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jg32.] Loans^sales^and quSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. INTERNAL RELATIONS.
Commercial
associations. 227
:i
per*. Nay, for the capital invested in tlie Trade or
Copper Company, government bound itself, in 1G28,
to pay twenty per cent, if the crown might have
the use of it for four years ’.
IL Sale and hypothecation of the crown estates,
with mortgages on its revenues. The sales were
made to the nobility, with perpetual exemption
from ta.vation *
; mortgages were given to others
equally, especially rich burgesses and merchants,
often foreigners by birth. Thus Finspang with its
territory in East-Gothland was mortgaged ’, as well
as almost all Smaland and Oeland, the whole of
(Jestricland and Aland, a portion of West-Goth-
land, all Dalesland, Salberg, Nora, Linde, and other
raining tracts, royal estates, mines, and other lesser
appurtenances. Some of these mortgages were
afterwards converted into leases for a term of
years, embracing tolls, mines, and the rents of
whole fiefs and provinces ’"’.
in. Monopolies, by which the government, in
its own name or in that of different companies,
sought to engross the trade of the country. Its
sovereigns had even before assumed the right of
pre-emption in both domestic and foreign wares.
As so great a portion of the imposts was collected
in produce, the government was compelled to en-
gage itself in traffic ;
its concerns being managed by
a functionary called the crown-factor, under the
superintendence of the high treasurer and his
council. On their representation, at the commence-
ment of this reign, that they were unable to de-
spatch the business pressing upon them, a special
officer subordinate to them was added in 1612, who,
with the assistance of the crown-factor and a clerk,
was to receive all commodities entering the store-
houses of the crown, and procure in return what-
ever was requu’ed for the behoof of the crown,
having likewise the oversight of tolls and trade in
general ’. This was an office which carried great
temptations to unjust gains ;
and accordingly its
first holder, the historian Eric Gijranson Tegel, was
accused of heinous frauds *. From the year 1614
the field of operations for this ti-ade on the part of
the crown was extended, the diet having then
resolved that the supplies collected for the ransom
dollars, 24 ore Swedish money, we have in return granted to
him and his heirs to possess and enjoy a scot-farm belonging
to us and to the crown, Svedja, in the parish of Vaxala, as a
secure mortgage, free and quit of all payments, certain or
uncertain, for his interest, namely, ten per cent, in the year,
binding ourselves to pay to him or his heirs the sum due,
without deduction, either now or in future, of the rent of the
farmstead from the capital." Stockholm, April 26, 1C27. A
mortgage in nearly the same terms to Dr. Wallius, a professor
at Upsala, for a loan of 800 dollars, is in the Register for 1628,
under the 18th January. The interest for loans in Sweden
amounted before and after the time of Gustavus Adolphus to
ten per cent. Compare Hallenberg, v. 201, n.
2
Hallenberg, v. 131.
3 Assurance for the partners in the trade company. Stock-
holm, April 28, 1628. See Register, and in Stiernman.
* See examples in Hallenberg (v. 134), of 1621, 1623, 1625.
I
The king also issued in the year of his death an ordinance
on the sale of crown-lands. Nordin MSS.
^ To William de Besche of Liege, but really to his surety
Louis de Geer, in 1618. This man, remarkable in the annals
of Swedish mining and industry, is said to have first come
into the kingdom in 1628; but in a letter from Gustavus
Adolphus to Axel Oxenstierna, dated Nov. 6, 1627, the king
says,
"
Louis de Geer has now arrived in this country;" and
on the 24th Dec. he obtains permission to use Prostliolm, by
Norrkceping, for building ships." Reg. for 1627.
of Elfsborg should be employed in the purchase of
copper, and rix-doUars procured in exchange. The
crown thus became the only buyer at the copper-
mines, although it often ceded its right, and gene-
rally the export of the wares, to other parties. The
product of the Falun mine had risen from 3000
skeppunds, which in king John’s time was thought
much, to 12,000. Copper was, as Axel Oxenstierna
called it,
"the noblest staple of which the crown of
Sweden could boast." The government were re-
luctant to let slip their chief means of procuring
ready nionej’, but appear, when the aids set apart
for the ransom of Elfsborg ceased in 1C19, to have
been unable to make any outlay on the mines.
For this reason they in the same year transferred
the copper trade to a company, which also obtained,
in respect to trade generally, all the rights of the
Commercial Association incorporated since 1615.
This Copper Company, as it was called, whose
privileges were several times renewed, was how-
ever in 1629 obliged to restore the copper trade to
the crown, havmg made vain attempts to keep the
prices too high
—of which the copper coinage first
introduced into Sweden in 1625 formed part—and
finding itself eventually, from the nature of the
undertaking and the agency of government, unable
to fulfil its engagements ’. Some more prosperous
years, and the example of foreign countries, had
raised the king’s expectations from such com-
mercial societies, and he intended to commit the
whole iron trade of the kingdom to the manage-
ment of a company, whose privileges were actually
drawn up. In 1624, on the proposal of a Nether-
lander, a " General Commercial Company, to Asia,
Africa, America, and Magellania," was chartered.
This project he discussed in 1627 with the estates,
and wrote respecting it to the bishops 1, the rather
that the company was to labour for the conversion
of the heathen. The enterprise was not wholly
fruitless *, although the .conjecture expressed in the
charter, that it might
" fui’nish means for the defence
of the state," may have awakened apprehensions
in many of the partners, which, after their losses,
found vent in comjilaints^. Thereafter, when the
6
Hallenberg, vi. 877. v. 129.
7 Ordinance of Gustavus I., March 16, 1552; and king
John’s Articles of the Customs, May 12, 15S6. Stiernman’s
Ordinances, i. 127. 343.
s He was condemned for them in 1614 by the Palace
Court (Hallenberg, iii. 265), but escaped lightly enough.
9
Compare the treatise,
" On the old Copper Company and
the Copper Coinage in the time of Gustavus Adolphus, by
Master Wingquist." Scandia, vol. iv. In 1626 the proceed-
ings of the company excited disturbances among the miners.
’
To the bishops, regarding the India Company. April 27,
1627. Reg.
2 It led to the establishment of the colony called
" New
Sweden," at the mouth of the river Delaware in North
America, which is stated to have been intended in this
reign, though the execution appears to have been postponed.
Permission to found the colony was given by the government
in 1640, and lieutenant-colonel John Printz was appointed
the first governor, Aug. 15, 1642. Pro-memoria touching
New Sweden. Palmsk. MSS. t. 74.
3 Some verses of the day are preserved, turning on the
admonition addressed to the clergy to encourage investments
in the company, and engage in it themselves. They begin,
" Poor parsons, place not out your money
In the bags of the new Trade Company ;
The cash you advance is your share of proceeds,
The winnings, if any, are for their own needs."
Nordin MSS.
q2
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