157
7th Thursday [–8th Friday].1
JQA
7th Thursday [–8th Friday].
Adams, John Quincy
7th Thursday –8th Friday.1
This afternoon at about 4 o'clock we passed thro' Borgo Borga which
is a small fortified town. We rode all night and arrived at about 7 o'clock in the morning
on the 8th. at Helsingfors, a small town not very strongly fortified, but remarkable for the
fortress of Sweaborg Sveaborg an island situated at about ¼ of a
Swedish mile from Helsingfors and which they say is as strong as Gibraltar. At about 11.
o'clock we went and paid a visit to the Count Posse2 governor general of all the troops in Swedish Finland. We desired of
him a permission to see the fortress of Sweaborg. He told us that it was impossible for us
to go to day because the wind was high and contrary so that we should arrive there too late,
but that tomorrow he would willingly give us a permission. We dined and supped with him at
his house.
1.
Entries for 7–8 Nov. continue without interruption in the Diary; date lines are in the
margin, however.
2.
Fredrik Arvidsson Posse, a close associate of King Gustav III, who
was given full command of the Swedish army in Finland in 1780 and served as
commander-in-chief of the Finnish division during the war with Russia in 1788 (Biographiskt Lexicon öfver Namnkunnige Svenska Män, 23 vols.,
Orebo and Uppsala, 1836–1857).