THREE:The commercial treaty with France, Pitt's greatest achievement as a financier, was not signed until the recessnamely, in September. It was conceived entirely in the spirit of Free Trade, and was an honest attempt to establish a perpetual alliance between the two nations. Its terms were:That it was to continue in force for twelve years; with some few exceptions prohibitory duties between the two countries were repealed; the wines of France were admitted at the same rate as those of Portugal; privateers belonging to any nation at war with one of the contracting parties might no longer equip themselves in the ports of the other; and complete religious and civil liberty was granted to the inhabitants of each country while residing in the other. One result of the treaty was the revival of the taste for light French wines which had prevailed before the wars of the Revolution, and a decline in the sale of the fiery wines of the Peninsula. But the treaty was bitterly attacked by the Opposition. Flood reproduced the absurd argument that wealth consists of money, and that trade can only be beneficial to the country which obtains the largest return in gold. Fox and Burke, with singular lack of foresight, declaimed against Pitt for making a treaty with France, "the natural political enemy of Great Britain," and denounced the perfidy with which the French had fostered the American revolt. In spite of the illiberality of these arguments, Pitt, with the acquiescence of the commercial classes, carried the treaty through Parliament by majorities of more than two to one.The nobles rose in a body and quitted the Assembly; but Gustavus continued his speech to the three remaining Orders. He declared it necessary, for the salvation of the country, for him to assume almost despotic powers, and he called on the three Estates to support him in punishing the traitorous nobles, promising to secure the liberties of the country as soon as this was accomplished. Not only the three Orders, but the public at large zealously supported him. Stockholm was in a state of high excitement. Gustavus surrounded the houses of the chief nobility with his brave Dalecarlians; secured twenty-five of the principal nobles, including the Counts Brah, Fersen, Horne, and others, who were consigned to the castle. He had already arrested nine of the leaders of the insurrection in the army in Finland, and these officers were[353] now also confined in the castle; others had escaped and fled to their patroness in St. Petersburg. To intimidate the king, nearly all the officers of the army, the fleet, and the civil department threw up their commissions and appointments, believing that they should thus completely paralyse his proceedings. But Gustavus remained undaunted. He filled up the vacancies, as well as he could, from the other Orders of the State; he brought the nobles and officers to trial, and numbers of them were condemned to capital punishment, for treason and abandonment of their sworn duties. Some few examples were made; the rest, after a short confinement, were liberated, and they hastened to their estates in the country. But it was found there, as everywhere else, that rank confers no monopoly of talent. The three other Orders warmly supported Gustavus, and he remodelled the Diet, excluding from it almost all the most powerful nobles, and giving greater preponderance to the other three Orders. In return for this, these Orders sanctioned an act called the Act of Safety, which conferred on the king the same power which is attached to the British Crown, namely, that of making peace or war. They granted him liberal supplies, and he quickly raised an army of fifty thousand men. As he considered the reduction of the restless and lawless power of Russia was equally essential to Britain, Holland, and Prussia, as to Sweden, Gustavus called on them to second his efforts. But Pitt would do nothing more than guarantee the neutrality of Denmark; and even this guarantee he permitted to become nugatory, by allowing the Danish fleet to give protection to the Russian fleet in the Baltic. A second Russian squadron, commanded by Dessein, a French admiral, descended from Archangel, entered the Baltic, menaced Gothenburg, and by the aid of the Danish ships was enabled to join the other Russian fleet at Cronstadt.
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