When in the year 1788 he suddenly attacked Russia, victory remained undecided in a naval engagement between his fleet under the Duke of Sudermania and that of the Empress under the Scoto-Russian Admiral Greig, and his nobles who served in the Marine refused to act further in a war, which seemed to have no cause but the will of the King. Gustavus was inflamed by this opposition; he wished an object on which to vent his wrath and pride, and soon found one in the Regiment of Abo. A brief armistice had ensued, during which he summoned a diet at Stockholm, where, on the 22nd February, 1789, by a preponderance of three inferior states, a declaration placed in his hands unlimited power, and he still resolved to prosecute the hopeless war against Russia. In the army, at the head of which he placed himself, was this Regiment of Finlanders from Abo, a province which comprehends a part of Eastern Bothnia and the Aland Isles, whose inhabitants are a hardy and industrious race. The regiment fought with all the hereditary bravery of the old Finns, and served at the capture of several small towns; but the arms of Gustavus were unsuccessful by land, where his measures were disconcerted by an event which he could not have foreseen. After making all his preparations to storm the strong fort and town of Fredericksham, which had been ceded to the Empress Elizabeth in 1743, and the repossession of which would have opened to him the gates of the Russian capital, his officers, and chiefly those of the Finnish Regiment of Abo, flatly refused to pass the frontier, alleging as a reason, "that the constitution of the Swedish kingdom would not permit them to be accessory to foreign war which the nation had not sanctioned." This put an end to what was named the Finland Expedition; it gave the enemy time to put themselves in a perfect state of defence, and filled Gustavus with fresh fury; but despite the attempts of the Russians to intercept him, he reached Borgo, an old seaport in the district of Nyeland, where he established his headquarters, and where his first act was to assemble the whole Swedish Army, under arms, on the 8th of June, 1789, in front of the town, and along the margin of the river, which there flows into the Gulf of Finland. A hollow square of contiguous close columns of Horse, Dragoons and Infantry was then formed; the whole were ordered to prime and load with ball-cartridge. The Artillery were unlimbered and loaded with round and cannister shot, in case of resistance, though none, save a very few, knew precisely what was about to ensue. Then the fated Regiment of Abo, which had taken so marked a part in the defection before Fredericksham, was marched in a solid close column of companies into the centre of this vast hollow square, with its colours flying; and a hum of expectation and surprise, not unmixed with dismay, pervaded the whole assembled masses.