tral princes--near
enough at hand to come up to demand a share of the booty without having
struck a blow in getting it. His behaviour has been as cunning at sea,
where his fleet has always kept out of harm's way and at a great
distance whenever there was any likelihood of an engagement between the
Danes and the Swedes. He hoped that when these two nations had ruined
one another's fleets, his might then ride master in the Baltic. All this
while he had taken care to make his men improve, by the example of
foreigners and under their command, in the art of war.... His fleets
will soon considerably outnumber the Swedish and the Danish ones joined
together. He need not fear their being a hindrance from his giving a
finishing stroke to this great and glorious undertaking. Which done,
_let us look to ourselves; he will then most certainly become our rival,
and as dangerous to us as he is now neglected_. We then may, perhaps,
though too late, call to mind what our own ministers and merchants have
told us of his designs of carrying on alone all the northern trade, and
of getting all that from Turkey and Persia into his hands through the
rivers which he is joining and making navigable from the Caspian, or the
Black Sea, to his Petersburg. _We shall then wonder at our blindness
that we did not suspect his designs_ when we heard the prodigious works
he has done at Petersburg and Revel; of which last place, the _Daily
Courant_, dated November 23, says:

"HAGUE, _Nov. 17_.

"The captains of the men-of-war of the States, who have been at
Revel, advise that the Czar has put that port and the
fortifications of the place into such a condition of defence that
it may pass for one of the most considerable fortresses, not only
of the Baltic, but even of Europe."

Leave we him now, as to his sea affairs, commerce and manufactures, and
other works both of his policy and power, and let us view him in regard
to his proceedings in this last campaign, especially as to that so much
talked of descent, he, in conjunction with his allies, was to make upon
Schonen, and we shall find that even therein he has acted with his usual
cunning. There is no doubt but the King of Denmark was the first that
proposed this descent. He found that nothing but a speedy end to a war
he had so rashly and unjustly begun, could save his country from ruin
and from the bold attempts of the King of Sweden, either against Norway,
or against