LON 
face as he looked out at the window. The count imme¬ 
diately ordered the poftiilions to dop, and took refuge, 
■with difficulty, in the neared houfe. At that moment, 
baron Silverfparre, the adjutant-general, arrived, and de- • 
manded to know the caufe of the riot. The cry was, 
“ Count Ferfen haj murdered the crown-prince.” The 
baron then f;u that the king had ordered him to declare 
that the count (liould be arretted and tried. The mob 
then huzzaed, and, apparently fatisfied, began todifperfe. 
Rnt in a very little time a hrge party returned; ruthed 
into the houfe and the chamber where he was; and, With 
inoft horrid i nprecations and abpfive language, (tripped 
him of bis (Word, the iufignia of the orders he wore, his 
watch, his money, the medal fufpended from his neck, and 
Ills coat, which they tore in pieces. Thefe fpoils they 
threw to the rabble out at the window. In the mean 
time, baron Silverfparre continued to harangue the mob, 
whom he at length prevailed on to agree to what he prayed 
for ; which was, that the count ffiould be differed to go 
to prifoil without being infulted, to be tried, and con¬ 
demned if he ffiould be found guilty. The leaders of 
the mob promifed to let him go quietly to the town-houfe, 
on condition that the life-guards, which by this time had 
come up, ffiould be tent back. Silverfparre had the lim¬ 
pidity to truft to their word. The count, in his waift- 
coat, left the houfe, and proceeded to the place of con¬ 
finement through a crowd of people, agitated by paffion, 
over which there was not any curb ; yet they divided 
for the unhappy count to pafs through them, as he ad- 
vanced to the town-houfe; and he at length made his way 
into the guard-room. The mob, for about ten minutes, 
paufed ; but at length, perceiving that they had not any 
refidance to encounter, they burlt into the guard-room, 
feezed the count by the legs, threw him on the ground, 
took the rings out of his ears, and cut off his hair; they 
then dragged him out, and, in the prefence of the regi¬ 
ment of guards, drawn up in parade, but with their arms 
laid on the ground, murdered him, by the mere dint of 
repeated ftrokes with (licks and umbrellas. His body was 
dripped naked, and left all day to the outrages of the 
populace. It was not till the evening, when the in- 
furgents were difperfed by the fire of the troops, that any 
One durft remove the body ; when it was fecretly conveyed 
to one of his elfates, about five miles from Steeling, where 
it was interred in the garden. 
The regularity and relentlefs perfeverance with which 
the attack on count Ferfen was conducted, could not but 
give rife to a fufpicion, that it was the refult of a previous 
plan, rather than an ebullition of popular indignation. 
That the Swediffi guards, commanded by officers of the 
firft families in the kingdom, ffiould remain inactive fpec- 
tators of the murder of the count; that a body of regu¬ 
lar troops ffiould not have the courage to fav'e a high offi¬ 
cer of the crown from the fanguinary rage of a mob, was 
a circumftance, of all the kingdoms on the continent of 
Europe, the lead to be expedited in Sweden. But another 
event foon occurred, which placed the degeneracy of the 
Swedifh nation in a light dill more ftriking. 
On the 15th of Augutf, the dates affembled at Orebo, 
for the election of a fucceffor to the king on the throne. 
There were four candidates. The fird was the elded fon 
of Gudavus IV. When this unfortunate prince, during 
bis exile in Swifferland, was informed of the proclamation 
for convoking the diet at Orebo, he quitted the place of 
his refidence incognito, and took the route of Germany, 
with the intention of foliciting the fupport of the courts 
of Peterfburg and Berlin in favour of his elded fon ; but 
he was arreded on his journey by order of the king 
of Pruffia, and fent to Wittenburg. The fecond compe¬ 
titor was the prince of Holdein, the elder brother of the 
prince of Augudenburg. The king of Denmark alfo ap¬ 
peared in the lid of candidates: to overcome the averfion of 
the Swedes, and conciliate their favour, he promifed to quit 
Copenhagen and refide at Stockholm. The fourth com¬ 
petitor was Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Corvo. Though 
DON. - <235 
this was the candidate, as was well enough underdood, 
and as could fcarcely be mifunderdood, favoured by the 
emperor of the French ; yet he fecretly encouraged the 
king of Denmark to folicit the fuccetfion, heeaufe he 
knew that he could never fucceed, and that the very idea 
of being governed by a Daniffi king was odious to the 
Swedes, which mud operate in feme meafure in favour of 
Bernadotte ; at the fame time that the offer of the Dane 
to refide at Copenhagen would tend to render him an ob¬ 
ject of fufpicion, and to weaken the loyalty and attach¬ 
ment of his own fuhjefls. The new old king of Sweden, 
on the day above mentioned, with the advice of his coun¬ 
cil, propofed to the dates, as a fucceffor to the crown, John 
Bernadotte. A letter from Bonaparte had been received by 
the king and the dates, in which he profeded the ttrongelt 
attachment to the intereds of Sweden, and a refolution lo> 
defend and promote them. Fie hoped that, in choofng 2 
fucceffor to the reigning fovereign, the dates would feleit 
one of fimilar fentiments; but laid he ffiould not inter¬ 
fere in the election. On the 21ft of Augud, Bernadotte 
was chofen crown-prince of Sweden by the genera! voice 
of all the orders compoting the dates; and an ambaffador 
was fent to Paris, to announce their decifion to the em¬ 
peror and the prince eiedt. The world began now to 
combine this event with the murder of count Ferfen, 
fome even with the death of the prince of Augudert- 
burg. 
Be the cafe as it may, the French emperor certainly ne¬ 
ver thought that his old friend and companion Bernadotte 
would one day invade the “ facred territory” of his do¬ 
minion ; but events have proved, that lud of power and 
blind ambition will eafily turn the bed friends into bitter 
enemies. Strong fufpicions have been entertained, that 
the death of the prince of Augudenburg, and the murder 
of count Ferfen, were both the work of the chief ruler of 
events at that time; and that the poifoned cop and the 
weapons of the Swedidi mob had been fuccefiively tem¬ 
pered at St. Cloud. We ffiall not enter into the minutiae 
of the arguments for and againd thefe not-ungrounded 
fufpicions, and will only remark that, in the hands of 
Providence, the tools ufed by wicked men are often turned 
againd the original purpofe for which they were taken up. 
—But we cannot avoid quoting a kind of prophetical re¬ 
mark of the author of the Annual Regider for 1810. After 
noticing, that the deliberate election of Bernadotte, by the 
dates of Sweden, in preference both to the brother of the 
fate crown-prince, and the elded fon of Gudavus IV. ap¬ 
pears to be the mod deplorable inltance of national dege¬ 
neracy and degradation to be met with in hidory ; the au¬ 
thor concludes, “Yet it may eventually, if the prince of 
Ponte Corvo has fufficient wifdom, courage, and magna¬ 
nimity, prove the falvation of Sweden, and even the whole 
north of Europe. A fair field for furpaffing the glory of 
Bonaparte lies before him.” 
After his arrival in Sweden, Bernadotte endeavoured in 
every potlible way to ingratiate himfelf with the nation, 
and to acquire their confidence. He profeded to change' 
his religion, and to adopt the Lutheran tenets of the Swe¬ 
diffi church. He appropriated part of his immenfe private 
fortune to the purchafe of the edates in Pomerania that 
had been didributed among French officers, which he did 
on eaty terms, and redored them to their true owners ; 
and he accpmmodated the Swedifh government with the 
loan of more than 300,000!. derling, at four per cent, in- 
tered. Thefe afts of beneficence he had promifed before 
his election ; and he kept his word. His inftallation took 
place on the firft of November, in the prefence of the af¬ 
fembled. diet ; and about the middle of the fame month the 
Swedifh government, at the requifition of Bonaparte, de¬ 
clared its adherence to the continental fyflem. War was 
declared againd'Great Britain and Ireland; all intercourfe 
with the Britifn dominions was prohibited ; and the ini- 
'portation of colonial produce interdicted. 
On the 13th of November, the late king of Sweden, 
the unfortunate Gudavus IV. in the courfe of a languid)- 
