victorious war with that country which threatened to aid the separatists. The war broke out in 1788. The threat of occupation hung over Finland again, and the alarmed Finnish army officers sought a way to negotiate, utilizing the contact the independenceminded group had establish with Russia. Jägerhorn pursued his plan for independence meanwhile; he wrote a letter to the Empress Catherine and succeeded in getting several high officers to sign his letter.

In this so-called Liikala Note was explained the kingdom's, and especially the Finnish peoples', desire to see peace between Russia and Sweden. Jägerhorn was chosen carry the letter in person to St. Petersburg, and when he arrived there he requested Catherine both to call a Finnish Diet into session and to proclaim Finland an independent country, and he promised the Empress Finnish cooperation in carrying out the intent of such a proclamation. However, the Russians reacted to Jägerhorn's proposals with mistrust, and the reply the Empress gave him to take back did not bear her signature, doubtless with the sound reason that it was improper to give the King of Sweden cause to argue that Russia had instigated revolt within the Finnish army. In her reply, Catherine appealed to the Finns to elect representatives to a Diet of their own; she further insisted that Finnish forces were to withdraw from Russian soil.

When Gustav III heard of this contact of his officers with the enemy, he ordered them all to sign a statement, vowing to fight the kingdom's enemies to the last man. Instead of giving such assurances, 113 officers commanding Finnish troops signed another and altogether different statement in Anjala : according to them, Sweden was the aggressor, and the military situation was depicted as being so hopeless that it was due not to Swedish arms but Russian magnanimity that death and destruction had not swept over all Finland, and consequently all who were signing this declaration assumed responsibility for the Liikala note and were turning to the Empress Catherine for help.

The King thereupon made a proclamation : he listed his own and the Swedish kingdom's activities on Finland's behalf and pointed out as a warning to those who relied on the prospects of independence gained with the help of Russia the fate of Poland and the Crimea. The scales began to turn in favor of the King. The last sign of life of the Finnish independence movement was a "Diet" held at the end of the year on an isolated estate, attended by landowners from along the eastern border. Under Jägerhorn's leadership, they formed a body which declared the Grand Duchy

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