THROUGH LAPLAND. 
7 1 
Romantic as this account may appear, we were not backward 
to give it credit. My companion particularly, who was a Swedilh 
officer, affented to it moft readily, like a good patriot, who difco- 
vered with indignation a fraud committed againft the interefls of 
his country. We made a thoufand political reflections on the dif¬ 
ferent means and arts of corruption, and on the great value fet by 
governments on trifling matters: we thought that poffibly the 
two powers had left this fmall territory in an unfettled ftate, in 
order that they might not want a pretence, whenever they fhould 
chufe to come to a rupture. If I might have been permitted to 
do juffice to our political talents and acute inveftigation, I fhould 
have faid that we difplayed great knowledge as well as eloquence 
on the prefent fubjed. But alas! the fad was, that all we had 
heard, and what had given rife to our fage obfervations, was a 
mere fable. The true caufe of the eccentricity noticed in the 
line of demarcation, w 7 as a thing perfedly natural, and in confor¬ 
mity with the treaty of 1751, between the courts of Stockholm 
and Copenhagen, by w'hich it was fettled that the boundary fhould 
be fixed by the fources of rivers; that is to fay, that all that trad 
of country of which the rivers run into the Frozen Ocean, fhould 
belong to Denmark: and on the other hand, all that fhould be 
held as Swedilh Lapland, of which the rivers fall into the gulf of 
Bothnia. More than a year after my journey to Lapland, I be¬ 
came acquainted at Drontheim, the capital of the northern parts 
of Norway, with the Daniffi commiflary who had been employed 
in this bufinefs, and from him I learned the true principle or bafis 
on 
