RUSSIA. 
Petersburgh and Stockholm, a dispute which threatened to 
terminate in a war. Gustavus III. had been assassinated by 
Ankerstroem at a masquerade, on the 15th March, 1791, and 
the young king Gustavus Adolphus, being still a minor, the 
duke of Sudermania, his uncle, had been appointed regent 
of the kingdom. The regent had determined to effect a mar¬ 
riage between his nephew and a princess of the house of 
Mecklenburg; but Catharine publicly declared that the late 
king had betrothed his son to one of her granddaughters. 
The misunderstanding hence originating, was increased by 
the rude and indecorous behaviour of the baron Von Bud- 
berg, the Russian charge des affaires at Stockholm, and 
matters seemed tending to an open rupture; when, in 1796, 
a French emigrant named Christin, effected a reconciliation, 
and General Budberg, the baron’s uncle, was sent as ambas¬ 
sador to Stockholm from the Russian court. In consequence 
of this reconciliation, the young king, attended by the 
regent, and a numerous train of Swedish courtiers, set out on 
a visit to St. Petersburgh, where they arrived on the 24th of 
August, and an interview took place between the empress 
and her royal visitors, for the purpose of finally adjusting the 
projected matrimonial alliance. Gustavus Adolphus was 
much pleased with the appearance of the grand duchess 
Alexandra; but informed the empress, that, by the funda¬ 
mental laws of Sweden, he could not sign the marriage con¬ 
tract before the princess had abjured the Greek religion ; and 
as neither the solicitations nor the flatteries of Catharine 
could prevail on the young monarch to depart from the 
received custom of his country, the negociation ended, 
and the next day Gustavus and his retinue quitted St. Peters¬ 
burgh. 
The last transaction of importance in the reign of Catha¬ 
rine was her invasion of the Persian territories, undertaken 
for the purpose of acquiring certain possessions on the shores 
of the Caspian. A Russian army entered Daghestan, and 
made itself master of Derbent, but was afterwards defeated 
by the Persians under Aga Mahmed. 
The death of the empress took place on the 9th of No¬ 
vember of this year ; and the grand duke Paul Petrovitch, 
ascended the throne under the title of Paul I. 
Paul Petrovitch had attained his 42d year before, the death 
of his mother placed him on the imperial throne ; but for 
many years before her death, he had lived in a state of com¬ 
parative obscurity and retirement, and had apparently been 
considered by the empress as incapable of taking any active 
part in the administration of affairs. It is well known that 
Catharine never admitted him to any participation of power, 
and kept him in a state of the most abject and mortifying 
separation from court, and in almost total ignorance of the 
affairs of the empire. Although by his birth he .was gene¬ 
ral issimo of the armies, president of the admiralty, and 
grand admiral of the Baltic, he was never permitted to head 
even a regiment, and was interdicted from visiting the fleet 
at Cronstadt. From these circumstances it is evident, that 
the empress either had conceived some jealousy of her son, 
or saw in him some mental imbecility, that appeared to her 
to disqualify him for the arduous concerns of government. 
There is little doubt, from the circumstances which distin¬ 
guished his short reign, that Catharine had been chiefly in¬ 
fluenced in her treatment of the grand duke, by the latter 
consideration. There were, certainly, times at which Paul 
displayed evident marks of insanity, though he occasionally 
gave proofs of a generous and tender disposition, and even 
of intellectual vigour. 
It is generally believed, that a short time before her 
death, Catharine committed to Plato Zuboff, her last fa¬ 
vourite, a declaration of her will, addressed to the senate, 
desiring that Paul should be passed over in the succession, 
and that on her death the grand duke Alexander should 
ascend the vacant throne. As soon as Zuboff was made 
acquainted with the sudden death of the empress, he flew to 
Pavlovsk, about 23 miles from Petersburgh, where Paul 
occasionally resided ; but meeting the grand duke on the 
road, he, after a short explanation, delivered up the import¬ 
ant document. Paul, charmed with his zeal and loyalty, 
479 
rewarded the late favourite, by permitting him to retain the 
wealth and honours which had been heaped on him by his 
mistress, while a general and rapid dispersion soon took place 
among the other adherents of the late sovereign. On the 
day following the death of his mother, Paul made his public 
entry into St. Petersburgh, amidst the acclamations of all 
ranks of people. 
One of the first measures adopted by the new emperor, 
excited considerable surprise, and divided the opinions of the 
public with respect to the motives by which it had been sug¬ 
gested ; some attributing it to his respect for the memory of 
his late father; others to a culpable reflection on that of his 
mother. He ordered the remains of Peter III. to be removed 
from the sepulchre in which they had been deposited in the 
church of St. Alexander Nefski, and caused them to lie in 
state for three weeks, while they were watched night and 
day by the only two remaining conspirators who had assisted 
at his assassination. After this, he consigned the ashes to 
the sepulchre of Catharine II., in the cathedral of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, obliging the assassins to walk in the procession 
as chief mourners. 
Few political events of any importance marked the reign 
of Paul, previous to the year 1798 ; when, in consequence 
of a treaty between Paul and the emperor of Germany, a 
Russian army of 45,000 men, under Field-marshal Suvaroff, 
joined the imperialists in the Austrian territories in Italy. 
The progress of Suvaroff, his successes over Moreau, and his 
final recal by his master, have already been related in the 
article France. 
In 1799, Paul entered into a treaty of offensive and defen¬ 
sive alliance with his Britannic majesty. This treaty was 
signed at Petersburgh on the 22d of June, having been pre¬ 
ceded by a provisional treaty between the same powers at the 
end of the year 1798. By the provisional treaty it had been 
stipulated that Paul should assist the king of Prussia, if the 
latter could be persuaded to join his arms to the allied powers 
against France, with 45,000 men; and that the king of 
Great Britain should pay to Russia a subsidy of 75,000/. ster¬ 
ling per month ; and in case the king of Prussia should refuse 
to join the coalition, the same number of troops, in consider¬ 
ation of the same subsidy, should be employed as occasion 
might require, to assist the common cause. By the new 
treaty, the emperor of Russia, instead of the 45,000 troops, 
engaged to furnish ] 7,593, with the necessary artillery, to 
be employed in an expedition against Holland; and he en¬ 
gaged to furnish six ships, five frigates, and two transports, 
for the purpose of transporting part of the invading army 
from Britain to the continent. In consideration of these 
succours the court of London engaged to advance to Russia 
a subsidy of 44,000/. sterling per month; to pay the sum 
of 58,929/. 10s. sterling, for the expenses of equipping the 
fleet; and after the period of three months had elapsed from 
such equipment, to pay a further subsidy of 19,642/. 10s. 
sterling per month, so long as the fleet should remain under 
the command of his Britannic majesty. 
In consequence of this treaty, a Russian fleet joined that 
of Britain in Yarmouth roads, and took part in the unfortu¬ 
nate expedition to the coast of Holland, undertaken in the 
summer of 1799. 
In the beginning of the year 1801, all Europe was thrown 
into the greatest astonishment by the appearance of a para¬ 
graph in the Hamburgh Gazette of the 16th of January. The 
paragraph was dated from Petersburgh the 30th December, 
1800, and is as follows:—• 
“We learn from Petersburgh, that the emperor of Russia, 
finding that the powers of Europe cannot agree among them¬ 
selves, and being desirous to put an end to a war which has 
desolated it for 11 years past, intends to point out a spot, to 
which he will invite all the other sovereigns to repair and 
fight in single combat; bringing with them as seconds and 
squires, their most enlightened ministers, and their most 
able generals, such as Messrs. Thugot, Pitt, Bernstorff, &c. 
and that the emperor himself proposes being attended by 
generals count de Pahlen and Khutosof: We know not if 
this report be worthy of credit; however, the thing appears 
not 
