the old King and the dissensions in the Privy Council of Sweden placed the government, and especially the control of foreign policy, entirely in his hands. Amongst the first of Charles John's acts as Crown Prince was to address the dire state of the Swedish economy. The Swedish economy was in shambles after years of mismanagement since the reign of Gustav III and aggravated during the reign of his son Gustav IV Adolf. The economic turmoil had been caused, in part, by the debts accrued from Gustav III's Russian War, in part to the failure of several of Gustav IV Adolf's well intentioned economic reforms (Gustav IV Adolf was rather more successful in his agrarian reforms) and the costs of the more recent wars against France and Russia. Under Gustav IV Adolf genuine attempts at economic reform, including paying down the national debt by some 700,000 Riksdalers in the first years of his active reign, and revitalizing the currency, met with limited success. Such measures were undermined by his other policies. Gustav IV Adolf's personal dislike of the Riksdag, which had the power to raise taxes, led to his refusal to call them into session after 1800, crippling his attempts to raise state revenues. Gustav IV Adolf's foreign policy plunged Sweden into disastrous (and expensive) wars against France and Russia. The cost of years of war, several poor harvests in the years between 1798 and 1809, the ineptitude of his ministers in carrying out fiscal reforms, and the loss of the tax base of Finland had ballooned Sweden's national debt. The impending demands of Napoleon to adhere to the Continental System forecasted even greater difficulties. Charles John immediately began making reforms, and used his sizable fortune, accrued honestly during his time as French Marshal, to pay off much of the debt, and to stabilize the economy by both grants and via a loan to the state of £300,000 sterling at five percent interest. Charles John also purchased back from the French private estates that had been confiscated during the occupation of Swedish Pomerania from 1808 to 1810 and returned them to their original Swedish and German owners. The keynote of his foreign and domestic policy was maintenance of Swedish independence of action, often in the face of French demands, and the acquisition of Norway as a compensation for the loss of Finland. Many Swedes expected him to reconquer Finland, which