The treaty of peace of Westphalia was signed in October, 1648. The representatives of Sweden were John Oxenstierna, a son of the great chancellor, and Adler Salvius. Sweden received, as a reward for her decisive and glorious part in the Thirty Years’ War, the following possessions: West Pomerania, with the islands of Rugen and Usedom; the western part of East Pomerania, with the island of Wollin; the town of Wismar, with surrounding territory, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden. With these German possessions followed three votes at the German Diet. The Swedish government was to receive a sum of several millions to defray the army expenses, of which Queen Christine recklessly ceded the larger part. Through these glorious conditions of peace Sweden rose to the rank of one of the mightiest of European empires, which held the balance of power in Northern Europe. Her possessions made the Baltic almost an “inland lake of Sweden,” and efforts soon followed to make it completely so. Sweden exerted a beneficent influence throughout her large possessions, which, from a cultural point of view, hardly can be overestimated. Her methods of planting the seeds of culture, by establishing Swedish and German universities, and by abolishing serfdom in the conquered lands, are worthy of the highest respect. But with her new political grandeur Sweden acquired formidable enemies; she had not the resources to sustain or defend her great possessions, and the development of the mother country was for a time misdirected by dreams of vain glory.