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his present possession of Courland; and wouldexpatiate on the manifold advantages that wouldaccrue to that Prince upon making a settlement there.

After all, the Tsar lies under an absolutenecessity of enterprising something to improve hismen. And when the late war was drawing to anend, some of his grandees expected upon a peace,they should be obliged to turn merchants; andeither building or taking ships, upon certain condi-tions, of the Tsar, send them out on trading voyageswith double complement of men. And should theybring such a thing to bear, one inconvenience wouldundoubtedly attend it; when their men had learnedhow to get their bread, and seen the preferablemanner of living in other countries, they wouldinfallibly desert, as many did in 1715 from shipsthat wintered in Norway, though that region affordsbut little temptation ; and the strict alliance thensubsisting between the Tsar and the King ofDenmark must lay ’em under apprehensions ofbeing surrendered if reclaimed.

XXVI. THE RUSSIAN BALTIC FLEET.

The Russian navy on the Baltic side, consistedin its present state of thirty sail of line-of-battleships, and six on the stocks a-building, with oaktimber in the province of Kazan for thirty more ;the labour of several years ; besides frigates, snows,

The Duke’s title was confirmed by Charles II., but disputed bythe Dutch. Upon the extinction of the Ketteler family, Dukes ofCourland, the fief of the island reverted to the crown of Englandin 1737, and by the Treaty, concluded in Paris in 1763, it wasceded in full right to Great Britain.’ In May, 1781, it was takenby the French. In 1793 it was retaken by the British, by whomit is still retained (Fullarton’s Gazetteer of the World, Edinburgh,(?) 1851, vol. vii.).