s, he desired none of
his troops, but that they might be all speedily transported out of his
dominions; that so the transport, whose freight stood him in 40,000 rix
dollars per month, might be discharged, and his subjects eased of the
intolerable contributions they now underwent. This he could not do less
than agree to; and accordingly, all the Russian troops are already
embarked, and intend for certain to go from here with the first
favourable wind. It must be left to Providence and time, to discover
what may have induced the Czar to a resolution so prejudicial to the
Northern Alliance, and most advantageous to the common enemy.

If we would take a true survey of men, and lay them open in a proper
light to the eye of our intellects, _we must_ first _consider their
natures_ and then _their ends_; and by this method of examination,
though their conduct is, seemingly, full of intricate mazes and
perplexities, and winding round with infinite meanders of state-craft,
we shall be able to dive into the deepest recesses, make our way through
the most puzzling labyrinths, and at length come to the most abstruse
means of bringing about the master secrets of their minds, and to
unriddle their utmost mysteries.... The Czar ... is, by nature, of a
great and enterprising spirit, and of a genius thoroughly politic; and
as for his ends, the manner of his own Government, where he sways
arbitrary lord over the estates and honours of his people, must make
him, if all the policies in the world could by far-distant aims promise
him accession and accumulation of empire and wealth, be everlastingly
laying schemes for the achieving of both with the extremest cupidity and
ambition. Whatever ends an insatiate desire of opulency, and a boundless
thirst for dominion, can ever put him upon, to satisfy their craving and
voracious appetites, those must, most undoubtedly, be his.

The next questions we are to put to ourselves are these three:

1. By what means can he gain these ends?

2. How far from him, and in what place, can these ends be best obtained?

3. And by what time, using all proper methods and succeeding in them,
may he obtain these ends?

The possessions of the Czar were prodigious, vast in extent; the people
all at his nod, all his downright arrant slaves, and all the wealth of
the country his own at a word's command. But then the country, though
large in ground, was not quite so in produce. Every vassal had his gun,
and was to b