 holm. Many of them are old and ill-built ; but those 

 which have been laid down of late are on the most 

 beautiful models made by Admiral Chapman, who lives 

 at Carlscrona, and is one of the first naval architects 

 in Europe. The last time the king was at Carlscrona, 

 a frigate was launched, and the keel of an 80-gun 

 ship laid down. Though beaten at Wiborg by the 

 Eussians, they perfectly retrieved their credit by a 

 victory at Suensksund. 



