pect is but too dismal under a Popish
prince, so that there remain only the two illustrious houses of Hanover
and Brandenburg of all the Protestant princes, powerful enough to lead
the rest. Let us therefore only make a parallel between what now happens
in the Duchy of Mecklenburg, and what may happen to the Protestant
interest, and we shall soon find how we may be mistaken in our
reckoning. That said poor Duchy has been most miserably ruined by the
Muscovite troops, and it is still so; the Electors of Brandenburg and
Hanover are obliged, both as directors of the circle of Lower Saxony, as
neighbours, and Protestant Princes, to rescue a fellow state of the
Empire, and a Protestant country, from so cruel an oppression of a
foreign Power. But, pray, what have they done? The Elector of
Brandenburg, cautious lest the Muscovites might on one side invade his
electorate, and on the other side from Livonia and Poland, his kingdom
of Prussia; and the Elector of Hanover having the same wise caution as
to his hereditary countries, have not upon this, though very pressing
occasion, thought it for their interest, to use any other means than
representations. But pray with what success? The Muscovites are still in
Mecklenburg, and if at last they march out of it, it will be when the
country is so ruined that they cannot there subsist any longer.

It seems the King of Sweden should be restored to all that he has lost
on the side of the Czar; and this appears the _joint interest of both
the Maritime Powers_. This may they please to undertake: _Holland_,
because it is a maxim there "that the Czar grows too great, and must not
be suffered to settle in the Baltic, and that Sweden must not be
abandoned"; _Great Britain_, because, if the Czar compasses his vast and
prodigious views, he will, by the ruin and conquest of Sweden, become
our nearer and more dreadful neighbour. Besides, we are bound to it by a
treaty concluded in the year 1700, between King William and the present
King of Sweden, by virtue of which King William assisted the King of
Sweden, when in more powerful circumstances, with all that he desired,
with great sums of money, several hundred pieces of cloth, and
considerable quantities of gunpowder.

But _some Politicians (whom nothing can make jealous of the growing
strength and abilities of the Czar) though they are even foxes and
vulpones in the art, either will not see_ or _pretend they cannot see_
how the Czar can ever be