War for the spring of 1812 was certain. So much harm, at least, the Americans helped to inflict on Napoleon in return for the millions he cost them; but even this was not their whole revenge. The example of Russia found imitation in Sweden, where Napoleon was most vulnerable. Owing to a series of chances, Bernadotte, who happened to command the French army corps at Hamburg, was made Prince of Sweden in October, 1810, and immediately assumed the government of the kingdom. Bernadotte as an old republican, like Lucien Bonaparte, never forgave Napoleon for betraying his party, and would long since have been exiled like Moreau had he not been the brother-in-law of Joseph and a reasonably submissive member of the Imperial family. Napoleon treated him as he treated Louis, Lucien, Joseph, Jerome, Eugene, and Joachim Murat,--loading them with dignities, but exacting blind obedience; and instantly on the new king’s accession, the French minister informed him that he must within five days declare war on England. Bernadotte obeyed. Napoleon next required the confiscation of English merchandise and the total stoppage of relations between Sweden and England.[341] As in the case of Holland and the Baltic Powers, this demand included all American ships and cargoes, which amounted to one half of the property to be seized. Bernadotte either could not or would not drag his new subjects into such misery as Denmark and Holland were suffering; and within five months after his accession, he already found himself threatened with war. “Tell the Swedish minister,” said Napoleon to Cadore,[342] “that if any ship loaded with colonial produce--be it American or Danish or Swedish or Spanish or Russian--is admitted into the ports of Swedish Pomerania, my troops and my customs officers shall immediately enter the province.” Swedish Pomerania was the old province still held by Sweden on the south shore of the Baltic, next to Mecklenburg; and Stralsund, its capital, was a nest of smugglers who defied the Emperor’s decrees.