I did not stay to read the document through. After a hasty look to make sure I was leaving nothing else of importance behind, I locked the safe, drew off its key from the bunch, and dropped the other keys on the floor beside the stunned man, slipped quietly out of the room and out of the house.
Instead of returning to my hotel, I made my way down to the harbour—I did not dare to risk trying to get a train. In the harbour I hired a small fishing-boat with a sail, and put straight out to sea. It was on the tossing waters of the Cattegat by moonlight that I took in the provisions of the extraordinary compact between the Norwegian conspirators and their Imperial ally.
The document had been carefully drawn up, evidently with an eye to the public opinion of Europe, which would naturally be scandalised by an alliance between the great Slave despotism and a Teutonic commonwealth.
The treaty began by reciting that the Union between Sweden and Norway had been forced on the Norwegians against their will, by the Swedes aided by Russia’s authority. It went on to state that the Union had failed to benefit either country, and that Russia had consented to undo her past injury to Norway by helping her to annul the bond.
Then followed the particulars of the aid to be rendered. Norway pledged herself not to make any open move till the signal was given from Petersburg, which was to be as soon as Finland had settled down into the condition of a Russian province. In the meantime the Norwegians were to strengthen themselves in every possible way, and to keep up a steady pressure of agitation against Sweden.
As soon as all was ready, the Norwegian Storthing was to meet in secret session and proclaim Norway a free and independent Republic, under the protection of the Tsar, and mass her troops on the frontier. Two Russian Army Corps were to be ready in Finland, on the pretext of manœuvres, and these were to be hurled across the frontier to the north of the Gulf of Bothnia. At the same time the Russian fleet was to cross the Baltic, occupy the island of Gothland, and blockade Stockholm and the Swedish ports.
All these measures were to be taken merely as precautions. If the Swedes accepted the inevitable, the Russians were to retire again. If the Swedes took up arms, war was to be declared, and Russia was to annex Gothland to her Empire, the Norwegians receiving territory in the north.
And what was the price which the Tsar was to receive for this mighty demonstration? It was not a nominal one. The Norwegian Republic bound itself to grant to his Imperial Majesty a lease for twenty-five years—that is to say, for ever—of a warm-water port on the Atlantic Ocean, to be used as a depôt and coaling station for the Russian Fleet.
It was the dream of six generations of Muscovite statesmen realised at last. Russia, with one foot on the Atlantic and another on the Pacific, would dominate the Old World.
All that night the fishing-boat carried me along in the track of the Baltic steamers. At dawn I boarded an English packet going into Gothenburg, and thirty-six hours later I stood again in King Oscar’s cabinet, and placed the treaty in his hands.