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660 COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.
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 facrificed
every confideration to his predilection for the fettlements upon the Baltic.
But although Peterfburgh is firuated at the extremity of Ruffia, he did not neglect
any other part of his vaft dominions. On the contrary, he was no lefs attentive to his
Afiatic 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 affertion. It is no lefs obvious, that Eu-
rope was the quarter from whence the greate(t danger to his throne impended ;_ that the
Swedes were his moft formidable enemies, and from them the very exiftence of his em-
pire was threatened with annihilation. It was not by leading his troops againf{t the de-
fultory bands of Turks or Perfians, that he acquired a folid military force; but.by train-
ing themto endure the firm attack of regular battalions, and to learn to conquer from
repeated 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 troops
would imbibe their military fpirit, and learn their well regulated manceuvres. Add to
this, 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 and
refpectable 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 fhores of the Baltic, the Ruffian navy had never rode triumphant in the
‘Turkifh feas ; and Catharine II. had never {tood forth the arbitrefs of the north, and
the mediatrix * of Europe.
The internal improvement of the Ruflian Empire, the great object of Peter’s reign,
was confiderably advanced by approaching the capital to the more civilized parts of Ku-
rope; by this means he drew the nobility from their rude magnificence and feudal dig-
unity at Mofcow, toa more immediate dependence upon the Sovereign, to more polifhed
manners, toa 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 of
the imperial feat from the inland provinces to the Gulf of Finland.
In oppofition, therefore, to the cenfurers of Peter, we cannot but efteem this a¢t as
extremely beneficial, and might even venture to affert, that if, by any revolution of Eu-
rope, this empire fhould lofe its acquifitions on the Baltic; if the court fhould repair to
Mofcow, and maintain a fainter conne¢tion with the European powers before an effential
reformation in the manners of the people takes place; Ruffia would foon relapfe into
her original barbarifm, and no traces of the memorable improvements introduced by
Peter 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 fo
late as the beginning of this century, the ground on which Peterfburgh now ftands wasa
morafs occupied by a few fifhermen’s huts. The firft building of the city is fo recent
as to be almoft remembered by perfons now alive, and its gradual progrefs is traced
without difficulty. Peter the Great having wrefted Ingria from the Swedes, and ad-
vanced the boundaries of his empife to the fhores of the Baltic, determined to erect a
fortrefs upon a fmall iflandin the mouth of the Neva, for protecting his conquelts, and
* It muft be remembered, that Catharine 11. mediated the peace of Tefchen, in 1799, between the Em-
peror of Germany and the King of: Pruffia.
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