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"The action of the French ministry [in recognizing American independence], it seems to me, has deviated from the principles of justice and practical interests, and from state principles of nations that have been in force for centuries. I cannot admit that it is right to support rebels against their king. The example will find only too many imitators in an age when it is the fashion to overthrow every bulwark of authority."-Gustav III

This is mostly a historical post, but I think it bears merit on any allohistorical discussion of a world without the American Revolution. It's from an article entitled Sweden and the War of American Independence, by H.A. Barton, in The William and Mary Quartlery, Vol. 23, No. 3, July 1966.

It has been said in the past on this board that the American revolution didn't play a major role in European thought; fhaessig has said French revolutionaries weren't pisnired by the movement, Thande has said Britons saw it as a trifling backwater, etc. etc. Both of these nations were heavily involved in American affairs, of course, so I'm not going to look at them. But the article got my attention because, by focusing on Sweden, it illustrates the influence of the Revolution in European thought.

Sweden was neutral during the war; a traditionally pro-French state, but with important commercial ties to Britain. So what were people thinking?

The revolution in America quickly became a leading topic in the Swedish press, received comment on the popular stage, and gave rise to endless discussion in taverns and coffeehouses. It was in one such es- tablishment that the poet and balladeer Carl Mikael Bellman described his friends of the Society Pro Vino, "as usual . . . sitting with long Holland pipes and wise perukes by their glittering pear-glasses, con- stantly arguing about the good of the city, about the English colonies, Washington, the price of hay, the scarcity of money and similar subjects."2 The attention aroused by the Abbe Raynal's Histoire des Deux Indes from I774 onward, particularly with regard to the American colonies, and the publication in Stockholm in 178I of the chapters devoted to them in the third edition under the title, La Revolution de l'Amerique is also symptomatic of widespread interest in the American revolt.



That Gustav III's personal animus toward the Americans continued to harden even after the end of the war is demonstrated by his reaction to the award of membership in the Society of the Cincinnati, in the winter of I784, to Count Fersen and Baron Stedingk, the only two Swedes with the rank of colonel in the French forces during the war and thus eligible. The King categorically forbade them to accept the order, explaining to Stedingk in March: I do not despise the nomination ... but . it is not in my interest, nor is it wise for me, to permit my subjects, and especially those distin- guished by their positions and by my personal sentiments toward them, to wear and to consider themselves honored by a public mark of the success of a revolt of subjects against their legitimate sovereign, and especially a revolt, the cause and motives of which were so unjust and so unfounded.


"Be careful, so that the King of Great Britain cannot reproach me for siding with his rebellious subjects. For such is the point of view from which I have always regarded them. This is the cause of the kings. I have always considered it so; either this is a prejudice belonging to my position, or it de- rives from the relationship in which at the beginning of my reign, I stood with regard to my own subjects, the impression of which is hard to efface. However that may be, it offends my sense of discretion to deal with peo- ple who are not independent."-Gustav III

But not all were opposed to the American Revolution. Most Swedes had greeted Gustav's coup de'tat in 1772 with approval and as a necessary antidote to the factionalism which plagued the nation's Riksdag. But by 1778, the nation was growing unhappy with the king's absolutism. The "History Of the Indies" became more popular, and the King ultimately baanned its publication. No wonder that dissidents such as Major Pehr af Lund would write, that the knowledge that "there is one place on earth where man can be free from his chains" should "frighten the despots and hold them in rein."

To quote the article directly:

As opposition to Gustav III increased during the years following the war, important segments of Swedish opinion tended to idealize the American Revolution in retrospect. This is apparent in literature, especially in poetry. In his Aret I783 (written in 1784), Bengt Lidner sang the praises of a "Brutian Washington" who "snatches a bloody scepter from the tyrant's hand," and several years later, Bishop Johan Olof Wallin lauded "the first American" in his George Washington. In 1797, in celebrating the friendship of Count Creutz and Benjamin Franklin in Paris, Bishop Frans Mikael Franzen paid a warm tribute to the American "philosopher." Writing in I790, the editor of the radical journal, Medborgaren "The Citizen" Karl Fredrik Nordenskibld, looking back on the events in America, proclaimed that the independence of that country:

For all time shall cause wise rulers to govern their subjects under the banner of freedom, for America has taught Nations to know their rights and the equal protection which a benevolent nature affords to all. All men are born free and equal; this was the first meaning of the actions of the American states."

Even when in later years, members of the old radical opposition in Sweden became disillusioned with the excesses of the French Revolution, they tended to retain their admiration for America.

So. This suggests that the Revolution may have had some sort of influence on European thought.
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