gmertca, , ?|emp, an& JUapoleon - Vote Hemp

America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleonone of the British officers of Saumarez's comman d that thatenormous fleet, as omnipotent on its watery plain as everNapoleon was on thefieldsof Austerlitz or Jena, "was the mostbeautiful and wonderful sight he had ever beheld, being one ofwhich he had never formed an idea." 22Whe n Bernadotte reached Sweden, he was rapidly introducedto a few more of the realities of the Swedish situation.Sweden's economy depended on overseas commerce. Hergreatest industry was iron production. Without export of iron,her miners, ironmongers, and merchants would simply haveno way to make a living. To export meant to coddle the Britishand cultivate the Americans. Butfirstthere was Napoleonto coddle and cultivate.Before Bernadotte had been in Sweden a month, the governmentof that nation had issued a set of regulations stringentlyenforcing the Continental System, and had declared war onBritain. According to these ne w regulations, the two milliondollars worth of American property in warehouses at Gothenburgcould not be exported. Its owners were condemned eitherto sell it at the current Swedish prices, which, as had been truefor two years, would mean vast loss; or simply let the warehousemice feed on it. In compliance with Bernadotte's new regulations,the Swedish officials also seized the papers of six Americanships in Swedish ports, in effect sequestering them. 23 Allboded ill for American traders wh o would touch at Swedishports in the coming season.O n i March 1811, Bernadotte granted audience to JohnSpeyer, a Ne w York merchant appointed by the Americanenvoy to France to be the "commercial agent" of the UnitedStates at Stockholm. (Like the Forbes and Joy appointments,204