A gunsmith at Stockholm identified the pistol, and declared he had recently sold it to a Swedish gentleman, formerly an officer in the guards, named Ankastroem.

They found Ankastroem at his house, neither thinking of exculpation nor of flight.

He confessed the weapon and the crime.

An unjust judgment, he averred, in which however the king spared his life, the wearisomeness of an existence which he had cherished to employ and make illustrious at its close for his country's advantage, the hope, if he succeeded, of a national recompence worthy of the deed, had, he declared, inspired this project; and he claimed to himself alone the glory or disgrace.

He denied all plot and all accomplices.