ested from the crown of Sweden.
Since those provinces have been in the Czar's possession, Pernan is
entirely waste. At Revel we have not one British merchant left, and
all the trade which was formerly at Narwa is now brought to
Petersburg.... The Swede could never possibly engross the trade of
our subjects, because those seaports in his hands were but so many
thoroughfares from whence these commodities were uttered, the
places of their produce or manufacture lying behind those ports, in
the dominions of the Czar. But, if left to the Czar, these Baltic
ports are no more thoroughfares, but peculiar magazines from the
inland countries of the Czar's own dominions. Having already
Archangel in the White Sea, to leave him but any seaport in the
Baltic were to put no less in his hands than the _two keys of the
general magazines of all the naval stores of Europe_; it being
known that Danes, Swedes, Poles, and Prussians have but single and
distinct branches of those commodities in their several dominions.
If the Czar should thus engross 'the supply of what we cannot do
without,' where then is our fleet? Or, indeed, where is the
security for all our trade to any part of the earth besides?"

If, then, the interest of British commerce requires to exclude the Czar
from the Baltic, the interest of our State ought to be no less a spur to
quicken us to that attempt. By the interest of our State I would be
understood to mean neither the party measures of a Ministry, nor any
foreign motives of a Court, but precisely what is, and ever must be, the
immediate concern, either for the safety, ease, dignity, or emolument of
the Crown, as well as the common weal of Great Britain. With respect to
the Baltic, it has "from the earliest period of our naval power" always
been considered a fundamental interest of our State: first, to prevent
the rise there of any new maritime Power; and, secondly, to maintain the
balance of power between Denmark and Sweden.

"One instance of the wisdom and foresight of our _then truly
British statesmen_ is the peace at Stalboa, in the year 1617. James
the First was the mediator of that treaty, by which the Muscovite
was obliged to give up all the provinces which he then was
possessed of in the Baltic, and to be barely an inland Power on
this side of Europe."

The same policy of preventing a n