GEORGE III.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Signed document, ratifying a treaty with the King of Sweden. A royal warrant, signed by George III at the head, ordering the application of the Great Seal to the Convention of Subsidy between Great Britain and Sweden, signed at Stralsund on 23 June 1807. The document is countersigned on the second page by the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, later prime minister.The warrant orders the Great Seal be affixed to two instruments "containing our Ratifications of a Treaty concluded & signed at Stralsund on the 23d Day of June last, between us and our good brother the King of Sweden, by our respective plenipotentiaries". Annexed to the document are manuscript copies of the instruments.Sweden joined Britain in the war against Napoleon in 1805 in the Treaty of Bäckaskog. In early 1807, France launched an offensive against Swedish Pomerania, and by June, Swedish forces were weakening. Canning saw Pomerania as the only viable base for continental military operations against Napoleon and agreed in the treaty of 23 June to provide British subsidies to Swedish troops. The Swedes nevertheless capitulated in August. Britain reinforced Sweden in 1808 as France's allies entered the war against her, but in 1809 King Gustav IV was deposed, and in 1810 Sweden aligned with France and declared war on Britain.

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