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deemed by general opinion to be the public man of his day who approached nearest to the standard of an ideal perfection. As a military writer, the Archduke Charles deserves a place in the very first rank. His works have been translated into French by Jomini and others, which is alone a proof of their high estimation; and Napoleon is said by Marmont to have applied this laconic remark, when recommending them as an indispensable study for an officer, "Lisez les; relisez les." The Archduke Charles acted as proxy for Napoleon at the marriage of the Archduchess Maria Louisa, but afterwards retired to his estates, and was lost to usefulness, and almost to the memory of the public, in the interval that thence ensued to his death, in 1843.

31. WAR IN SCANDINAVIA-CHANGE OF DYNASTY IN SWEDEN.

A revolution occurred in the early part of this year in Sweden, which added yet another to the many extraordinary examples of the instability of human greatness and the insecurity of thrones which have distinguished this age. King Gustavus IV. had shown extraordinary pertinacity in bringing upon the country the enmity of the whole French confederacy, while Russia was, for objects of her own, and, despite all opposition from the Swedish army, carrying invasion into the very heart of the land. The violent and arbitrary conduct of the monarch was little calculated to conciliate the affections of his subjects, or soothe their wounded nationality, under continual reverses; nor had they forgotten that they had been once a free people; so that the warmth of their patriotism, under the apprehension of the ruin of their state, produced a general opinion among their most influential statesmen that a change of dynasty had become indispensable. It soon became publicly known that, undeterred by the loss of Pomerania and Finland, Gustavus still resolved to renew the war in the spring, and the Swedes justly apprehended the entire subjugation of their country, and the ruin of their independence. In this emergency, they cast about for some foreign power strong enough to uphold their country against the united forces of France and Russia, and, in such circumstances, naturally thought of Great Britain. therefore sent a deputation to offer secretly their throne to the Duke of Gloucester, the nephew of King George III.; but the British Government declined to embroil themselves in the disputes of a country with which they had no ties of interest, family or kindred. The Swedes, in such a contingency, then appealed to Napoleon, who equally declined to mix himself up with their disputes. The Swedish malcontents, therefore, were forced to trust to their own resources, and in the course they adopted, they acted as became patriots. They ordered, early in March, the army on the Norwegian frontier, under Colonel Alderspaare, to march upon Stockholm. The King, informed of his object, immediately hastened to the capital, and shut himself up with his guards in his palace, the avenues of which he strongly fortified and prepared for resistance.

They

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THE VISTULA STAINED WITH BLOOD.

[A.D.

At the same time, a committee headed by Baron d'Alderscrantz and General Klingpoor, boldly waited on His Majesty to apprise him that he would not be permitted to quit the capital, and the keepers of the public treasury, at their instigation, refused to give him money. On the 13th, the conspirators again entered the palace to confer with His Majesty. The King drew his sword upon Alderscrantz, but he was disarmed, arrested, and committed to close custody. His uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, immediately undertook the administration of the Executive, and convoked a General Diet, to consider the grave circumstances of the succession to the crown. The King, at once, made a formal renunciation, and the Diet conferred the crown on the Duke of Sudermania, who was proclaimed King on the 5th of June. No disturbances whatever took place on this change of dynasty, and the people appeared so satisfied, that even the theatres of Stockholm remained open as if nothing unusual had occurred.

32. WAR IN POLAND.

The waters of the Vistula had been slightly stained with blood in the late campaign. The Archduke Ferdinand was in Poland at the head of a corps of Austrians 32,000 strong, with 96 guns. The French army opposed to him was under the direction of Prince Poniatowski, who had only 22,000 men in his ranks to oppose to the Archduke. On the 19th of April the two armies engaged near Baszyn, when the Polish Prince was forced to retire and uncover Warsaw, with the loss of 500 killed and 4 pieces of cannon. Poniatowski, quitting the capital, took up a position on the Bug; whence, remounting the right bank of the Vistula, he marched to unite himself with Prince Galitzin's army of 20,000 Russians. The numbers were forth with reversed, and the Austrians were overpowered and routed by the confederate forces near Gora on the 18th of May, but were enabled to retire into the provinces of old Prussia, where they succeeded in raising the standard of insurrection in the very neighbourhood of Dantzic. Poniatowski, however, leaning towards the Moravian frontier, seized Cracow, and Ferdinand thought it prudent to fall back upon the army of the Generalissimo, which he had just joined when the armistice of Znaim put an end to the war.

33. WAR IN ITALY AND THE IONIAN ISLANDS.

The British Admiral in the Mediterranean, Lord Collingwood, found, on exploring the coasts by his cruisers, that the Roman and Tuscan shores were absolutely denuded of troops, and drew the attention of Sir John Stuart, the General commanding the British force in Sicily, to this circumstance, suggesting that it might be well to assist the Archduke John's operations in the Italian peninsula, by making a descent on some point of the kingdom of Naples. Accordingly, the subject was broached to the Sicilian court, and a joint military expedition, of which Sir John Stuart and H.R.H.

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COLLINGWOOD HARASSES THE FRENCH.

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Prince Leopold, with the Marquis de St. Clara, and General Bouchard took the command, appeared on the 13th of June, off the coast of Calabria. A detachment, under Lieutenant-colonel Smith, immediately landed and seized the Castle of Scylla, which they dismantled and then abandoned. On the 24th the squadron anchored off Cape Miseno, and preparations were immediately made for an attack on the island of Ischia. The descent was effected by Generals M'Farlane and Lumley at the head of the 21st and 81st regiments, and other detachments, amounting to 2,340 men, who advanced rapidly upon some 200 or 300 men, who opposed their landing, and made the whole of them prisoners. General Calonne, who commanded, retired with his principal force into the castle, which he surrendered on the 30th, after breaching-batteries had been established. The adjacent garrison of Procida being summoned, surrendered also on the same day. The object of the expedition was not, however, to retain these paltry conquests, but to induce the authorities at Naples to recall the troops which had been sent off to reinforce the Viceroy in the north of Italy. As soon, therefore, as it was thought that this object had been effectually attained, the expedition returned to Sicily with a good many prisoners, and 100 pieces of cannon. The British blockading force off Toulon witnessed, at this time, a singular effect of these harassing demonstrations upon the enemy's operations. The French ships came to the outermost waters of the harbour, where they had never ventured before, as if ready for some start, and Admiral Allemande was sent for from Rochefort to supersede Admiral Gantheaume. One day a great stir was manifest in the enemy's fleet, which got under way, and the British blockading squadron prepared to receive it, but, after sails were all up, and decks cleared, the demonstration suddenly came to an end. It was said that the two French admirals could not agree as to what they ought to do; but, at all events, they did nothing, and the ships anchored again.

General L'Espine, with an Austrian force, marched from Trieste to Fiume: from Fiume to Zara; and from Zara back to Trieste again; but he had evidently no fixed plan, and, although the British fleet were hovering about to aid him in his object, they could not divine what it was, and consequently were unable to render him any assistance.

Admiral Lord Collingwood was always on the alert to harass the French within the limits of his command, and now urged Sir John Stuart to send a detachment of the Sicilian army to co-operate with a squadron in seizing the Ionian islands. 1,600 men, under Brigadier Oswald, were accordingly embarked in transports, convoyed by the "Warrior," 74, Captain Spranger; and "Spartan," 38, Captain Jahleel Brenton, who sailed from Messina on the 23rd of September. On the 1st of October these were joined by the Magnificent," "Belle Poule," and "Kingfisher," when they all anchored for the night in the bay of Zante, out of reach of the batteries. The expedition was undertaken with so much secrecy that, although the enemy manned their guns upon seeing the

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troops disembark, yet they did not open fire. The General formed up his men, moved forward, and invested the castle, which surrendered upon terms the same afternoon. Cerigo, Cephalonia, and Ithaca successively adopted the same course, and acceded to similar terms of capitulation, under which the Septinsular Republic was restored, and brought to nearly the same condition of independence as it remains at present.

34. NAPOLEON ANNEXES ROME TO HIS EMPIRE.

Napoleon now formally annexed the patrimony of St. Peter to his kingdom of Italy. The French general, Miollis, in command of the Castle of St. Angelo, entered the Palace of the Quirinal suddenly on the 17th of May, and with great violence and disrespect made the Pope prisoner; when the temporal domains were forthwith seized under an Imperial decree, and Rome declared to be the second city of Napoleon's empire. The mighty conqueror stripped His Holiness of all his temporal power, notwithstanding a lavish use of ecclesiastical thunder, and merely allowed him to retain his spiritual dignities. On the 8th of June Pius VII. was ordered to depart from the City of the Seven Hills, and, accordingly, took his way towards Avignon. In November a deputation of the Roman nobility repaired to Paris to lay at the Emperor's feet their homage and gratitude for this release from elerical government. Half a century has since rolled away, and the question of the temporal possessions of the Pope again occupies the attention of the world. Perhaps another half century may pass before such an act of truly sound policy as the removal of a pseudoreligious temporal monarchy from the face of the earth shall be consummated; before the so long barely tolerated earthly crown of a petty sovereign, with its antiquated conclave of cardinals and mischievous society of Propaganda, shall be exchanged for the really influential position of a Supreme Pontiff, to whom united Christianity might look up with respect and confidence for the concentration of the powers of pure religion and useful learning against the evil influences of infidelity and immorality. The name of Roman Catholic sounds to our common sense a paradox. We see every day that the sect becomes more Roman and less Catholic throughout the world; but how largely must it increase in substantial influence, and how much of its ancient splendour would it obtain, if it would become strictly Catholic by ceasing to be Roman altogether!

35. WAR RENEWED BETWEEN RUSSIA AND TURKEY BATTLE OF TARTARIZZA.

The peace of Tilsit had for the moment the influence of an armistice upon the conflict still going on between the Turks and Russians; but the subsequent revolutions at Constantinople so crippled the Porte that it would seem as if the teeth of the Otto

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mans were altogether drawn, that the " sick man was already in extremis, and likely to receive at this time the coup de grâce from his traditional adversary. On the other hand, the war in Finland having come to an end, and the French Emperor being now fully occupied with the serious armaments against his power in Austria and Spain, and apparently indifferent about either the Czar or the Sultan, or the results of a campaign in Wallachia and Servia, Alexander quietly reinforced his army on the Danube, and ordered it to be carried across that river.

The Russians, nevertheless, were far from reaping that benefit from the internal distractions of Turkey which, from their overwhelming superiority of disposable force at this juncture, might have been anticipated. 125 battalions of foot, 95 squadrons of horse, and 10,000 Cossacks were placed under the command of Prince Prosorowsky, whose orders were to march into the heart of the Ottoman Empire and threaten its downfall. This prince, however, though he had been an able general, was little acquainted with the peculiarities of Turkish warfare, and, at a moment when everything depended upon vigorous action, did little but pass across the Danube. The advanced guard, indeed, under Prince Miloradovitch, defeated the enemy at Slobosca and blockaded Giourschef, where he was subsequently repulsed in an attempt to take the place by escalade, and lost 2,000 or 3,000 men. In Servia the war had been kept alive against the Turks by Czerny George, who now openly espoused the Russian cause, and the Porte, weakened by late events, had not sufficient force to keep the field against both enemies. Sultan Mahmoud, therefore, adopted the plan of merely protecting himself against the hostile demonstrations of Russia by throwing strong garrisons into the frontier fortresses, and carrying his entire disposable force against Czerny George, whom he caused to be attacked in the month of May at Nizza, to which place he had penetrated, and he was, accordingly, obliged to fall back again under the cannon of Belgrade, and to retire his army behind the Morava. Prosorowsky, however, marched down in support of his Servian allies, but failed with great loss in attempting to carry some fortresses. However, General Nenandovitch, with a Russian corps, entered Bosnia and stormed the Turkish entrenchments there, obliging the army to retire from them behind the Drina. Such was the condition of the contest at the beginning of August.

Prince Prosorowsky now haughtily announced that he would cross the Danube with 40,000 men, and advance to the foot of the Balkan; and, in pursuance of this resolve, he passed over the river at Galatz to carry his threat into execution. The old Russian Marshal was, however, staggered at the progress of the war in Germany, and with the success of Napoleon at Wagram, followed as it had been by the submission of Austria, and though it could not be said to concern in the least his campaign against the Turks, his army rested again perfectly quiescent. The Turks availed themselves of the repose of the Prince immediately, in order to overwhelm the Servians, and the Grand-Vizier boldly crossed at Giurgevo on the