PAINE'S RIGHTS OF MAN,

SWEDENBORGIANISM AND FREEDOM OF THE

PRESS IN SWEDEN: A PUBLISHING ENIGMA OF

1792

PETER C. HOGG

A copy of the earliest Swedish translation of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, recentlyacquired by the British Library, illustrates the old tag that 'books have their fates'. Theitem is a slim octavo volume in plain grey board covers entitled Menniskans rattigheterand bearing the imprint Stockholm, tryckte hos Controlleuren C. G. Cronland, den 11 Juliii-jg2 (fig. i).^ The text is an abridged version of part one of Paine's best-seller, firstpublished in London in February 1791. The translator-adapter was the Finnish-bornSwedenborgian publicist Carl Fredrik Nordenskiold (1756-1828).

Such precise dating is most unusual in Swedish imprints of that period, but thesignificant point is the date itself, which is that on which a draft of an edict restoringrelative freedom of the press was signed by Carl, Duke of Sodermanland, acting asRegent since the assassination of his brother King Gustav III in March. The actual edictwas not promulgated until four days later. This circumstance, together with the fact thatC. G. Cronland was a government printer, suggests that the publication of the bookplayed a part in one of the most melodramatic political shifts in modern Swedish history.An examination of the careers of the translator and printer in relation to the events of1792 strengthens this hypothesis.

The root cause of the crisis was the increasingly autocratic rule of Gustav III sinceearly 1789 when, in the middle of a ruinous war with Russia, he had persuaded the threelower estates of the Diet (Riksdag) to grant him dictatorial powers. When the estate ofnobles protested against this diminution of their political role its leaders were arrested,the ancient privy council was abolished and commoners were granted certain privilegespreviously reserved for noblemen. A year later the King made peace with Russia andthrew himself into orchestrating a counter-revolutionary crusade against France. In theautumn of 1791, after the failure of the attempt to rescue the French royal family,^ heconcluded a secret alliance with Russia in preparation for the forthcoming war. Next, inorder to raise the revenue needed for his foreign policy, he summoned another diet earlyin the following year. The strict security adopted on that occasion was regarded as a

34

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35

further insult by the nobility and brought to a head a conspiracy organized by its mostradical elements, which ended in the mortal wounding of the King at a masked ball inthe Stockholm opera house on i6 March 1792.

The fact that the King lingered on for a fortnight before dying foiled the coup thathad been planned. A regency council consisting of the senior serving officials wasinstalled under the King's more liberal-minded brother Duke Carl, and a number of theconspirators were arrested and interrogated. As soon as the King died, however, theDuke stopped the police investigation, which was threatening to compromise the entirenobility. Although the actual assassin was executed in April, the remaining prisonerswere treated with remarkable leniency and almost all pardoned and exiled four monthslater. While the Regent's chief adviser during this phase was Baron Carl Bonde, hisclosest friend Baron Gustav Adolf Reuterholm, a spokesman of the nobles at the Diet of1789, was recalled from exile in Italy. The supporters and placemen of the formerregime, led by the dead King's favourite. Count Gustav Mauritz Armfelt, saw thewriting on the wall. Both sides prepared for a showdown.

In May an envoy of the French government, Raymond Verninac de Saint-Maur,arrived in Stockholm and made contact with Bonde and the former ambassador in Paris,Baron Erik Magnus Stael von Holstein. The latter arranged a meeting between the Dukeand Verninac on 24 June. By then the issue of whether Sweden should join or stay outof the coalition against France had divided the conservative 'royalists' and the liberal'patriots' (including most of the aristocracy) into a 'war' and a ' peace ' -o r 'Russian'and ' F r ench ' - party. The Regent was clearly aligning himself with the latter.* Acomplicating factor was the impact of the democratic ideas emanating from France. TheSwedish middle classes were becoming increasingly concerned with the privileges of thenobility, which limited their career prospects in the civil service and armed forces. Theseconcerns were articulated in April by an anonymous pamphlet - widely attributed at thetime to the philosophical radical Thomas Thorild'^ but in fact written by his youngacolyte L. M. Philipson - which argued, in true Painite spirit, that aristocratic privilegeswere an absurd anachronism. The royalists began, mistakenly, to associate the Regentand his inner circle with this 'jacobinism'.

The expected showdown began after the return of Baron Reuterholm to Stockholmon 3 July. As a condition for becoming the Regent's chief minister he insisted on acomplete change of senior officials. Within five days he was given a cabinet post, andfrom then on events unfolded with great speed. In a note to Reuterholm written on 9 Julythe Regent already described himself as 'your humble copyist', busy transcribing theformer's draft of the edict on press freedom. The finished version was passed to theinterior chancery a day later, when lists of ministerial changes were also drawn up. Theedict was signed on 11 July and sent for printing the following day 'with strict ordersnot to reveal the matter to anyone'.^

At 3 p.m. on 12 July Bonde wrote an apprehensive letter to Reuterholm informing himof a plot, supposedly hatched by the conservative leaders in their 'clubs', to 'clip thewings' of the Regent, possibly within hours, and to incite 'the mob' to dispatch

36

Reuterholm, Stael and himself"^ The only solution, Bonde advised, was to expel theleaders of the 'gang' (liga) from the capital forthwith. Reuterholm passed this advice onto the Regent, who agreed to it the same evening. On 14 July, a symbolically loaded dateat the time, the printed edict was approved by the Regent and distributed to thechurches, where it was publicly read out at services the following day to general acclaim.Count Armfelt at once departed for Italy, while over the next few days the rest of theold guard were sent to take up new duties in distant provinces. Thus began the' Reuterholm era', which was to last until the end of the Regency four years later.

In addition to these external details, the underlying motives for the edict on pressfreedom need to be understood before the significance of the printing of Menniskansrdttigheter on 11 July can be assessed. The sudden reintroduction of a qualified freedomof the press puzzled generations of Swedish historians, some of whom attributed it to apersonal whim of Reuterholm or a desire on his part to mark the beginning of his regimewith a striking act. Others saw in it an expression of Bonde's radical and anti-Russianleanings, basing this on a report by the British charge d'affaires Henry Wesley inOctober, or suspected that it was intended to encourage muckraking publications for thepurpose of discrediting the old regime.

Private comments by persons close to the Regent in fact show that it had two basicaims, namely to win public support in the contest with the conservatives and, equallyimportantly, to bring extreme political views into the open in order to make it easier tosuppress them. The florid preamble to the edict refers to the intention of the crown toprove its devotion to 'the sacred rights of mankind', at a time 'when most of Europe'srulers are busy fortifying their thrones against the people', by 'opening a path for truthand the voice of the people to gain access to the throne'. In a similar vein Gustav IIIhad told his privy council in 1774, before promulgating an earlier edict on press freedom(subsequently nullified by censorship regulations), that: 'A King is enabled by a freepress to know the truth, which is so carefully and - alas!-often so successfullyconcealed from him. '

The reason given to the Regent by his ministers for issuing the edict of 1792 isindicated by an entry in the diary of his politically astute vi'ife, the Duchess Charlotta:

What really hastened the proclamation of the regulations on freedom of the press were all thesecret plottings that were promoted by the enemies of public peace and which the police provedunable to monitor. Both within the city and in its immediate environs there were disorders andprovocative tumults incited by this gang... with Armfelt in the lead. It was thought that the surestway to uncover the truth, as well as to obtain information about plans to disturb the peace, wasto grant freedom to everyone to write openly.^

This explanation is confirmed by the reaction of Baron Bonde to the curtailing of thatfreedom by a decree signed on 21 December 1792 to prevent the publication ofsubversive literature. A week later Bonde wrote to a friend still arguing, as in July, thatinstead of restricting press freedom 'one ought...to allow more rather than less to beprinted, in order to make all possible discoveries of the intended plans of the Russians

37

and the aristocrats V*' by which he meant the royalist party. His views, however, werenow out of line with those of the Regent and Reuterholm, who had become rather moreconcerned about republicanism since the abolition of the French monarchy in October.The execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 decided the matter. From then on theRegency became steadily more conservative, though the policy of neutrality towardsFrance was maintained.

The hidden agenda of the edict of July 1792 provides a context for the roles of thoseminor actors in the events of that month, the journalist Nordenskiold and the printerCronland. C. F. Nordenskiold had begun his career as an enthusiast for promoting theideas of Emanuel Swedenborg (i 688-1772), but he failed to circumvent the ecclesiasticalcensorship and thus, like other frustrated dissidents, welcomed the French Revolutionas preparing the way for a new era of ideological liberty. As a result, be fell foul of theauthorities early in 1790, wben his journal Medborgaren ('The Citizen') was suppressedfollowing the publication of an article with the same title as his later Paine translation.^^After tbe banning of another journal a year later be went to England, where he had spentthe years 1783-6 overseeing the printing of works by Swedenborg.^^

In England be joined otber Swedenborgian compatriots, among them bis own elderbrotber August (wbo had been employed as an alcbemist by Gustav III until 1789 invain attempts to make gold), tbe 'projector' Carl Bernbard Wadstrom and the botanistAdam Afzelius, a pupil of Linnaeus and acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks. Tbe first twowere already members of the Swedenborgian New Jerusalem Cburcb in London'sEastcheap, founded by Robert Hindmarsh in 1789, which Afzelius also joined later.Applying Swedenborg's principle of'tbe brotherbood of all men in Christ' literally, theybad become involved in the British abolition movement and in tbe project to found asettlement for freed slaves at Sierra Leone. ^

Tbe great publisbing sensation in Britain in the early months of 1791 was the appear-ance of the first part of Paine's Rights of Man. Nordenskiold began to translate tbe bookin London that spring and completed the work at his family home in Finland beforereturning to Stockholm in the autumn. Before tbe end of the year a copy of themanuscript was in tbe bands of the elderly Baron Pechlin, leader of tbe radical conspiracyagainst Gustav III.^^ During February 1792 Nordenskiold arranged for a Swedishversion of tbe De'claration des droits de Fhomme et du citoyen to be secretly printed inCopenbagen and smuggled into Sweden, where a strict ban now applied to all writingson 'tbe Frencb matters'.^'^ Tbe same route had long been used to bring Swedenborgiantexts into tbe country. He next emerges publicly as the translator of Paine's work in July.Tbe interest in mysticism tbat he shared with Duke Carl and Reuterbolm - he was alsotbe latter's exact contemporary and countryman, botb hailing from Nyland (Uusimaa)province in Finland - together with bis personal disenchantment with the old regime,suggest why Nordenskiold was chosen at that time to play a smaU part in tbetransformation of the regency government by an administrative coup.

A few days after tbe promulgation of tbe July edict Nordenskiold's publishing licencewas restored to him but, whereas Philipson and others launched new radical papers

38

within weeks, it was not until 6 October that he resumed publication of Medborgaren. Itreappeared with a supplement containing reprints of the offending article on tbe rightsof man from January 1790 as well as tbe essays, including one 'On despotism', that badbeen suppressed in February 1791. In a preface to these reprints Nordenskiold describedhow shocked and horrified he bad been by tbe assassination of Gustav III, which maybe one of the reasons wby he modified bis libertarian views and decided to serve theReuterholm regime.^^ In April 1793 he was instructed to discontinue bis journal and takeup a diplomatic post in Hamburg, the 'political observatory of Europe', where beremained until 1801. His confidential reports to the regency government and hisauthorship of scurrilous anonymous attacks on its opponents^^ show the extent to whichhe had become a political tool of Reuterholm.

To return to Menniskans rattigheter, a comparison of its text with tbat of tbe originalreveals some significant differences. Tbe quality of the translation was mercilesslycriticized by Nordenskiold's arcb-enemy Joban Henrik Kellgren. In a detailed review ofthe book in December 1792 the latter charged him with reducing the impact of Paine'sideas by omissions from and distortions of tbe text, as well as by inserting illogical andcontradictory footnotes. ^ Kellgren's strictures were perfectly accurate. Paine's' Miscellaneous Chapter' and ' Conclusion', where he argues against hereditary monarchyin favour of a republic, are simply omitted from the Swedish version. Expressions suchas 'The Frencb Revolution' or ' tbe friends of tbe Revolution' are replaced with phraseslike 'the ferment in Paris' and 'the Friends of Freedom'. Hostile references to monarcbyand to aristocratic titles in the otber chapters have been left out, while tbe translator hasadded two dozen 'explanatory' footnotes of his own. Where Paine discusses tbesovereignty of tbe people, a notion that Nordenskiold himself bad earlier propagated, oneof the added footnotes now states: ' Neither the King nor the nation sbould possess thesupreme power; that belongs to God alone, or to his representation on eartb, tbeCommandments of God, on which public law is founded.'^^ Although consistent withSwedenborgian theism, this does, as Kellgren noted, conflate the distinct concepts ofsecular and divine pov er.

Even more striking is the translator's repeated praise of his own country's aristocrats,for instance in bis introduction, purportedly written in May 1791. Here Sweden'snoblemen are described as 'the enlightened part of tbe nation, the light and support offreedom', in plain contrast to Paine's contemptuous dismissal of all hereditary privilege.The Swedish aristocracy, Nordenskiold declared, would 'prove far superior to thenobility of England and France were it only...to expel from its ranks its unworthymembers', namely 'those who lend themselves to being the infamous tools of injusticeand violence', who 'become treacberous accusers of innocent citizens, or transformthemselves into despicable loungers in coffee bouses and taverns where, in consort witbtbugs, they arm their cowardice witb big words and stout cudgels'.'^^

This passage is of particular interest. The description of aristocratic agitators bears norelation to events in 1791 but directly recalls tbe atmospbere in Stockholm during thespring and summer of 1792. The denunciation of 'innocent citizens' must refer to the

39

rumours circulating at that time regarding tbe complicity in regicide of various liberalaristocrats, not excluding even tbe Regent himself. The final sentence reminds one of thescenario outlined in Bonde's letter of 12 July, where the main charge against bisopponents was precisely that they were instigating tbe lower orders, like the King andCountry mobs in England, to support tbe conservative cause by physical attacks on theleading advocates of reform. Such parallels between Nordenskiold's alterations to Paine'stext and the political objectives of tbe Reuterholm group, tbe clumsiness of the excisionsand the muddled formulation of the additional footnotes, all suggest last-minuteconsultations and hurried bluepencilling before the manuscript went to press. ^

For an understanding of the situation in July 1792 it is also necessary to considerthe relationship between printers and the authorities under the autocratic constitution oftbat period. Theological censorship was exercised by the church consistories, whilepolitical censorship was bandied by law officers on a more informal or discreet basisthrough a combination of persuasion, tbreats and bribes, occasionally backed by legal oradministrative measures sucb as fines or the withdrawal of licences. Tbe printer C. G.Cronland seemed to bave had several such brushes with the legal authorities. In 1781,not long after becoming tbe proprietor tbrougb marriage of the Kumblin printingestablishment, be had produced tbe early issues of Sweden's first genuine oppositionpaper, Pebr af Lund's Wdlsignade Tryck-Friheten ('Tbe Blessed Freedom of tbe Press',1781-4). He ceased to print it after being fined for contravening tbe censorshipregulations and was replaced by another printer. Nonetheless, when Thomas Thorildstarted a second radical journal in 1784 bis first printer was again Cronland. Botb menwere called before tbe Lord Chancellor, Count Wacbtmeister, and escaped prosecutiononly by apologizing and promising to mend their ways. As before, Cronland thenwithdrew from tbe enterprise.'"'

At tbe time of the constitutional crisis early in 1789 Cronland printed at least one tract,Medborgerliga friheten, that supported autocracy. In October of that year be wasappointed controlleur of the printing works of the new National Debt Office(Riksgaldsverket), which were set up exclusively to print bank notes. He would bardlyhave been employed in tbat position unless tbe government fully trusted bis discretionin confidential matters, sucb as tbe printing of counterfeit Russian and Swedish currencyfor distribution during and after tbe war then in progress in Finland. ^ Alongside hisofficial duties be continued to print commercially under the Kumbhn imprint.

After producing Menniskans rdttigheter in July 1792 Cronland reappears in connectionwith tbe curbing of tbe new press freedom in December, again together with Thorild.The ostensible cause of tbe decree of 21 December was the new preface that Thorild hadwritten for a memorial on popular sovereignty and freedom of the press which he badopenly presented six years earlier. Its forthcoming publication bad been announced sinceOctober. ^ The work was printed by Cronland, delivered by the author himself to acouple of bookshops on 20 December and confiscated on the Duke's orders the followingday, when the decree was also signed and Thorild was summoned before the Court ofAppeal in Stockholm (still headed by Wachtmeister), which was in itself a legal

40

irregularity. On this occasion, unlike 1784, Thorild was committed for trial. At the initialhearing on 22 December, the day on which the new decree was published, Cronlandhanded over the manuscript and proof sheets to the court and was then dismissed. Tbeconfident bearing of Tborild during the proceedings, which ended in February witb asentence of exile, and his leisurely departure in March for Swedish Pomerania, wbere bewas later appointed university librarian at Greifswald, have given rise to the suspicionthat this was an arranged trial. While Thorild himself may have been to some extentduped,^^ Cronland's part in the affair suggests collusion with the government andreinforces the impression that he had played a similar role before.

Tbe Royal Library in Stockholm possesses three copies of Menniskans rdttigheter,marked A-C. The first copy, identified in pencil on the titlepage as 'af Thomas Payne',may be tbe legal deposit copy submitted by Cronland, tbough the library's register ofitems received from him unfortunately breaks off in 1791.^^ Copy B bears the manuscriptinscription 'Skankt af Auctorn d. yf 1792' (presented by the author 16 Dec. 1792) on tbeverso of tbe flyleaf, with the later ownership note 'Deleen' added inside tbe front cover.The former clearly relates to the translator, Nordenskiold, while the latter in allprobability represents Carl Erik Deleen (1767-1850).^'

A few years afterwards C. E. Deleen was to lease Kumblin's (Cronland's firm) andbegin a long and successful career as a printer, but in December 1792 be was still servingas a law clerk in tbe Stockholm Court of Appeal and working on a translation of Locke'sLetters concerning Toleration, which C. F. Nordenskiold helped bim to bave printed atthe beginning of 1793, with an introduction in wbicb Deleen addressed an appeal to theSwedisb cburch authorities for complete religious freedom.^^ Like Thorild, Norden-skiold and Wadstrom, Deleen combined deep Swedenborgian convictions with a radicalpolitical outlook. Unlike Nordenskiold, be sustained tbe latter beyond 1792 and was laterto publish many of Thorild's works and be repeatedly fined for printing politicallyoffensive material in the early years of tbe following century, but in 1793 be petitionedReuterholm for permission to set up as a printer. Although bis request was turned downat that time, the petition itself suggests tbat Deleen may bave expected a reward for someservice, possibly connected witb legal work on tbe Thorild trial.

The case of Nordenskiold, as well as of Thorild and Deleen, illustrates tbe dilemmaof rehgious and political dissidents in Sweden, wbo felt compelled to collaborate with theautocratic regency government, witb which they at least shared some ideological ground,in preference to tbe even more unpalatable alternatives. Tbeir situation helps to explainthe events of July 1792, wben such a powerfully symbolic text as Paine's Rights of Man,suitably doctored, could be used as a validating decoy in a covert political scheme, wherethe proclamation of freedom of the press would provide a disorientating context and analleged royalist plot tbe immediate pretext for ousting the Gustavian old guard.

I T.'P. [i.e. Thomas Vaine], Menniskans rdttigheter 2 Kongl. Maj: ts nddiga forordning om en allmdn(Stockholm: C. G. Cronland, 1792). 127 p. 8°. skrif- och tryckfrihet. Gifven Drottningholms slottIts BL pressmark is RB.23.a.4416. den 11 Julii ijg2. One contemporary, G. J.

41

Adlerbeth (1751-1818), noted the coincidence:'On the same day as the freedom of the pressedict was issued [recte signed], a translation ofPaine's Rights of Man appeared' {Historiskaanteckningar^ vol. ii (1857), p. 169). A laterhistorian merely observed that the edict shared'the same purpose and spirit as Menniskansrdttigheter^ (B. von Schinkel, Minnen ur Sverigesnyare histona^ vol. iii (1853), p. 34).

3 The flight to Varennes in July was organized bythe Swedish Count Axel von Fersen. Gustav IIIwas waiting at Aachen to receive the escapees.

4 On 6 July 1792 Verninac reported to Paris: 'Jen'ai rien neglige pour conquerir a notre causecette partie des Suedois qui vont etre saisis desrenes de l'administration' {A. Soderhjelm,Sverige och denfranska revolulionen, vol. ii (1924),p. 83). This statement, referring to the 'tri-umvirate' of Reuterholm, Bonde and Stael,whom the Russian ambassador called 'les troisfacardins' (corrupters of morals and religion),suggests foreknowledge of the events that wereto follow (S. J. Boethius, Historisk tidskrift, vol.viii (1888), pp. 105-6). Stael, married toGermaine Necker, had been recalled from Parisin December 1791 on account of his sympathywith the revolution.

5 Thorild had spent the years 1788-90 in England,vainly hoping to promote a rational 'worldgovernment'. While there, he published hisSwedenborgian tract True heavenly religion re-stored (London: R. Hindmarsh, 1790).

6 C. G. Nordin (1749-1812), Dagboksanteckningar(1868), p. 287.

7 The letter is printed in the published diary of theRegent's wife, Hedvig Elisabeth Charlottas dag-bok, vol. iii (1907), pp. 505-6. The Duke was asuperstitious man, and the following day wouldbe Friday 13 July.

8 B. Ahlen, Ord mot ordningen (1986), p. 115.9 Hedvig Elisabeth Charlottas dagbok, vol. iii, p.

518.10 Soderhjelm, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 226.11 'Menniskans rattigheter', Medborgaren, 23 Jan.

1790 (reproduced in Adlerbeth, op. cit., vol. ii,pp. 26-9). From the identity of title between thebook (n. i) and this article, which was reprintedon 6 Oct. 1792, arose the misconception,originating with G. Ljunggren (Svenska vitter-hetens hdfder, vol. ii (1877), p. 15), that thetranslation did not appear until October 1792.Nordenskiold had started his journal in 1788 as

a discreet medium for Swedenborgian views butturned it into an organ of radical libertarianismunder the influence of the French Revolution.

12 Before leaving Sweden Nordenskiold had pre-sented some of Swedenborg's ideas in the guiseof an anonymous 'dream book' {Oneiromantien(Stockholm, 1783)). After his return in 1786 hefounded a Societas Exegetica pro Philanthropiafor the purpose of publishing Swedenborg'sworks. Despite the fact that it numberedDuke Carl among its members, the societyincurred royal disfavour after a campaign againstit by the rationalist publicist and court poetJ. H. Kellgren in 1787 and had ceased tofunction by 1791.

13 All three had been members of the SocietasExegetica. In 1792 the Sierra Leone Companysent August Nordenskiold (as a mineralogist)with Afzelius to Freetown, where the formerdied in December. His companion spent the nextfour years there botanizing and seeking in-formation on the pure religious community thatSwedenborg believed to exist somewhere southof the Sahara (C. Fyfe, A history of Sierra Leone(1962), p. 42).

14 L. Krusius-Ahrenberg, Tyrannmordaren C. F.Ehrensvdrd (1947), p. 171- Nordenskidld's in-troduction to the printed version is dated:'London, Winchester Row d. 28 Maji 1791.'

15 A copy of this declaration (perhaps extractedfrom Nordenskidld's own Paine translation) heldby the Royal Library in Stockholm was obtainedby a Swedish diplomat in Copenhagen. Amongthe items confiscated from bookshops by theStockholm police in March was FrancoisSoules's translation of Paine's work (Droits derhomme (Paris, 1791)); at the same time 'an on-duty policeman sat with bookseller Cleve toprevent reckless reading of French books aboutthe revolution' (R. F. Hochschild, Memoarer,vol. ii (1907), P- 245).

16 Nordenskiold is said to have offered to keep hisjournal noncontroversial in return for a govern-ment salary (R. Sundelin, Swedenborgianismenshistoria (1886), p. 272). The English Sweden-borgians had already condemned 'republicanand democratic principles' in April 1792 (C. T.Odhner, Robert Hindmarsh (1895), p. 90). Yearslater, as a private language teacher at Anklam inPomerania (1801-7), Nordenskiold adopted thename Wilelms because, as he said, ' theAnklamites were Jacobins and hated the nobility'

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(L. von Engestrom, Minnen (1876), vol. i, p.

340)-17 Gustav Moritz Armfeldts Landesverratherey,

[Stralsund, 1795] and 'J. H. Kellgrens Lebenund Charakter', Allgemeiner litterarischerAnzeiger, no. 31 (Leipzig, Oct. 1796). The firstwas also issued as The Correspondence of BaronArmfelt and the other conspirators against theSwedish Government (London, 1795).

18 Review in Stockholms Posten, 8 and 11 Dec.1792; reprinted in Kellgren's Samlade skrifter,vol. V (1947), pp. 618-28.

19 Menniskans rattigheter (1792), p. 85. Comparethis with Hindmarsh's first principle of govern-ment (Minutes of the General Conference of theNew Church, London, April 1792): 'we believeand acknowledge that all power is derived fromthe LORD alone' and delegated to kings 'asrepresentatives of Himself.

20 Menniskans rattigheter., f. A5V. These apologiafor the 'patriotic' nobility may have been aresponse to the controversy begun by Philipson'spamphlet in April 1792.

21 Nordenskiold's final editing must postdate 8July, when he complained to his eldest brother inFinland that Duke Carl no longer acknowledgedhis old friends (H. Lenhammar, Tolerans ochbekdnnelsetvdng (1966), p. 308); very shortlyafter writing that he must have been approachedon behalf of the Reuterholm group. Evidencethat neither he nor Cronland had seen the text ofthe edict by i r July is that the book is technicallyin breach of it, as the author's full name is notgiven but only his initials, ' T . P . ' (at the end ofthe Preface).

22 S. Boberg, Gustav III och tryckfriheten (1951),pp. i85f., 198-202.

23 This work was carried out intermittently during1788-91 (under the supervision of the financeminister Ruuth) in the alchemical workshop atDrottningholm, using August Nordenskiold's

assistant, the Swedenborgian C. F. Bergklint,and two other persons.

24 The memorial was Om det allmdnna fdrstdndetsfrihet (On the liberty of general reason). In mid-August 1792, when the Regent faced seriouscriticism for pardoning the regicides, Thorildhad published the essay Mildheten (Leniency),which argued the case for the pardons, andPhilipson had supported it in his paper Patrioten.These timely contributions were no doubtinspired by the government (A. O. Holmberg,Leopold och den reuterholmska tiden (1957), p.22). From October onwards the police chiefLiljensparre had tried to convince the Regentthat Reuterholm was preparing a revolution andthat Thorild, Philipson and Nordenskiold wereall in his pay (M. Nylund, G. A. Reuterholmunder formyndaretiden (1917), p. 38). The lattermay well have been true; by December Reuter-holm needed to disprove both allegations.

25 Thorild was in fact a protege of Reuterholm andanxious to serve him. Before leaving Sweden hereceived a letter from the latter's privatesecretary informing him that the Baron sym-pathised with him but had been obliged toprosecute to deter others who were influenced byFrench jacobin writers and 'Payn's blindman's-bufF leaps' (Holmberg, op. cit., pp. 23-4). Thegovernor of Pomerania at the time, and chan-cellor of Greifswald university, was CountRuuth, the former finance minister (n. 23).

26 From 1793 until his death in 1802 Cronlandappears to have confined himself to printingbank notes.

27 I am grateful to Gunilla Jonsson, Gunnel Brodinand their colleagues at the Royal Library forinformation relating to the copies held there.

28 John Locke, Bref om religionsfriheten [Transl.C. E. Deleen] (Stockholm, 1793), The appealhad no effect.

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