Sandels's action had only been a prelude…
September 1809 CE
Sweden closes its harbors to British ships and joins the Continental System, leading to the formal declaration of war on Great Britain.
According to the treaty Sweden cedes parts of the provinces Lappland and Västerbotten (east of Tornio River and Muonio River), Åland, and all provinces east thereof.
The ceded territories will come to constitute the Grand Duchy of Finland, to which also the Russian eighteenth century conquests of Karelia, including small parts of Nyland and Savonia (later to be called Old Finland), will be joined in 1812 as Viborg County.
Together with the Diet of Porvoo (1809), and the Oath of the Sovereign, the Treaty of Fredrikshamn constitutes the cornerstone for the autonomous Grand Duchy, its own administration and institutions, and thereby a start of the development that will lead to the revival of Finnish culture, to the equal position of the Finnish language, and ultimately in 1917 to Finland's independence.
A reference to Emperor Alexander's promise to retain old laws and privileges in Finland is included, but the treaty oversteps any formal guarantees of the legal position of Finland's inhabitants.
The Russians refuse, and the Swedes are not in a position to insist.
Similar clauses have been common in peace treaties, but they have also regularly been circumvented.
At the period of Russification of Finland, ninety years later, the Russian government will argue that the treaty hadn't been violated and hence no outside party had any right to intervene, the question being solely a matter of the emperor who had granted the original promise.
During the negotiations, Swedish representatives endeavor to escape the loss of the Åland islands, "the fore-posts of Stockholm," as Napoleon rightly describes them.
The Åland islands are culturally, ethnically and linguistically purely Swedish, but such facts are of no significance at this time.
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