No III. "In the name of God-We Gustavus Adolphus, by the grace of God, King of Sweden, &c. make known, that having been proclaimed king this day seven years back, and ascended, with a bleeding heart, a throne stained with the blood of a beloved and revered father, we regret not being able to promote the true welfare and honour of this ancient realm, inseparable from the happiness of a free and independent people. Now, whereas we are convinced that we cannot any longer continue our royal functions, and preserve tranquillity and order in this kingdom, therefore we consider it as our sacred duty to abdicate our royal dignity and crown, which we do hereby, free and uncompelled, to pass our remaining days in the fear and worship of God, wishing that all our subjects and their descendants may enjoy more happiness and prosperity in future, through the mercy and blessing of God, and revere the king. In testimony and confirmation thereof we have personally written and signed the present, and corroborated it with our royal seal. (L.S.) GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. "Gripsholm Castle, the 19th March, in the year of the nativity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 1809." vinced, by our own experience, as well as by explanation communicated to us in this place, of the calamitous state of the kingdom, both with regard to its domestic concern and its relation with foreign powers. We have found, with the deepest concern, that the peaceful situation in which our country was placed, with respect to all foreign courts and powers, was destroyed by his Majesty Gustavus Adolphus IV. and a war commenced and carried on several years, which nected with the interests of Sweden, was not occasioned by reasons conwhich might have been easily avoided, which more than once might have been terminated without making any sacrifices, and which led at last to the most disastrous results; that the former prosperous condition of the kingdom was thereby converted into universal misery and distress; agriculture was deprived of the necessary arms to cultivate the ground, and the mines fell into decay; that the state was burthened with debts, amounting to several millions, and the subjects with oppressive taxes; that the military forces of the country, partly raised by illegal means, were sacrificed, without necessity or benefit, to the state; that first the German dominion, and soon after a valuable third part of Sweden, the Duchy of Finland, were lost in an unequal conflict with an enemy far superior in force; that, notwithstanding such severe misfortunes, and unquestionable proof of the dissolution of the empire, the king obstinately refused to enter into any negociations of peace, or any agreement with a power possessed of a decisive influence over the fate of the continent; that the whole country nent danger of utter destruction; and was thus exposed to the most immilastly, that the king made an arbitrary b attempt, not warranted by law, against the bank of the states, the sacred property of the whole nation. Considering all those painful circumstances, and being deeply impressed with a lively sense of our duty to save our native land, assert our national independence, and guard our safety both public and private, we have unanimously determined that the compact between the king and subjects is irrevocably dissolved, and that he has violated his oath and sacred duty. We have farther taken into consideration, that as the public welfare is and ought to be our supreme law, and that this imperiously demands the government of a king who has attained his full age, and that the present calamities of our country might in future times easily be renewed, under the influence of sentiments and principles inherited or impressed upon the mind by parental authority and the powerful suggestions of kindred : on those momentous grounds, supported by the voluntary act of abdication, personally signed by his Majesty, and this day read in the hall of the diet, we have unanimously made the following conclusion: "We hereby declare, that Gustavus Adolphus IV. who was hitherto our king and lord, King of Sweden, &c. has forfeited the crown of Sweden, and that not only for himself, but hisissue, who, both born and not born, are hereby for ever excluded from the throne and government of Sweden. SIGNED BY THE STATES. "Stockholm, the 10th of May, in the year of our Lord, 1809." No V, TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN SWEDEN AND RUSSIA. peace, friendship, and good understanding between his Majesty the King of Sweden and his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias. The high contracting parties will make it their chief study to maintain a perfect harmony between themselves, their states, and subjects, and will carefully avoid whatever may hereafter disturb the union so happily re-established. II. His majesty the Emperor of all the Russias having manifested the invariable resolution not to separate his interests from those of his allies, and his Swedish Majesty, wishing to give, in favour of his subjects, all the extent possible to the advantages of the peace, promises and engages, in the most solemn and binding manner, to neglect nothing which, on his part, may tend to the prompt conclusion of peace between him and his Majesty the Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and his Majesty the King of Denmark and Norway, by the means of the direct negociations already commenced with these powers. III. His Majesty the King Sweden, in order to give an evident proof of his desire to renew the most intimate relations with the august allies of his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, promises to adhere to the continental system, with such mo. difications as shall be more particu larly stipulated in the negociation which is about to be opened between Sweden, France, and Denmark. Meanwhile, his Swedish Majesty engages, from the exchange of the ra tifications of the present treaty, to order that the ports of the kingdom of Sweden shall be closed, both to the ships of war and merchantmen of Great Britain, with the exception of the importation of salt and colonial productions, which habit has render Art. I. There shall henceforth be ed necessary to the people of Sweden. His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias promises before hand, to consent to every modification which his allies may consider just and fit to be admitted in favour of Sweden, with respect to commerce and mercantile navigation. IV. His Majesty the King of Sweden, as well for himself as for his successors to the throne and kingdom of Sweden, renounces irrevocably and in perpetuity, in favour of his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, and his successors to the throne and empire of Russia, all his rights and titles to the governments hereafter specified, which have been conquered from the crown of Sweden by the arms of his imperial Majesty in the present war, namely The governments of Kymenagard, Nyland and Tavastchus, Abo and Bjorneborg, with the isles Aland, Savolax and Corelia, Wasa-Uleaborg, and part of West Bothnia extending to the river of Tornea, as shall be fixed in the subsequent article in the demarkation of the frontiers. These governments, with all the inhabitants, towns, ports, fortresses, villages, and islands, as well as all the dependencies, prerogatives, rights, and emoluments, shall henceforth belong in full property and sovereignty to the empire of Russia, and shall remain incorporated with it. To this effect his Majesty the King of Sweden promises, in the most solemn and obligatory manner, as well for himself as for his successors, and all the kingdom of Sweden, never to make any claim, direct or indirect, on the said governments, provinces, islands, and territories, all the inhabitants of which shall, in virtue of this renunciation, be relieved from the homage and oath of fidelity by which they are bound to the crown of Sweden. V. The sea of Aland, (Alands Haf) the gulph of Bothnia, and the rivers of Tornea and Muonio, shall hereafter form the frontier between Russia and the kingdom of Sweden. The nearest islands at an equal distance from the main-land of Aland and Finland shall belong to Russia, and those which are nearest to the Swedish coast shall belong to Sweden. The most advanced points of the Russian territory at the mouth of the river of Tornea, shall be the isle of Bjorken, the port of Rentehamo, and the peninsula on which the town of Tornea stands. The frontier shall then be extended along the river Tornea to the confluence of the two branches of that river near Kengis. It shall then follow the course of the river Muonio, passing in the front of Muonioniska, Muonio Ofreby, Palajocus, Rultane, Enontelis, Kelottijorfo, Paitiko, Nuimaka, Raunula, and Kilpisjaure to Norway. In the course of the rivers Tornea and Muonio, such as it has been described, the islands situated to the east of the Thalwag shall belong to Russia, and those to the west of the Thalwag to Sweden. Immediately after the exchange of the ratifications, engineers shall be appointed on each side, who shall proceed to the before-mentioned places to fix the limits along the rivers Tornea and Muonio according to the above-described line. VI. His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias having already given the most manifest proofs of the clemency and justice with which he has resolved to govern the inhabitants of the countries which he has acquired, by generously and of his own spon taneous act, assuring to them the free exercise of their religion, rights, property, and privileges, his Swedish Majesty considers himself thereby dispensed from performing the otherwise sacred duty of making reservations in the above respects in favour of his former subjects. VII. On the signature of the present treaty, information thereof shall be transmitted immediately, and with the greatest celerity, to the generals of the respective armies, and hostilities shall entirely cease on both sides, both by sea and land. Those acts of hostility which may in the mean time be committed, shall be regarded as null, and shall not infringe this treaty. Whatever may be, during the intervening period, taken or conquered on the one side or the other, shall be faithfully restored. VIII. Within four weeks after the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty, the troops of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia shall evacuate West Bothnia, and repass the river Tornea. During the said four weeks, there shall be made no requisition of any kind whatever on the inhabitants; and the Russian army shall draw its supplies and subsistence from its own magazines established in the towns of West Bothnia. If during the negociations the imperial troops have penetrated in any other direction into the kingdom of Sweden, they shall evacuate the countries they have occupied in virtue of the before-stipulated conditions. IX. All the prisoners of war made on either side, by sea or land, and all the hostages delivered during the war, shall be restored in mass, and without ransom, as speedily as possible; but at the latest within three months, reckoning from the exchange of the ratifications; but if any prisoners may be prevented by sickness or other cause from returning into their country within the period specified, they shall not thereby be considered as having forfeited the right stipulated above. They shall be obliged to discharge or to give security for the debts they may have contracted during their captivity with the inhabitants of the country in which they may have been detained. The expences which may have been incurred by the high contracting parties for all subsistence and maintenance of the prisoners shall be reciprocally renounced, and provision shall respectively be made for their subsistence, and the expence of their journey to the frontiers of both places, where commisioners from their sovereigns shall be directed to receive them. The Finland soldiers and seamen are, on the part of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia, excepted from this restitution, with reference to the capitulations which have taken place, if they grant them a different right. The military and other officers, natives of Finland, who may wish to remain, shall enjoy that privilege, and the full exercise of all their rights over their property, debts, and effects which they have now, or may hereafter have, in the kingdom of Sweden, on the footing of the 10th article of the present treaty. X. The Fins now in Sweden, as well as the Swedes now in Finland, shall be at full liberty to return into their respective countries, and to dispose of their property, moveable and immoveable, without paying any duty of removal, or any other impost due on the like occasions. The subjects of the two high powers established in either country, Sweden or Finland, shall have full liberty to establish themselves in the other during the space of three years, from the date of the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty ; but shall be held to sell or alienate during the said period, to any subject of the power whose dominions they desire to quit. The property of those who, at the expiration of the above term, have not complied with this regulation, shall be sold at a public sale by authority of the magistrate, and the produce thereof delivered to the owners. During the three years above fixed, it shall be allowable to all to make such use as they may please of their property, the peaceable enjoyment of which is formally secured and guaranteed to them. They may themselves, or their agents, pass freely from one state to the other in order to manage their affairs, without experiencing any obstacle whatever, in consequence of their quality of subjects of the other power. XI. There shall henceforth be a perpetual oblivion of the past, and a general amnesty for the respective subjects, whose opinions, in favour of one or the other of the high contracting parties during the present war, may have rendered them suspected or liable to punishment. No trial shall hereafter be instituted against them on such grounds. If any process have been commenced, it shall be annulled and superseded, and no new proceeding shall be commenced. All sequestrations of property or revenues shall in consequence be immediately removed, and the property shall be reserved to the owners; it being well understood, that such as become subjects of either of the two powers, in virtue of the preceding article, shall have no right to claim from the sove reign of whom they have ceased to be a subject, the annuities or pensions which may have been obtained in virtue of acts of grace, concessions, or appointments for preceding services. XII. The titles, domains, archives, and other documents, public and private, the plans and charts of fortresses, towns, and territories, devolved by the present treaty to his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, including the charts and papers which may be deposited in the surveyor's office, shall be faithfully delivered up within the space of six months: or, if that period should be found too short, at the latest within one year. XIII. Immediately after the exchange of the ratifications, the high contracting parties shall remove all sequestrations which may have been placed on the property or revenues of the respective inhabitants of the two countries, and the public establishments therein situated. XIV. The debts, both public and private, contracted by the Fins in Sweden, and, vice versa, by the Swedes in Finland, shall be discharged on the terms and conditions stipulated. XV. The subjects of either of the high contracting parties, to whom inheritance may fall in the states of one or the other, may, without obstacle, take possession of the same, and enjoy it under the protection of the laws. The exercise of this right, however, in Finland, is subject to the stipulations of article X. in virtue of which the proprietor shall either fix his residence in the country, or sell the inheritance within three years. XVI. The duration of the treaty of commerce between the high contracting parties being limited to the 17th (29th) October, 1811, his Majesty the Emperor of Russia consents not to reckon its interruption during the war: and that the said treaty |