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XXI.

above three hundred thousand men, whom the czar LETTER brought thither from other parts of his dominions. The peafants of Aftracan, and those who dwelt on the A. D. 1709, frontiers of China, were tranfported to Petersburg; and the czar was obliged to clear forefts, to make roads, to drain marfhes, and to raife mounds before they could lay the foundations of his future capital. The whole was a violence upon nature. Peter was determined to people a country, that did not feem defigned for the habitation of men; and neither the inundation that demolished his works, nor the fterility of the foil, nor the ignorance of the workmen, nor even the mortality which carried off near two hundred thousand men in the beginning of the undertaking, could divert him from his purpose. By a proper diftribution of favours, he drew many ftrangers to the new city; beftowing lands upon fome, houfes upon others, and encouraging, by the most liberal rewards, artists of every defcription. Above all, he rendered it proof against the utmost efforts of his enemies; fo that the Swedish generals, who frequently beat his troops, as we fhall have occafion to fee, were never able to hurt this infant eftablishment. Petersburg remained in perfect fecurity amid the destructive war by which it was surrounded 66,

WHILE the czar was employed in erecting a new capital, and in creating, as it were, a new people, he ftill held out a helping hand to the fugitive Auguftus, who had again found his way into Poland; had retaken Warfaw, and been obliged a fecond time to abandon it. Peter invited him to Grodno, in order to concert measures for retrieving his affairs. To that place Auguftus repaired in December 1705; and being

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PART II.

A. D. 1706.

no longer afraid of exafperating the Poles, by the introduction of foreigners into their country, as they had already done their worst against him, it was refolved that fixty thoufand Ruffians fhould attack the Swedes in their late conquefts. This prodigious force foon entered Poland; and dividing into feveral bodies, laid waste with fire and fword the lands of all the Palatines, who had declared for Stanislaus. An army of Coffacks alfo entered the Polifh territories, and fpread defolation on every fide, with all the fury of barbarians. And general Schullemberg, who had diftinguished himself by the paffage of the Oder, in fight of the king of Sweden, and by a retreat efteemed equal to a victory, even by Charles himself, was ad vancing with an army of Saxons 67.

IF fuccefs had depended upon numbers, the Swedish monarch muft now have been crufhed. But his ufual good fortune, the effect of his active and enterprising fpirit, ftill attended him. The Ruflian armies were attacked and defeated fo faft, that the laft was routed before it had heard of the difafter of the firft. Nothing could ftop the progrefs of the conquering Swedes, or equal their celerity. If a river interpofed, they fwam acrofs it; and Charles, at the head of his cavalry, marched thirty leagues in twenty-four hours. Struck with terror at fuch rapid movements, which to them appeared altogether miraculous, and reduced to a fmall number, by their various defeats, the Ruffians retired beyond the Borifthenes, leaving Auguftus to his fate ".

67. Voltaire. Contin. Puffend. Parthenay.

68. Every foldier leading a horfe in his hand to mount when his own was tired. Voltaire, Hiß. Charles XII. liv. iii.

69. Id. ibid.

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In the mean time Schullemberg, having repaffed LETTER the Oder, offered battle to marefchal Renfchild, who was reckoned the king of Sweden's beft general, and A. D. 1706, called the Parmenio of the Alexander of the North. These two great commanders met on the 13th of February 1706, at a place called Travanftad. Renfchild had only thirteen battalions, and twenty-two fquadrons, making in all about ten thousand men; Schullemberg had more than double that number, yet was he defeated with great flaughter. Seven thousand Ruffians and Saxons were killed on the fpot; eight thousand were made prisoners; and all their artillery, baggage, ammunition, and provifions, fell into the hands of the victors 7. No quarter was granted to the Ruf fians.

In order to put an end to the troubles of Poland, where, by reafon of its defolate ftate, his army could no longer fubfift, Charles now propofed to carry the war into the hereditary dominions of Auguftus. He accordingly directed his march toward Silefia; paffed the Oder; entered Saxony, with twenty-four thoufand men; and having laid the whole country under contribution, pitched his camp at Alt-Ranftadt, near the plains of Lutzen, rendered famous by the memorable victory and death of Guftavus Adolphus. Unable to contend with fo powerful an adversary, already, in the heart of his dominions, Auguftus was under the neceffity of fuing for peace. He obtained it, but on the most humiliating terms; being forced to renounce for ever all pretenfions to the crown of Poland, and to acknowledge Stanislaus lawful fovereign of that kingdom 7. When his plenipotentiaries endeavoured to procure fome mitigation of the rigour of these

70. Hift. du Nord, tom. ii. Voltaire, ubi fup. 71. Voltaire, Hift. Ch. XII. liv. i. conditions,

PART II. conditions, they were conftantly anfwered by count Piper, "Such is the will of my mafter; and he never "alters his refolution 72 !"

A.D. 1706.

THE march of the king of Sweden into Germany, his victories during the courfe of the war, and the arbitrary manner in which he had depofed Auguftus, filled all Europe with hopes of his friendship, or apprehenfions from his power. France courted his alliance with an ardeur proportioned to the diftreffed ftate of her affairs. Offended at his grofs violation of the privileges of the Germanic body, the diet at Ratisbon fhewed a difpofition to declare him an enemy of the empire; but the emperor Jofeph, dreading the effects of such a measure, employed all his influence to oppofe it, at the fame time that he endeavoured foften to any refentment which it might excite in the breaft of the northern conqueror, by flattering his pride, Charles was pleased with thefe attentions, without be ing fwayed by them. Wholly occupied with the great project of humbling his other antagonist, the czar Peter, and even of reducing him to the fame abject condition into which he had already brought Auguftus, he difregarded all the folicitations of France, and feemed to favour the views of the emperor, without having any attachment to his intereft,

LEWIS XIV. thus difappointed in his hopes of engaging the king of Sweden in his caufe, and broken in fpirit by misfortunes, began feriously to think of putting an end to a war, which had brought accu mulated difgrace upon his arms, and the deepeft diftrefs upon his fubjects. Having privately made fome ineffectual applications to the ministers of Holland,

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he refolved publicly to manifeft his earnest defire of LETTER peace; and ordered, for that purpofe, the elector of Bavaria to write letters to the duke of Marlborough A. D. 1706 and the field-deputies of the States, propofing a general congrefs. As a proof of his fincerity, he mentioned at once the facrifices he was willing to make. He offered all the Spanish dominions in Italy to the archduke Charles; to the States, a barrier in the Netherlands; and to the duke of Savoy, a compenfation for the wafte made by the war in his territories. In return for fuch liberal conceffions, he demanded, that the electorate of Bavaria fhould be reflored to its native prince, and that Philip V. fhould be allowed to poffefs Spain and her American dominions 3; or, in the lofty language of the proud Caftilians, Spain and the Indies 74.

THE Confederates, by concluding a peace on thefe terms, and others which they might have dictated, but especially the perpetual difunion of the crowns of France and Spain, would have obtained the chief objects of the Grand Alliance; yet was the offer, though furely a fufficient foundation for entering upon a negociation, wantonly rejected, and Europe deftined to remain, for many years longer, a scene of carnage, confufion, and distress, in order to gratify the paffions of a few ambitious and felfifh men. The duke of Marlborough was fond of the emoluments as well as the glory of war: prince Eugene, befide being under the influence 73. Burnet, book vii.

74. This mode of fpeaking feems to have been introduced, when the Spaniards were in poffeffion of the Portuguese fettlements in India, where all other Europeans were long confidered as intruders; and when Spain afferted an exclusive right to the whole American continent, as well as to the contiguous islands, to which she gave the name of the Weft Indies. Hence too, by a ftill more ridiculous vanity, the Spanish monarchs ftill affume the title of "King "of the East and West Indies."

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