12, 1526, and promised further that salt should be admitted into Sweden free. A similar ratification was signed by Charles V., Sept. 19, 1526. This accomplished, Holland opened negotiations with Sweden to the end that all articles of commerce be placed upon the free-list along with salt; and she requested further that all the Swedish harbors be open to her ships. So ambitious a proposal terrified Gustavus. He would have been rejoiced to grant it, but he feared by doing so to irritate Lubeck. It is somewhat amusing to trace the steps by which he convinced himself that such a course was right. Brask, as usual, was the first to question whether Lubeck would consent. On the 9th of December, 1526, he wrote: "I advocate the treaty, but I doubt much whether Lubeck will not raise objections, for she has wished to have the Baltic to herself." A few days later Gustavus put out a feeler to his Cabinet in the south of Sweden. "So far as we know," he wrote with caution, "our relations with Lubeck and the Vend Cities do not forbid this treaty." By the spring of 1527 he had grown more confident of his position, and wrote as follows: "The provisional arrangement made with Holland has proved greatly to our advantage. We now desire to make a perpetual treaty with her before Whitsunday next, and for this purpose recommend that Olaus Magni be sent at once to Amsterdam." Two weeks after this he added: "The privileges which the German cities wrung from us in Strengnäs are so grinding that we can no longer adhere to them in all their points." On the 22d of April the monarch had so far removed his doubts as to commission Magni to negotiate the treaty, and he intrusted him with a written promise over the royal signature and seal, conferring on Holland, Brabant, Zealand, and East and West Friesland the right to enter all the Swedish rivers and harbors, on payment of the customary duties. It is noticeable that in this document Gustavus did not remit the duties, as had been desired, nor even promise that salt should be admitted free; and in the letter to his envoy the diplomatic monarch used these words: "Do not be too liberal, especially in the matter of duties. If they really insist upon free-trade, you must discreetly avoid promising it, and suggest that probably the privilege will be granted them as a favor." Brask, who feared lest these negotiations might cause trouble, hastened to throw a favorable light upon his own position. "You will remember," he wrote his fellow-counsellors, "that I opposed the grant of these great privileges to Lubeck, believing them injurious to the welfare of our people." Magni, in conformity with the king's injunctions, proceeded to the town of Ghent, where he was given an audience of Margaret, regent of the Netherlands. As soon as the letters of May 12, 1526, and April 18, 1527, were translated for her, she raised a number of objections, chief of which were that the latter letter did not provide that salt should be