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Doc. 172.) 487
ON WAR AGAINST RUSSIA .
follows, that we can no longer calculate on the same ad
vantages as formerly.
4. Sweden has owed her good fortune, both in Poland and
against the Russians, to the circumstance that our kings have
been with the army, and that they have encouraged by their
own example our Swedish soldiers ; and that such has been
the case, from the time of King Gustavus, with all his
descendants to Charles XII : But that the Swedish sol.
diers are not any better than other soldiers, when they are
not led by the King himself, can be seen from the death of
the late King in Norway; and by other examples since—so
that we cannot flatter ourselves with the same good fortune
as we have had before.
5. Moreover, it does not seem proper that we should act
indirectly against ourselves: that, on the one hand, we should
send an auxiliary force or a contingent against France, and,
on the other, act indirectly with her; so that really with one
hand we should seek her ruin, and with the other endeavour
to support her; that, therefore, we should wish on the one
hand that France should suffer, and on the other that she
should have the advantage — when yet its advantage is so
closely connected with our own, by Russia’s alliance with the
Emperor, that in Sweden we ought to regard only that ad.
vantage upon which our own depends.
6. That we should recover Livonia would, indeed, be a
great advantage; yet I consider it a still greater advantage
that Sweden does not now possess it; wherefore great caution
ought to be used in this matter.
My reason is, that as long as Sweden held it there was
always danger of her being involved in war with its neighbours,
and of being attacked; so that she had always to be on her
guard as well against Russia as against Poland and others:
while now, there is no danger at all that any one will attack
us offensively, inasmuch as we have already given away what
might embroil us with our neighbours.
A war, or the outfitting of an army and navy, would draw
more money out of Sweden’s treasury, than Livonia has brought
into it for many years.
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