e a soldier upon call; but there was never a soldier among
them, nor a man that understood the calling; and though he had all their
wealth, they had no commerce of consequence, and little ready money; and
consequently his treasury, when he had amassed all he could, very bare
and empty. He was then but in an indifferent condition to satisfy those
two natural appetites, when he had neither wealth to support a
soldiery, nor a soldiery trained in the art of war. The first token this
Prince gave of an aspiring genius, and of an ambition that is noble and
necessary in a monarch who has a mind to flourish, was to believe none
of his subjects more wise than himself, or more fit to govern. He did
so, and looked upon his own proper person as the most fit to travel out
among the other realms of the world and study politics for the advancing
of his dominions. He then seldom pretended to any warlike dispositions
against those who were instructed in the science of arms; his military
dealings lay mostly with the Turks and Tartars, who, as they had numbers
as well as he, had them likewise composed, as well as his, of a rude,
uncultivated mob, and they appeared in the field like a raw,
undisciplined militia. In this his Christian neighbours liked him well,
insomuch as he was a kind of stay or stopgap to the infidels. But when
he came to look into the more polished parts of the Christian world, he
set out towards it, from the very threshold, like a natural-born
politician. He was not for learning the game by trying chances and
venturing losses in the field so soon; no, he went upon the maxim _that
it was, at that time of day, expedient and necessary for him to carry,
like Samson, his strength in his head, and not in his arms_. He had
then, he knew, but very few commodious places for commerce of his own,
and those all situated in the _White Sea_, too remote, frozen up the
most part of the year, and not at all fit for a fleet of men-of-war; but
he knew of many more commodious ones of his neighbours in the Baltic,
and within his reach whenever he could strengthen his hands to lay hold
of them. He had a longing eye towards them; but with prudence seemingly
turned his head another way, and secretly entertained the pleasant
thought that he should come at them all in good time. Not to give any
jealousy, he endeavours for no help from his neighbours to instruct his
men in arms. That was like asking a skilful person, one intended to
fight a duel wi