ia, electress dowager of Hanover, and grand-daughter
of James I. It was with a view to concert the establishment of her
succession, that the court of Brunswick now returned the visit of king
William. The present state of affairs in England, however, afforded a
very uncomfortable prospect. The people were generally alienated from
the person and government of the reigning king, upon whom they seem to
have surfeited. The vigour of their minds was destroyed by luxury and
sloth; the severity of their morals was relaxed by a long habit of
venality and corruption. The king's health began to decline, and even
his faculties decayed apace. No person was appointed to ascend the
throne when it should become vacant. The Jacobite faction alone was
eager, vigilant, enterprising and elate. They despatched Mr. Graham,
brother of lord Preston, to the court of St. Germain's, immediately
after the death of the duke of Gloucester; they began to bestir
themselves all over the kingdom. A report was spread that the princess
Anne had privately sent a message to her father, and that Britain was
once more threatened with civil war, confusion, anarchy, and ruin.

A FLEET SENT INTO THE BALTIC.

In the meantime King William was not inactive. The kings of Denmark and
Poland, with the elector of Brandenburgh, had formed a league to crush
the young-king of Sweden, by invading his dominions on different sides.
The Poles actually entered Livonia, and undertook the siege of Riga; the
king of Denmark, having demolished some forts in Holstein, the duke
of which was connected with Sweden, invested Tonninghen. The Swedish
minister in England demanded that assistance of William which had been
stipulated in a late renewal of the ancient treaty between England
and Sweden. The states of Holland were solicited to the same purpose.
Accordingly, a fleet of thirty sail, English and Dutch, was sent to the
Baltic under the command of sir George Rooke, who joined the Swedish
squadron, and bombarded Copenhagen, to which the Danish fleet had
retired. At the same time the duke of Lunenbourg, with the Swedish
forces which happened to be at Bremen, passed the Elhe, and marched to
the assistance of the duke of Holstein. The Danes immediately abandoned
the siege of Tonninghen, and a body of Saxons, who had made an irruption
into the territories of the duke of Brunswick, were obliged to retreat
in disorder. By the mediation of William, a negotiation was begun for
a treat