Gazette Of The United States

STOCKHOLM.

The King of Sweden's Speech, on closing the Diet. February 23.

GENTLEMEN,

On the opening of the Diet, which I am this day so happy as to close, I told you, that at a time when an unbridled licentiousness was shaking or overturning governments, I was not afraid to convoke you—I confided in your attachments to me, and the noble manner of thinking of the nation, for conducting in peace and tranquility, the important affairs which occasioned your being convoked. My hopes have not been deceived; and after having shown in war, that you are the same people whose courage in former times alternately shook or fortified thrones, you now give to your contemporaries an example still more noble, of the vigorous prudence and union with which a wise and enlightened people conduct their deliberations, when the head of the state calls for their advice on important affairs. This example is so much the more grand, that you are the only people who give it; that by doing so, you justify the confidence which I reposed in you; and by this mutual union, you fortify the internal peace and strength of your country, at the same time that you augment that consideration abroad, which your courage has so justly merited.

If, as the first citizen, as he in whose contemplation the good of the state and yours are most intimately connected, I ought in the name of our country to express to you a degree of gratitude worthy of you and of me; how sensibly must my heart be affected by that attachment and the love, which during the sitting of this Diet, you have testified for me and my son? How much, in his young breast, must be fortified that regard for, and confidence in a generous people, who from his infancy gave him such proofs of attachment. You have seen him attending to your instructions; and under my guidance instructing himself to fulfil the important duty to which providence may one day call him. I wished to accustom him early to business, and to teach him to esteem a people whom he is to govern, to love their laws and respect their liberty. In expressing your wishes to see my son soon increase the family, and thus give the necessary strength and security to the succession to the throne, you have participated my paternal hopes. Such a sentiment must assuredly add to my gratitude, if my heart were not already full.

You are now to return to your homes to resume your occupations in peace, and to share with your fellow-citizens the satisfaction of having contributed to the public good and the maintenance of the state. I am to watch over the happiness of our country and of yours. I shall endeavour to encourage agriculture, and commerce; to maintain the sacredness of the laws, the execution of justice, and the respect due to religion. In short, I am to apply myself to all the cares which my duty and my situation require of me, but which the love and the gratitude with which your attachment so sensibly affect my heart require in still greater degree.

These duties, which never cease for a moment, which occupy the whole of life, become more easy when they are executed for a beloved people; support is then derived from a true zeal, from a sense of honor, and still more from the satisfaction of doing every thing in my power to prove my gratitude, and preserve in your hearts the sentiments with which you leave this place.

It is with these sentiments that I this day close the Diet; it will be with the same sentiments that I shall again receive you before the throne, when our common interest may require that you be convoked.
Feb. 24. Some individuals having taken the liberty to censure the Administration of the finances of Sweden, & some of their writings breathing too great a degree of licentiousness, his Majesty on the 6th inst. prohibited the printing or publishing, during the course of the Diet then assembled, of any thing respecting the subject of the deliberations of the said Diet. The King took every precaution to secure an exact conformity to his wishes in the Diet, by procuring the appointment of a secret committee to prepare the several branches of business for discussion; and to prevent any disputes that might arise from being generally known, by prohibiting the publication of any account of the proceedings. Notwithstanding these precautions it has transpired, that several of his propositions have been warmly opposed in the secret committee; and one, for continuing the same members on this committee during the whole session, absolutely rejected by the Diet.

The following is said to be the state of parties for the king. In opposition.

Clergy 34 12
Citizens 71 19
Peasants 120 30
Nobles 42 360

The King has consequently a majority in three of the orders, and almost the whole of the fourth against him. But while the nobles contend only for the restoration of their own privileges, and overbearing influence in the government, there is no danger of their being joined by either of the other orders, to whom the power exercised by the Senate was much more formidable than the prerogative of the King.

A few days ago arrived at Gottenburg, M. de Bouille, son of the Marquis de Bouille, and the Marquis de Tchudi, a Swiss officer of great distinction; they came on a deputation from the French Princes.