It was natural that the expectations of Napoleon as to the alliance with
Sweden should be heightened by this election, and by the favours which
he had bestowed. At first Bernadotte's correspondence with him was that
of a grateful inferior, but the very moment he was fairly out of France,
feeling himself as it were relieved from a state of long and painful
constraint, it is said that his hatred to Napoleon vented itself in
threatening expressions, which, whether true or false, were reported to
the emperor.

On his side, that monarch, forced to be absolute in his continental
system, cramped the commerce of Sweden; he wished her even to exclude
American vessels from her ports; and at last he declared that he would
only regard as friends the enemies of Great Britain. Bernadotte was
obliged to make his election; the winter and the sea separated him from
the assistance, or protected him from the attacks, of the English; the
French were close to his ports; a war with France therefore would be
real and effective; a war with England would be merely on paper. The
prince of Sweden adopted the latter alternative.

Napoleon, however, being as much a conqueror in peace as in war, and
suspecting the intentions of Bernadotte, had demanded from Sweden
several supplies of rigging for his Brest fleet, and the despatch of a
body of troops, which were to be in his pay; in this manner weakening
his allies to subdue his enemies, so as to allow him to be the master of
both. He also required that colonial produce should be subjected in
Sweden, the same as in France, to a duty of five per cent. It is even
affirmed that he applied to Bernadotte to allow French custom-house
officers to be placed at Gottenburg. These demands were eluded.