Note 89 — Chapter V

No one apparently wished to father the expedition. Svart, who presents the king's side of the case, says, in his Gust. I.'s krön., pp. 78-81, that Gustavus undertook the campaign at the urgent solicitation of Lubeck, who promised to defer payment of her loan for several years without interest, provided Gustavus would undertake the war. This proposition appears generous, but there is no trace of it in the contemporary letters of the king. Those letters assert that Brask was the prime mover of the scheme; but as Brask repudiated it at once, the responsibility for it cannot be fairly laid on him. See Kon. Gust. den Förstes registrat., vol. i. pp. 190 and 301.