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CHAPTER II.

External Relations.

THE internal and external condition of the Scandinavian kingdoms are so closely interwoven, that it is difficult-indeed impossible, to separate them. All which in this rapid sketch. I have attempted to do is to separate Diplomacy as acting on Institutions and as acting on Dismemberment, and the play of anterior Alliances leading to it. To the latter point

I shall now more particularly address myself.

Whatever pain the decay of the two other Scandinavian kingdoms may occasion, still more lamentable is the sight of the degradation of that people who has placed in the highest historic rank the name of Scandinavia, and which is distinguished above all other European nations as the chivalrous foe of the enemy of Europe. A line of heroic princes has made the name of Sweden familiar even to our schoolboy recollections; the genius of her monarchs and the valour of her soldiers have largely influenced the destiny of Europe; and to Sweden is Protestantism indebted for its triumph at the Treaty of Westphalia. But if the name of Sweden is illustrated by great and chivalrous acts, by trophies of just arms and sacrifices to honour, her name is also rescued from oblivion by others of a different character-she has marked her career in Europe by ambitious projects. Here, as everywhere, injustice abroad has borne its fruits at home -if unsuccessful, ruin; if successful, fetters.

That point in Swedish history which chiefly bears on the present subject is that of Charles XII. By an instinct common to Frederick II and Napoleon, he felt that in the Eastern world lay the strength that could be evoked against Russia. It was this thought that carried a Swedish army to the Ukraine, and which left Scandinavian bones at Pultava.

This apparently insane march spread through the East the fame and the name of Sweden; thus magnified, it was reflected on Europe with enduring splendour. It was this struggle which developed Russia's military power; Charles rendered to her the same service which the Lacedæmonians did to the Thebans, and further, by his failure first spread the delusion of her inaccessibility.

Gustavus the Third seized the occasion of the war of Catherine with the Turks to retake the provinces wrested from Sweden, and to check the power of the Czarina. The windows of her palace were shaken by his cannon, and a large proportion of the Russian navy sunk; but she knew how to raise up enemies to him at home in Faction and at sea in Denmark, and it was this enterprising Monarch who put his hand with her to a Treaty to "maintain the Principle of the Baltic as a CLOSE SEA, with the guarantee of its coast against all acts of hostility, violence, or aggression whatever, and further to employ for that purpose all the means in the power of the respective contracting parties."

It thus fell to the lot of Gustavus the Third to establish the maritime, as of Charles the Twelfth, the military power of Russia. Gustavus now having learnt that Ink was worth more than Gunpowder, threw the idle Sword away and took to the Printing Press.

In one of the most remarkable works of recent times,— "The Danger of Europe," he exposed the worthlessness of carnal weapons against a Cabinet, versed in every evil art, which knew how to contaminate and circumvent. It appropriately replied by the Assassin's Bullet.

The fleets to be excluded by the compact with Gustavus III. from the Baltic were those of England. It was Sweden who had implored, and implored in vain, their presence. The power of Sweden and of Denmark was now given to her as protection,-when at length Retaliation came, it fell, not on Cronstadt, but on Copenhagen! Who will not mentally revert to more recent events in the Black Sea and at Constantinople? The fates and events of these kingdoms are so closely inter

woven that the catastrophe of Copenhagen affected Sweden as much as if it had occurred at Stockholm.

Copenhagen had been bombarded, not merely as a remote effect of the Armed Neutrality of Catharine, but as an immediate one of that of Paul. Whatever the cause, by the fact, England was momentarily rendered supreme in the Baltic; but a letter from Alexander, who had just succeeded to the possession of the crown, to Nelson, who had just succeeded to the command of the fleet, sufficed to turn the bows of the English vessels westward, and to leave again Russia dominant over that now prostrate Sea. She then concluded a peace with England of which Denmark was the sole sacrifice.*

Denmark, not having a chivalrous monarch nor a factious people, saw in the French war no field of enterprise and no necessity of exertion; she therefore remained at peace, profiting by the convulsions around her, increasing her trade and restoring her marine. It was necessary to smite her with

a second blow; the ready hand of England was again available. But Russia herself was at war with France and the Ally of England: how was this to be effected? Shortly before the second Bombardment of Copenhagen, Napoleon desired to make peace, and after the Battle of Austerlitz all Europe desired peace, Russia excepted. Negotiations between England and France had been opened and carried to a successful conclusion, even at Paris itself, and every matter pending between the two Powers had been adjusted. But England and Russia at the beginning of the war had agreed not to make a separate peace, and England, faithful to her engagements-she always is faithful to Russia-broke

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"The Expedition" (against Copenhagen) was imposed upon England by the frantic and deceitful conduct of Paul."-Bell's Russia, vol. iii, p. 260.

"Denmark alone had any just reason to be dissatisfied with these arrangements: she was compelled to submit to the abandonment of those principles for the maintenance of which she had expended so much blood and treasure, and saw herself forsaken by the very power who forced her into that confederation which plunged her into the war with England."-Ibid., p. 264-5.

off the negotiation, because Russia wanted and Napoleon would not let her have, Moldavia and Wallachia. The French armies consequently march to the North and extinguish Prussia.

The reasons now redoubled on the part of France for desiring peace, but Russia encouraged Napoleon to go on by sacrificing to him 60,000 Russians in the short campaign of Dantzig and the battle of Friedland; and then, having just before frustrated his peaceful overtures, she made this the pretext for partitioning Prussia, whom she had forced to continue the war, and betraying England, whom she had pushed into it. A faithless ambassador of her own then betrayed to England the secret article of the Treaty of Tilsit.* The English Cabinet, thus enlightened, bombarded Copenhagen the second time. Russia now declared against England, engaging Denmark in a reciprocal guarantee for the tranquillity of the Baltic, which, as she asserted, had been established with the PRIVITY of the Cabinet of St. James's.†

* The secret article referred to Denmark only generally, in common with Sweden, Portugal, and Austria herself; it applied in like man. ner to Turkey, whose Capital England was also induced to attempt to bombard, and with the same effect as in Denmark.

+ "Wounded in his dignity, in the interests of his people, in his engagements with the Courts of the North, by this act of violence committed in the Baltic, which is an inclosed sea, whose tranquillity had been for a long period, and with the privity of the Cabinet of St. James's, the subject of reciprocal guarantee, did not dissemble his resentment against England, and announced to her, &c.”— Manifesto of the 20th October, 1807.

The same document contains this passage: cr Then it was that England suddenly quitted that apparent lethargy to which she had abandoned herself: but it was to cast upon the North of Europe new firebrands, which were to enkindle and nourish the flames of war, which she did not wish to see extinguished. Her fleets and her troops appeared upon the coasts of Denmark, to execute there an act of violence, of which history, so fertile in examples, does not furnish a single parallel. A tranquil and moderate Power, which by long and unchanging wisdom had obtained in the circle of Monarchies a moral dignity, sees itself assaulted and treated as if it had been forging plots, and meditating the ruin of England; and all to justify its prompt and total spoliation."

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Sweden, however, remained true to England, and thus found herself at war with Russia, who offered to her peace, on the condition that the King of Sweden will without delay join Russia and Denmark in shutting the Baltic against England."* The offer was however rejected, and England proffered, for the second time, the transfer to her of Norway. Sweden's participation in the war only enabled Russia to occupy one half of her territory, Finland.

We now come to the great Event of the North, in which the Tribunal of Vienna exercised the high and double functions of grace and justice-where, passing from the meaner occupation of restoring rights, it proceeded to the higher duties of awarding punishment and conferring recompense; taking a kingdom in its hand, it abstracted it from the delinquent and conferred it on the meritorious, Denmark being punished for being on the unfortunate side, Sweden being recompensed for being on the other. But strange to say, the punished Government had been by the judges themselves forced in its option, and had voluntarily abandoned its party, and the recompensed Government was itself simultaneously dismembered!

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This transaction, unparalleled in the atrocity of its avowed purpose, but almost incredible in the perfidy of the agency employed, has been brought to light in all its details in works of unquestionable authority; "the facts," says the continuator of Bignon, "have been irrevocably acquired for history: recent events show that they have not been acquired for instruction. Since the above quoted words were written further light has been thrown on the matter by a Swedish publication, which has, indeed, attracted no notice beyond the limits of Scandinavia. I content myself, however, with the exposition as it is given by the historian of French Diplomacy.

When Alexander met Bernadotte at Abo, in 1812, it was secretly arranged between them that Sweden at the general

* Manifesto, 10th February, 1808.

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