IM RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



with swelling her triumph at Cherson, appeared in that capital eight 

 days before her, and proceeded to a considerable aistance up uie 

 Dnieper, to intercept her progress. Her route was through Kiow, 

 where she remained three months, and was received under triumphal 

 arches; and upon her arrival at Cherson, having thought proper to 

 extend the walls of the city, she inscribed over one of the gates, 

 tl Through this gate lies the road to Byzantium." The czarina re- 

 turned to Petersburgh by the way of Moscow. 



Scarcely had the empress returned to her capital, before she was 

 followed by the Turkish declaration of hostilities. The emperor of 

 Germany joined her in declaring war against the Porte, which, in- 

 stead of being disheartened at the forandabieness of this confedera- 

 cy, applied itself with redoubled ardour to prepare for resistance. 

 The operations of the Russian forces were directed against Choczim 

 and Oczakow. In the former of these undertakings, they acted ra- 

 ther as auxiliaries to the emperor's general, the prince oi Saxe Co- 

 bourg, who, from the last day of June to the 29th of September, 

 1788, continued a very powerful attack on Choczim, when it surren- 

 dered to the arms of the imperial forces. Oczakow, after an obsti- 

 nate contest, in which the Russians at length became exposed to all 

 the rigours of a winter campaign, was taken by storm on the 17th of 

 December following. 



During the progress of these hostilities with the Porte, Russia 

 found herself suddenly involved in anew and unexpected war. As a 

 nation, Sweden had the greatest causes of resentment against Russia 

 for past injury and loss, at the same time that she had every thing to 

 dread from her present overgrown power and boundless ambition. 

 Gustavus III, was therefore induced to meditate a project of hostili- 

 ties against Russia, which commenced in Finland, a few days after the 

 king's arrival in that province. The principal action of the cam- 

 paign was the naval battle off Hoogland, in the Gulf of Finland. The 

 engagement, which lasted five hours, was fought with considerable 

 skill and obstinacy on both sides ; but the victory was indecisive and 

 claimed by both parties. At length, after several other engagements 

 attended with various success, on the 14th of August, 1790, a con- 

 vention for a peace was signed between the courts of Russia and 

 Sweden, and ratified in six days after. 



At the close of the year 1790, the empress had the satisfaction to 

 see her conquests no longer bounded by the course of the Danube. 

 ?The capture of Ismail was the last important action. It was taken 

 by storm on the 22d of December, 1790; but it is said that the siege 

 and assault did not cost the Russians less than 10,000 men. The 

 most shocking part of the transaction is, that the garrison (whose 

 bravery merited, and would have received from a generous foe, the 

 highest honours) were massacred in cold blood by the merciless Rus- 

 sians, to the amount of upwards of 30,000 men, by their own account. 

 The place was given up to the unrestrained fury of the brutal sol- 

 diery ; and the most horrid outrages were perpetrated on the defence- 

 less inhabitants. 



England and Prussia, after a long and expensive armed negocia- 

 tion, at length assented to the demand of the empress, which was 

 strengthened by the interference of Spain and Denmark, that Ocza- 

 kow, and the territories between the rivers Bog and Dniester, should 

 in full sovereignty belong to Russia; that the river Dniester should 

 for the future determine the frontiers of Russia and the Porte j that 



