savage man. No sooner were his own and his predecessors arms successful in the attacks which they made on their neighbours, than he turned all his efforts on raising a maritime power superior to that of Britain: for above eleven years all the ports of the Baltic were filled with preparations, and in the year 1897 Peter saw himself in possession of a naval force of two hundred men of war of the line, besides an innumerable number of frigates and smaller vessels; the greater part of this prodigious fleet was manned; the amazing trade of his extensive dominions produced him seamen in abundance; in a word, he was superior to England by sea, and the British coasts were open to his invasions, when a truce was patched up between the two nations.
The marriage which had transferred the dominions of the house of Austria to that of Prussia, and with them the im-perial
