‘If I could have any further doubts upon my mind relative to the sincerity of the intentions of this Government, they have been perfectly removed by the conversation I had yesterday with Count Rosen’. Saumarez’ comment at the height of anxieties over the Carlshamn cargoes incident encapsulates the relationship that had built up between Saumarez and his Swedish counterpart, von Rosen.

Saumarez’ cordial relationships with both von Rosen and Admiral Krusenstjerna were fundamental to his judgement of the correct line of action to follow. They encouraged him to follow his own line regardless of the anxieties of London. Just after his final return from the Baltic, he wrote a Secret letter at the request of von Rosen to certify that it was the latter's clarifications and assurances of Bernadotte's friendly intentions and his independence of Bonaparte that persuaded Saumarez to continue to act peacefully towards the Swedes before he received instructions from government, and that those instructions when they arrived were based on the discussions that he, Saumarez, had had with von Rosen. He was delighted to verify von Rosen's zeal in serving the Prince Royal and the cause ‘of all people who detest the Tyrant's system which has inflicted such misery on so great a part of the Continent under his oppressive yoke’.

In a later letter to Ross, Krusenstjerna makes the sardonic comment that:

Saumarez, Alquier, and von Rosen and Bernadotte were the lead players for their three respective countries in the Baltic in the three campaigning years 1810–12. Their personal relationships and the ways they went about achieving their objectives were critical to the events there of July 1812. The outcome was the destruction of the Continental System, the failure of Napoleon's attempt to defeat Britain by economic warfare, and his fatal march against Moscow. It is worth looking at each of these characters more closely before moving on to the narrative of the final events.