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In 1742, therefore, she looked about for a suitable successor, and chose her nephew, Prince Peter of Holstein-Gottorp. Peter, then a mere youth of seventeen, was delighted with so splendid a future, and came at once to St. Petersburg. The empress next sought for a girl who might marry the young prince and thus become the future Czarina.

On the sixteenth of the same month prince Eugene marched from his camp at Haspre, and was followed by all the auxiliaries in the British pay, except a few battalions of the troops of Holstein-Gottorp, and Walef's regiment of dragoons, belonging to the state of Liege.

After the Swedish general, Steenbock, and his army were made prisoners, count Wellen concluded a treaty with the administrator of Holstein-Gottorp, by which the towns of Stetin and Wisma were sequestered into the hands of the king of Prussia; the administrator engaged to secure them, and all the rest of Swedish Pomerania, from the Poles and Muscovites; but as the governor of Pomerania refused to comply with this treaty, those allies marched into the province, subdued the island of Eugen, and obliged Stetin to surrender.

His Father and Mother are both dead; loving Aunt has snatched the poor boy out of Holstein-Gottorp, which is a narrow sphere, into Russia, which is wide enough; she has had him converted to the Greek Church, named him Peter Federowitz, Heir and Successor; and now, wishing to see him married, has earnestly consulted Friedrich upon it.

Stralsund instantly beat the chamade, as we heard; and all was surrender and subjection in those regions. Surrender; not yet pacification, not while Charles lived; nor for half a century after his death, could Mecklenburg, Holstein-Gottorp, and other his confederates, escape a sad coil of calamities bequeathed by him to them.

In 1742, therefore, she looked about for a suitable successor, and chose her nephew, Prince Peter of Holstein-Gottorp. Peter, then a mere youth of seventeen, was delighted with so splendid a future, and came at once to St. Petersburg. The empress next sought for a girl who might marry the young prince and thus become the future Czarina.

Her nephew, Peter, the son of her sister, Anna, and of Charles Frederick, Prince of Holstein-Gottorp, the heir to the throne of Russia, was a profound admirer of the great Prussian monarch, took him for his model, secretly corresponded with him, became his spy at the Russian court, and made no secret of his intention to enter into alliance with him on the death of the Empress.

This conquest, however, was of short duration. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick being joined by a body of Prussian horse, under the command of prince George of Holstein-Gottorp, the whole army was put in motion, and advanced to the country of Bremen about the middle of February.

The person they did choose, satisfactory to the Czarina, and who ultimately did become King of Sweden, was one Adolf Friedrich; a Holstein-Gottorp Prince, come of Royal kin, and cousinry to Karl XII.: he is "Bishop of Lubeck" or of Eutin, so styled; now in his thirty-third year; and at least drawing the revenues of that See, though I think, not ecclesiastically given, but living oftener in Hamburg, the then fashionable resort of those Northern Grandees.

A secret understanding to this effect was entered into by Frederick IV. of Denmark, King Augustus of Poland, and Peter the Great, czar of Russia, and the ball was opened early in 1700 by an invasion of Livonia on the part of the Polish king, while the Danes attacked Holstein-Gottorp, ruled by Charles's brother-in-law, taking Gottorp and laying siege to Tonnigen.