 During the 17th century, traders in Stockholm made several failed attempts to establish chartered companies to promote foreign trade.For example, the Levant Company was founded in 1738 but was however discontinued in the mid-1760s due to limited economic progress.Swedish colonization of St Barthélemy resulted in the creation of the West India Company in 1786; a successful enterprise during the Napoleonic era dissolved in 1805 when free trade bared it from its privileges.