Sick in health and weary of a world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his forces into Sweden.

Even there he was menaced.

The hostilities which Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own subjects rather than on the broken reed of British assistance, and awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on his province of Finland.
The news from Copenhagen also furnished the Czar with a good excuse for hostilities with England.

For such an event he had hitherto been by no means desirous.

On his return from Tilsit to St.Petersburg he found the nobility and merchants wholly opposed to a rupture with the Sea Power, the former disdaining to clasp the hand of the conqueror of Friedland, the latter foreseeing ruin from the adoption of the Continental System; and when Napoleon sent Savary on a special mission to the Czar's Court, the Empress-Mother and nobles alike showed their abhorrence of "the executioner of the Duc d'Enghien." In vain were imperial favours lavished on this envoy.