Pitt, then, deeply regretted the outbreak of war in the North, but none the less resolved to prevent the threatened dismemberment of Sweden. The Prussian Court held even stronger views on the subject, and expressed its indignation at the Danish inroad into Sweden “after the repeated assurances given by the Danish Minister of pacific and moderate dispositions.”[814] So keen was the annoyance at Berlin that Frederick William resolved to draw up a Declaration that, if Denmark attacked Gustavus, 16,000 Prussians would forthwith invade the Danish Duchy of Holstein. Ewart at once informed Elliot of the entire concurrence of Prussia with England, and thus enabled him to play a daring game. On the evening of 17th September, acting on the advice of Ewart, he resolved to take boat for the Swedish shore, and proceed to the headquarters of Gustavus. The news which finally prompted this decision was that the Swedish monarch had decided to accept the proffered mediation not of the Allies, but of France.[815] Elliot hoped to reverse this decision and to secure the triumph of British and Prussian influence at the Swedish Court. He had not, it appears, received Pitt’s despatch cited above, or even the special Instructions sent a little earlier; but he knew enough to warrant his speaking in lofty tones, which were destined to dash the hopes of Catharine and the Prince Royal of Denmark.
We left Gustavus at Stockholm. There he did his best to quell the discontent of the burghers; but it is probable that a Revolution would have broken out but for the threat of a Danish invasion and the impending loss of Gothenburg. The national danger tended to still the strife of parties; and the King, commending his queen and children to his people, rode away to Dalecarlia in order to arouse the loyal miners and peasants of that region against the invaders. Though he harangued them on the spot where Gustavus Vasa made his memorable appeals, their response was doubtful; but, having raised a small band, he proceeded towards the threatened city.[816]
On his way he met the British envoy at the town of Carlstadt. For eleven days Elliot had searched for the King, and now found him without troops, without attendants, and with a small following of ill-armed peasants (29th September, 1788). Bitterly the monarch exclaimed that, like James II, he must leave his kingdom, a victim to the ambition of Russia, the treachery of Denmark, the factious treason of his nobles, and his own mistakes. Thereupon Elliot replied: “Sire, give me your Crown; I will return it to you with added lustre.” He then told him of the offer of mediation by England and Prussia on his behalf. At first, mindful of his engagements to France, Gustavus hesitated to accept it. Had he known that Elliot was acting without official instructions he might have slighted the offer. In truth, Elliot was acting only on the general direction, that he was “to prevent by every means any change in the relative situation of the Northern nations.” If this formula was vague, it was wide; and it sufficed, along with the more definite support from Berlin, to decide the fate of Sweden. Gustavus at once resolved to place himself wholly in Elliot’s hands. The latter therefore made his way to the Danish headquarters; while the King proceeded to Gothenburg.[817] At that fortress the spirit of the defenders was as scanty as the means of defence. But affairs took on a new aspect when, at nightfall of 3rd October, a drenched and weary horseman sought admittance at their gate. A tumult of joy arose in the town when it was known that Gustavus was in their midst, the precursor of succouring bands. Now there was no thought of surrender.
Nevertheless, things would have gone hard with the burghers had the Danes pushed their attack home. This they seemed about to do. Elliot in his interview at their headquarters made little impression on the Prince Royal and the Commander-in-Chief, the Prince of Hesse. Their kinship to Gustavus seemed but to embitter their hostility; and they undoubtedly hoped, after the reduction of Gothenburg, to dismember the Swedish realm, and aggrandise the closely related houses of Russia and Denmark. They pressed on to Gothenburg and made ready for an assault. But in the meantime Gustavus, receiving help from seamen on British vessels in the harbour, encouraged the citizens to make ready and man the guns. So firm a front did the defenders present that the Danes on 9th October assented to Elliot’s offer of an armistice of eight days. Within that time the Prussian Declaration reached their headquarters, and lust of conquest now gave way to fear of a Prussian invasion of Jutland. Again therefore Elliot succeeded in prolonging the armistice, which finally was extended to six months (13th November–13th May 1789).
It is clear, then, that the initiative boldly taken by Ewart and Elliot, backed by the threats from Berlin, saved Sweden from a position of acute danger. The King of Sweden himself confessed in a letter to Armfelt that Elliot’s grand coup in effecting an armistice had saved his kingdom, had restored the balance of Europe, and covered England with glory. Erskine, British Consul at Gothenburg, also declared that but for “the spirited and unremitted exertions of Mr. Elliot, there is not a doubt but this city and province would have fallen into the hands of the enemy on their first advancing.”[818] Elliot also described his achievements in flamboyant terms, which were called forth by an unmerited rebuke of our Foreign Office, that his instructions were to restore peace, not to threaten the Danes with war.[819] His reply of 15th November ran as follows: “The success of my efforts has been almost miraculous.... Had I arrived at Carlstadt twenty-four hours later than I did; had I negotiated with less energy or success at Gothenburg than what has drawn upon me the resentment of Russia and the abettors of the boundless ambition of that Court, the Revolution in Sweden was compleated, and a combination formed in the North equally hostile to England and Prussia.” He then charged Bernstorff with duplicity in expressing a desire for peace, “while the Danes were marching on an almost defenceless town, the capture of which decided irrevocably the fate of Sweden and the Baltic.”... “Six weeks after my arrival in Sweden a victorious army of 12,000 men, animated by the presence of their Prince, in sight of a most brilliant conquest, were checked in their progress by my single efforts; were induced to evacuate the Swedish territories, and consented to a truce of six months.... Perhaps in the annals of history there is not to be found a more striking testimony of deference paid by a foreign prince to a King of England than what the Prince Royal of Denmark manifested upon this trying occasion.” He then stated that the efforts of the Prussian envoy were of no avail owing to the dislike in which he was held; and that only his [Elliot’s] influence availed to undo the harm caused by a violent action of Gustavus III in the middle of October.
It would be interesting to know what Pitt thought of this bombast; but on 5th December Carmarthen guardedly commended the magniloquent envoy, and urged him to gain over Denmark to the Triple Alliance; for, as Catharine had now declined the mediation of the Allies, while Gustavus had accepted it, Denmark could justly refuse her demands for help in the next campaign. Ostensibly Denmark refused; but, owing to the profuse expenditure of the Russian Embassy at Copenhagen (estimated by our chargé d’affaires, Johnstone, at £500 a day[820]), Catharine gained permission to have fifteen warships from the White Sea repaired in that dockyard.
Gustavus III no sooner found himself safe than he laid his plans for humbling his enemies both at home and abroad. He summoned a Diet, and proceeded to educate the electors in their duties by drawing up a list of the ten deputies whom the men of Stockholm should choose. They held other opinions, and sent up six declared opponents of the King.[821] On the whole, however, the Estates were with him, and he imposed a constitution on the recalcitrant Order of the Nobles, whereby he gained absolute control of foreign policy. This triumph for autocracy took place at the end of April 1789, only a week before the assembly of the States-General at Versailles, which sounded the knell of the House of Bourbon. Gustavus informed Elliot of his resolve to keep at peace with Denmark, because a war with her “would turn me from my great aim—the safety of the Ottomans and the abasement of Russia.” He therefore begged Elliot to assure the prolongation of the Danish armistice for six months. That envoy had now come to see that the chief danger of Sweden lay in “the romantic projects of glory and aggrandisement formed by the Sovereign himself”; and he pointed out the need for the Allies to prescribe the terms of peace before he succumbed to the superior forces of Russia.[822] Already Catharine had announced her resolve in the words—“When Gustavus has had his say to his Diet, I will have my say to him.”
With Elliot’s view of things Pitt and the Duke of Leeds (formerly Marquis of Carmarthen) were in complete accord. On 24th June they informed him that Gustavus must not expect the Allies to make peace for him on his own terms, but only on that of the status quo ante bellum. In this effort England would cordially join in order to keep the balance of power in the Baltic. “I cannot,” continued Leeds, “too often repeat the earnest desire of this Government to conciliate the Court of Denmark in the first instance; nor do we lose sight of another material object—I mean, a cordial and permanent connection with Russia.” Above all, England would not go to war unless the balance of the Baltic Powers were seriously endangered, to the detriment of the commercial States.[823]
Here, then, we have another proof of the peaceful and cautious character of Pitt’s policy. He distrusted the crowned Don Quixote of the North, was resolved to save him only on England’s terms, viz., the status quo, and hoped that the pacification might lead up to an alliance with Denmark and finally with Russia. In fact, he kept in view the Northern System which had guided British statesmen of the earlier generation. His aims were frustrated by the shifty policy of Denmark and the vindictiveness of Catharine. “Hamlet” and “Semiramis,” as Harris once termed them, thought lightly of England and longed for the partition of Sweden. Accordingly the Danish fleet convoyed the fifteen Russian men-of-war, long refitting at Copenhagen, into the Baltic, until they joined the Cronstadt squadron of twenty-six ships near Bornholm, and thereby secured for it a superiority in that sea. The Duke of Leeds sent a sharp protest to Copenhagen, with the hint that furthur actions of this kind might entail disagreeable consequences for Denmark.[824] Even with this unfair help accorded to Russia, the Swedes sustained no serious reverse either by land or sea. Gustavus summed up the results of the campaign in the words: “After fighting like madmen about every other day for two months, here we are at the same point at which we started.” Nevertheless he had clogged the efforts of Catharine against the Turks, and thus enabled his allies to prolong the unequal struggle against two great empires. Neither the loss of Oczakoff, nor the accession of the less capable Sultan, Selim III, daunted the resolve of the Ottomans to continue a war which was for them an affair of religious zeal and national honour.