and intrigues of the Russian naval officers disgusted him to such a degree that he resigned and returned to Paris. The last years of his life were passed in obscurity. He died at Paris in 1792.

Paul Jones was a short, thick-set, active man, of great strength and endurance. He had a keen, bright eye, with a look of wildness in it. His voice was soft and gentle. In his dress, and in the equipage of his boat and ship, he was something of a dandy. In bravery and tenacity of purpose he has never been surpassed, but in the intercourse of private life he was one of the most amiable and polite of men.

GUSTAVUS III.

IN February, 1771, two Swedish princes, young, handsome, and intelligent, were at Paris, enjoying the hospitality of the French Court, and the various pleasures of the gay metropolis. Gustavus, the heir to the Swedish throne, was one of them, and his brother, the Duke of Sudermania, was the other. They were the more welcome in France, because they shared the skeptical opinions that were then so fashionable on the continent. The French philosophers, excluded from the presence and the favor of their own king, gathered round these princes, and celebrated their affability and liberality in prose and verse. Gustavus and his brother were preparing to visit Voltaire, in his retreat at Ferney, on the borders of Switzerland, when the news of the death of their father called them suddenly home. Voltaire, in one of his poetical epistles, expresses his disappointment at not having received them "in his desert, and in his humble home," as he pleased himself to style his elegant chateau and its magnificent grounds.

Gustavus became king, under the title of Gustavus III., in his twenty-sixth year. There is no doubt that he was a considerably enlightened and well-intentioned monarch, who desired to reform and elevate his country. Being the nephew of Frederick the Great, of Prussia, and his character having been formed at the time when Frederick's renown was at its zenith, when he was styled, "the Solomon and the Alexander of the North," it was natural that Gustavus should accept him as his model, both as a king and as a man, and that he should desire to govern Sweden as his uncle governed Prussia. But there was an obstacle in his way. Sweden was a very limited monarchy. The real authority of the State resided in a legislature,

composed of four orders of the kingdom, nobles, clergy, burghers, and peasants, a large and somewhat unmanageable body, which left to the king little more of royalty than the name and the external decorations. This legislature, like all representative bodies, in all ages, was divided into parties, whose conflict sometimes disturbed the country, and often retarded necessary legislation.

In such circumstances, there are two courses open to a chief magistrate.

One is, to use all his power, and the great influence which a virtuous head of government can scarcely fail to possess, to inıprove or reform the constitution of his country. This is a slow and difficult process, but it is one which outlasts the lifetime of him who worthily does it, and confers benefits that sometimes endure for a thousand years. There are Roman laws, legal methods and institutions, which to-day are serving all Christendom.

The other is, to destroy the constitution and found upon its ruins a despotism.

Gustavus III., young and impatient to begin his kingly work, chose the easier, the shorter, the ignoble course.

August 19th, 1772, the second year of his reign, a number of military officers, and other persons known to be disaffected toward the senate, were summoned to attend the king at his palace in Stockholm. While they were assembling, the king rode through the streets on horseback, bowing as he went, with particular affability, to the people, acknowledging the salute of the humblest person. He visited his regiment of artillery, to whom he was all condescension and politeness. Returning to the palace, he invited the officers and civilians whom he had summoned into the guard-room, where he delivered to them a long address, in which he displayed talents for oratory that would have powerfully aided him if he had sought to save liberty, instead of destroying it.

He began by hinting that, amid the dissensions of the time, his own life was threatened, and that he was compelled to seek safety in the counsels of the faithful officers and friends then in his presence. He painted in exaggerated colors the unhappy

condition of the kingdom, accusing the nobles of being bribed by foreign gold, of selling offices for money, of hindering all needed reforms by factious disputes and mean contentions for the supremacy. He then declared that it was now his design to put an end to the disorders of the senate, to banish corruption from the State, restore true liberty and the ancient lustre of the Swedish name. He solemnly disclaimed forever absolute power. "I am obliged," said he, in conclusion, "to defend my own liberty, and that of the kingdom, against the aristocracy, which reigns. Will you be faithful to me, as your forefathers were to Gustavus Vasa and Gustavus Adolphus? I will then risk my life for your welfare and that of my country."

As all the assembly appeared to acquiesce in the king's design, which they little understood, he instantly proposed to them an oath of unqualified obedience, which all but three as instantly took. One of the three, Frederic Cederström, a young captain of the king's guards, said that he had very recently taken an oath of fidelity to the senate, and consequently could not take this new oath, which was inconsistent with it.

"Think of what you are doing," said the king, sternly.

"I do," replied the young officer; "and what I think to-day I shall think to-morrow; and were I capable of breaking the oath by which I am already bound to the senate, I should be capable of breaking that which your majesty now requires me to take."

The king demanded the sword of Captain Cederström, and ordered him in arrest. Upon second thoughts, the king changed his tone, offered to return the sword and to excuse him from the oath, on condition of his attending him during the rest of that day. The young man remained true to his principles, and said that his majesty could not confide in him, and asked to be excused from the proposed service. He therefore remained under arrest with his two companions.

The officers being gained, it was an easy task to secure the co-operation of the soldiers and the good will of the people, by whom the young king was enthusiastically beloved. A guard of soldiers surrounded the senate-house, and locked in the members. The next morning the king presented himself be

fore that body and announced to them the changes he designed to make in the government. He declared that, in future, the king alone should have power to convene and dissolve the legislature; that the king should have the absolute command of army and navy, and the power to appoint and remove all officers, military, naval, and civil; that, in case of necessity, of which the king alone was to be the judge, he should impose taxes without consulting the senate; that the senate should discuss no subjects except those proposed by the king; but that no offensive war should be undertaken without their consent. He then declared the senate dissolved, and its members dismissed from all their employments. He concluded by taking a psalmbook from his pocket, and gave out a thanksgiving hymn, which the whole assembly rose and sang.

The king's triumph was complete. In two days, Sweden, from being the most strictly limited monarchy in Europe, became one of the most absolute.

The despotic power thus gained by lying and audacity, was employed by the king both for good and for evil. Many old abuses were reformed. Offices were no longer sold. On the other hand, a new and dangerous importance was given to the military and naval forces, both being greatly increased, better disciplined, better paid; so that the elite of the nation sought a career only in arms. The strength of his army and navy tempted the king to engage in foreign wars, in which he displayed an ability and courage which threw a veil of "glory" over fields of carnage and desolated provinces. Under the peaceful sway of the constitution, Sweden had enjoyed such a long period of repose that she had recovered from the exhausting wars of Charles XII. Under the rule of a despotic king, ambitious to make himself of consequence in Europe, she was plunged again and again into strife. When, in 1792, the eleventh year of his reign, the kings of Europe leagued themselves against republican France, Gustavus, too, remote as he was from the scene, was true to the instincts of despotism, and prepared to join in that gigantic raid upon the rights of a suffering, terrified, and distracted nation.

The nobles, meanwhile, excluded from their share in the