The government of Finland, according to the terms of the agreement reached between the Diet and the tsar, is directly controlled by the tsar, who appoints a governor general as his adviser.

With one brief exception, all of the governors general are Russian.

The first governor general is the Swedish-Finn Goran Sprengtporten, who is ably assisted by the prominent Swedish-Finn politician, Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt.

The chief instrument of government in the grand duchy is the Government Council, renamed in 1816 the Senate, which is composed of fourteen Finns appointed by the tsar.

The counterpart of the Senate in St. Petersburg is the Committee for Finnish Affairs, composed of Finns, which presents Finnish requests to the tsar; however, Finnish civil servants usually carry on the business of government with little interference from the tsarist government in St. Petersburg.

The Diet is formally the lawmaking body of the government; it cannot initiate legislation, however, but can only petition the tsar to introduce legislation.

The tsar, moreover, can summon and can dismiss the Senate without reference to the Diet.

There is an independent judicial system.

Finland even maintains its own customs system, and taxes collected in Finland remain  in the country.

Finns are exempted from conscription into the Russian army.

Despite these safeguards, Finland still feels the autocracy of the tsar.

The Finnish Diet is dismissed in 1809, and it will not reconvene or more than fifty years.

Although the government of the grand duchy represents an uneasy balance between the traditions of Finnish self-government and those of Russian autocracy, as long as the Russians respect the balance, the Finnish people will be satisfied.

The period of Russian rule is characterized by peaceful internal development, largely because, for the first time in centuries, Finland is free of war.