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nearer to the center of his dominions, was better calculated for the imperial refidence;and that, by removing his capital, he negleCted. the interior provinces, and facrificedevery confideration to his predilection for the fettlements upon the Baltic.
But although Peterfburgh is fituated at the extremity of Ruffia, he did not negleCtany other part of his vaft dominions. On the contrary, he was no lefs attentive to hisAfiatic than to his European provinces ; his repeated negotiations with the Chinefe,his campaigns againft the Turks, and his conqueit of the Perfian provinces, which bor-der upon the Cafpian, prove the truth of this alfertion. It is no lefs obvious, that Eu-rope was the quarter from whence the greateft danger to his throne impended ; that theSwedes were his mod formidable enemies, and from them the very exiftence of his em-pire was threatened with annihilation. It was not by leading his troops againft the de-fultory bands of Turks or Perfians, that he acquired a folid military force ; but by train-ing them to endure the firm attack of regular battalions, and to learn to conquer fromrepeated defeats ; with this defign, the nearer he fixed his feat to the borders of Swe-den , whofe veterans had long been the terror of the north, the more readily his troopswould imbibe their military fpirit, and learn their well regulated manoeuvres. Add tothis, that the protection of the new commerce, which he opened through the Baltic, de-pended upon the creation and maintenance of a naval force, which required his immedi-ate and almoft continual infpeCtion. To this circumftance alone is owing the rapid andrefpeCtable rife of the Ruffian power, its preponderance in the north, and political im-portance in the fcale of Europe. In a word, had not Peter transferred the feat of go-vernment to the ffiores of the Baltic, the Ruffian navy had never rode triumphant in theTurkiffi feas ; and Catharine II. had never ftood forth the arbitrefs of the north, andthe mediatrix * of Europe .
The internal improvement of the Ruffian Empire, the great object of Peter ’s reign,was confiderably advanced by approaching the capital to the more civilized parts of Eu-rope ; by this means he drew the nobility from their rude magnificence and feudal dig-nity at Mofcow, to a more immediate dependence upon the Sovereign, to morepolilhedmanners, to a greater degree of focial intercourfe. Nor did any other caufe, perhaps,fo much tend to promote his plans for the civilization of his fubjeCts, as the removal ofthe imperial feat from the inland provinces to the Gulf of Finland .
In oppofition, therefore, to the cenfurers of Peter , we cannot but efteern this aCt asextremely beneficial, and might even venture to affert, that if, by any revolution of Eu-rope , this empire fliould lofe its acquifitions on the Baltic; if the court ffiould repair toMofcow, and maintain a fainter connection with the European powers before an eflentialreformation in the manners of the people takes place; Ruffia would foon relapfe intoher original barbarifm, and no traces of the memorable improvements introduced byPeter I. and Catharine II. be found but in the annals of hiftory.
In walking about this metropolis I was filled with aftonifhment on reflecting, that folate as the beginning of this century, the ground on which Peterfburgh now ftands was amorafs occupied by a few fiffiermen’s huts. The firft building of the city is fo recentas to be almoft remembered by perfons now alive, and its gradual progrefs is tracedwithout difficulty. Peter the Great having wrefted Ingria from the Swedes , and ad-vanced the boundaries of his empire to the fhores of the Baltic, determined to ereCt afortrefs upon a fmall ifland in the mouth of the Neva, for protecting his conquefts, and
* It muft be remembered, that Catharine II. mediated the peace of Tefchen, in 1799, between the Em-peror of Germany and the King of Pruffia.
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