Gustavus III. opened the Riksdag as the most popular man of the country. He closed it as an absolute sovereign who had lost the love of his people and aroused the revengeful hatred of the nobility. Gustavus III. was now enabled to continue the Russian war at will. His sub-commander Stedingk won a victory over the Russians at Porosalmi, the latter being led by Sprengtporten, the former supporter of Gustavus III., now a soldier of Empress Catherine. He was killed in the battle. Prince Charles won a victory at Œland, but was by negligence of his sub-commander detained from reaping its benefits, Charles August Ehrensverd defeated a superior Russian naval force at Svensksund with the “Skerry Fleet,” the creation of his father, Augustinus Ehrensverd. At the order of the king, he then met a still larger fleet and was defeated. Dissatisfied with the king and the result, the valiant hero and philosopher made his report in the following laconic phrase: “Your majesty has no longer any Skerry Fleet,” and resigned from his position as admiral-general. In the following year, 1780, the combined naval forces of Sweden were shut up by the Russian fleet in the bay of Viborg, and seemed doomed to destruction. But the king gave orders that all the ships should force a passage, and this heroic effort was successfully made, through the lines of colossal Russian warships chained together. The Russian losses were great, and also those of the Swedes, on account of an explosion on board one of the ships. The Russians were anxious to gain the victory that escaped them at Viborg, and decided on July 9th, the day of Empress Catherine’s coronation, as an appropriate date. The battle was fought at Svensksund, and turned into a humiliating defeat, the Russians losing 53 ships, 643 cannon and 14,000 men, and the imperial flag of state; twenty-six of these ships were entered in the Swedish navy. Peace was made at Værælæ a month later. No change of territory was involved, but an end was put to Russian intrigues, and Sweden had once more and forever demonstrated her power of taking care of her independence.
The revolution in France made a deep impression upon the factions which in Sweden were secretly continuing their struggle. The nobility, in their aristocratic republicanism, sided with the revolutionists, while the king, an intimate friend of Louis XVI., tried to save the monarchy. Gustavus III. left Sweden in the summer of 1791, in order to receive Louis XVI. and his family at the frontier, while Count Axel von Fersen the Younger, a son of the old aristocratic party leader who had taken part with distinction in the American revolutionary war, was very near to saving the royal family through a flight from Paris. King Gustavus III. waited in vain for the royal fugitives, but commenced active operations for the forming of an alliance between Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Spain against republican France. Sweden and Russia made a treaty of mutual defence, but the negotiations for a general alliance were not at a favorable point when Gustavus III. himself fell by the aristocratic republicans of his own country.