ts, and divided into factions. The
generals Bodenbrock and Lewenhaupt were beheaded, having been sacrificed
as scape-goats for the ministry. Some unsuccessful efforts by sea
and land were made against the Russians. At last the peace of Abo was
concluded; and the duke of Holstein-Utin, uncle to the successor of the
Russian throne, was chosen as next heir to the crown of Sweden. A party
had been formed in favour of the prince of Denmark; and the order of the
peasants actually elected him as successor. The debates in the college
of nobles rose to a very dangerous degree of animosity, and were
appeased by an harangue in Swedish verse, which one of the senators
pronounced. The peasants yielded the point, and the succession was
settled on the duke of Holstein. Denmark, instigated by French councils,
began to make preparations of war against Sweden; but a body of Russian
auxiliaries arriving in that kingdom, under the command of general
Keith, and the czarina declaring she would assist the Swedes with her
whole force, the king of Denmark thought proper to disarm. It had been
an old maxim of French policy to embroil the courts of the North, that
they might be too much employed at home to intermeddle in the affairs
of Germany, while France was at war with the house of Austria. The good
understanding between the czarina and the queen of Hungary was at this
period destroyed, in consequence of a conspiracy which had been formed
by some persons of distinction at the court of Petersburgh, for
removing the empress Elizabeth, and recalling the princess Anne to the
administration. This design being discovered, the principal conspirators
were corporally punished, and sent in exile to Siberia. The marquis
de Botta, the Austrian minister who had resided at the court of the
czarina, was suspected of having been concerned in the plot; though the
grounds of this suspicion did not appear until after he was recalled,
and sent as ambassador to the court of Berlin. The empress demanded
satisfaction of the queen of Hungary, who appointed commissioners to
inquire into his conduct, and he was acquitted; but the czarina was not
at all satisfied of his innocence. In February a defensive treaty
of alliance was concluded between the princess and the king of Great
Britain.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

BATTLE OF CAMPO-SANTO.

By this time France was deprived of her ablest minister, in the death
of the cardinal de Fleury, who had for many years manage