INTRODUCTION

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on the lower Neva; to render impossible furtheronslaughts by the Swedes ; to enter into the fruitionof the benefits to be derived from traffic on thesea routes, the existence of which the Englishman,Chancellor, had revealed to them ; these wereamongst their most cherished desires.

The national aspirations, as it were, ran in manyrills : none by itself strong enough to produce anygreat effect. Peter discerned the course of each.He gathered them into a single stream, the flowof which he directed himself. This capacity forrecognising and controlling tendencies was not hisonly merit. No man understood better the laws ofwhat may be called political physics. He knewthat, to reach the mark with its energy nearly un-impaired, the force which he was directing musttake the line of least resistance; that was to befound, not in the south and south-east, but in thenorth-west. It ran across the dominions of theSwedish king. Sweden, as A. Bruckner says, hadto pay the penalty—and it was a heavy one—ofher assumption of the position of a quasi greatpower. Even had John Gyllenstjerna lived tocarry out his attempted policy of making Sweden amaritime rather than a continental power, there waslittle likelihood that Charles XII. would follow it.The Swedes were essentially a maritime people.Their country, as regarded central Europe, was forall practical purposes as much an island as thoughit were surrounded by the sea. These obvioustruths were concealed from the minds of the kingsof alien descent who came to sit in the seat of theVasas. No heavier misfortune has ever fallen on