Everything about The Guadeloupe Fund totally explained
The
Guadeloupe Fund (
Swedish:
Guadeloupefonden) was established by
Sweden's
Riksdag of the Estates in
1815 for the benefit of Crown Prince and
Regent Charles XIV John of Sweden, also known as
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, and his heirs.
On
March 3,
1813, the island of
Guadeloupe was ceded by
Britain to "His Royal Majesty the King of Sweden, and his successor to the Swedish throne" according to the
Act of Succession of
September 26,
1810. This was supposedly in order to keep the Crown Prince "at least partially compensated for the donations and other property, which he'd lost since being called to the succession of the Swedish throne", having also used proceeds of sales of his Italian and French property to pay off debts of Sweden and losses as a consequence of Sweden's involvement in the
Napoleonic Wars. Crown Prince Charles, or Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, had been one of the most successful soldiers in
Napoleonic France. He was
Empire Marshal of France, a former minister of war and had been created Prince of
Ponte Corvo by
Napoleon, before accepting the election as heir to the Swedish throne. Under his adoptive father, the reigning and yet powerless King
Charles XIII of Sweden, the Crown Prince was effectively the regent of the country, and when Sweden sided with Napoleon's enemies, Bernadotte came to be seen as a traitor to his native France. Upon Sweden's accession to the
Sixth Coalition, the offer of a
West Indies island by Britain was an attempt to, in some way, compensate for this. Guadeloupe was conveniently located in proximity to the Swedish
colony of
Saint-Barthélemy.
After France had been defeated and Napoleon was exiled to
Elba, the
Treaty of Paris of
1814 settled the terms of the peace, in which Guadeloupe, having previously been a French possession, was returned to France. On
August 13, 1814, a settlement of 24 million
francs was reached with Britain as a replacement for the intended compensation.
The Crown Prince, acting as regent, used about half of the sum to pay off government debts; the rest went to various projects of public benefit. In recognition of this, the Riksdag of 1815 instituted that the Crown Prince and his heirs would receive an annual installment of 300,000
Riksdaler, which was to be paid out in
perpetuity.
In the middle of the
20th century the scheme came under close scrutiny and, following a settlement between
the Crown and the House of
Bernadotte, the last payment of the fund was made in
1983.
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