Commercial Correspondence Between Stockholm and Providence Concerning the Swedish Iron Trade and an Indemnity Payment for Napoleonic-Era Seizures 1825
1825ref. BK0190Stockholm Sweden 1825. One large folded commercial sheet written on several panels with integral address panel to Messrs. Brown & Ives Providence Rhode Island endorsed "Pr. Brig Harvest" with Newport "SHIP" marking. Headed "Triplicate. Old folds and light handling wear very good. A commercial letter and account from the Stockholm mercantile house of Kantzow & Biel to Brown & Ives of Providence concerning the execution of a large order for Swedish iron. The firm reports that it is assembling a shipment of arranging its transport while the accounting on another portion of the same sheet records the value of the iron and related charges. The letter reports: "the contents giving us the desired opportunity of confirming you Your order for a Shipmt. of 200 Tons Iron to be ship'd & appointed and convoy which we shall of course prevail the commencement on." The letter dates from a period of rapid expansion in Swedish iron exports to the United States which had displaced Britain as Sweden's most important foreign market for bar iron. Britain had reduced its dependence on Swedish imports while American tariff legislation favored hammered iron from Sweden and Russia over British rolled iron. American demand became particularly important to the Swedish industry in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The United States purchased approximately three-fifths of Sweden's iron exports in 1822 with mainly American vessels engaged in the trade. The account also records a credit entered July 28 "By your proportion of dividend in payment from the Swedish Government". Brown & Ives had longstanding claims against Sweden arising from American property seized during the Napoleonic Wars including tobacco and rice belonging to the firm taken from the General Hamilton in 1810.1 The Swedish government finally settled the American claims in July 1825 following years of diplomatic representations concerning the confiscation and sale of American property at Stralsund. The credit recorded here appears to represent Brown & Ives's share of that indemnity entered less than two weeks after the settlement was formally concluded on July 16. The correspondence thus brings together two aspects of Swedish-American relations in the immediate postwar period: the expansion of an iron trade increasingly important to Sweden's economy and the settlement of commercial grievances dating back fifteen years. The shift reflected the changing geography of Atlantic commerce as Britain's increasingly mechanized iron industry reduced its dependence on Swedish imports while the rapidly industrializing United States emerged as Sweden's principal customer. However American iron production expanded enough to challenge Sweden's position in the American market particularly beginning in the 1830s and 1840s. 1 Calendar of the Miscellaneous Letters Received by the Department of State Government Printing Office 1897 47. . unknown
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