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THROUGH LAPLAND. 71
Romantic as this account may appear, we were not backward
to give it credit. My companion particularly, who was’a Swedifh
officer, affented to it moft readily, like a good patriot, who difco-
vered with indignation a fraud committed againft the interefts of
his country. We made a thoufand political reflections on the dif-
ferent means and arts of corruption, and on the great value fet by
governments on trifling matters: we thought that poffibly the
two powers had left this {mall territory in an unfettled ftate, in
order that they might not want a pretence, wheneyer they fhould
chufe to come toarupture. If I might have been permitted to
do juftice to our political talents and acute inveftigation, I fhould
have faid that we difplayed great knowledge as well as eloquence
on the prefent fubject. Butalas! the fact was, that all we had
- heard, and what had given rife to our /age obfervations, was a
mere fable. The true caufe of the eccentricity noticed in the
line of demarcation, was a thing perfectly natural, and in confor-
mity with the treaty of 1751, between the courts of Stockholm
and Copenhagen, by which it was fettled that the boundary fhould
be fixed by the fources of rivers; that is to fay, that all that tract
oi country of which the rivers run into the Frozen Ocean, fhould
belong to Denmark: and on the other hand, all that fhould be
held as Swedifh Lapland, of which the rivers fall into the gulf of
Bothnia. More than a year after my journey to Lapland, I be-
came acquainted at Drontheim, the capital of the northern parts
of Norway, with the Danifh commiffary who had been employed
in this bufinefs, and from him I learned the true principle or bafis
on
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