give him the command of the Black Sea. In March, 1699, he had thirty-six ships launched and rigged, carrying each from thirty to sixty guns; and there were then twenty more ships on the stocks. There were, also, either finished or in process of construction, eighteen large galleys, one hundred smaller brigantines, seven bomb ships and four fire ships. At the same time Peter was directing his attention to the Volga and the Caspian, and still more vigorously to the Baltic, upon whose shores he had succeeded in obtaining a foothold.
And now the kingdom of Sweden came, with a rush, into the political arena. Poland had ceded to Sweden nearly the whole of Livonia. The Livonians were very much dissatisfied with the administration of the government under Charles XI., and sent a deputation to Stockholm to present respectful remonstrances. The indignant king consigned all of the deputation, consisting of eight gentlemen, to prison, and condemned the leader, John Patgul, to an ignominious death. Patgul escaped from prison, and hastening to Poland, urged the new sovereign, Augustus, to reconquer the province of Livonia, which Poland had lost, assuring him the Livonians would aid with all their energies to throw off the Swedish yoke. Patgul hastened from Poland to Moscow, and urged Peter to unite with Augustus, in a war against Sweden, assuring him that thus he could easily regain the provinces of Ingria and Carelia, which Sweden had wrested from his ancestors. Denmark also, under its new sovereign, Frederic IV., was induced to enter into the alliance with Russia and Poland against Sweden. Just at that time, Charles XI. died, and his son, Charles XII., a young man of eighteen, ascended the throne. The youth and inexperience of the new monarch encouraged the allies in the hope that they might make an easy conquest.
Charles XII., a man of indomitable, of maniacal energy, and who speedily infused into his soldiers his own spirit, came down upon Denmark like northern wolves into southern flocks and herds. In less than six weeks the war was terminated
and the Danes thoroughly humbled. Then with his fleet of thirty sail of the line and a vast number of transports, he crossed the Baltic, entered the Gulf of Finland, and marching over ice and snow encountered the Russians at Narva, a small town about eighty miles south-west of the present site of the city of St. Petersburg. The Russians were drawn up eighty thousand strong, behind intrenchments lined with one hundred and forty-five pieces of artillery; Charles XII. had but nine thousand men. Taking advantage of one of the fiercest of wintry storms, which blew directly into the faces of the Russians, smothering them with snow and sleet mingled with smoke, and which concealed both the numbers and the movements of the Swedes, Charles XII. hurled his battalions with such impetuosity upon the foe, that in less than an hour the camp was taken by storm. One of the most awful routs known in the annals of war ensued. The Swedes toiled to utter exhaustion in cutting down the flying fugitives. Thirty thousand Russians perished on that bloody field. Nearly all of the remainder were taken captive, with all their artillery. Disarmed and with uncovered heads, thirty thousand of these prisoners defiled before the victorious king.[12]
Peter, the day before this disastrous battle, had left the intrenchments at Narva to go to Novgorod, ostensibly to hasten forward the march of some reinforcements. When Peter was informed of the annihilation of his army he replied, with characteristic coolness,
"I know very well that the Swedes will have the advantage of us for a considerable time; but they will teach us, at length, to beat them."
He immediately collected the fragments of his army at Novgorod, and repairing to Moscow issued orders for a
certain proportion of the bells of the churches and convents throughout the empire to be cast into cannon and mortars. In a few months one hundred pieces of cannon for sieges, and forty-two field pieces, with twelve mortars and thirteen howitzers, were sent to the army, which was rapidly being rendezvoused at Novgorod.
Charles XII., having struck this terrific blow, left the tzar to recover as best he could, and turned his attention to Poland, resolved to hurl Augustus from the throne. Peter himself hurried to Poland to encourage Augustus to the most vigorous prosecution of the war, promising to send him speedily twenty thousand troops. In the midst of these disasters and turmoil, the tzar continued to prosecute his plans for the internal improvement of his empire, and commenced the vast enterprise of digging a canal which should unite the waters of the Baltic with the Caspian, first, by connecting the Don with the Volga, and then by connecting the Don with the Dwina, which empties into the Baltic near Riga.
War continued to rage very fiercely for many months between the Swedes on one side, and Russia and Poland on the other, Charles XII. gaining almost constant victories. The Swedes so signally proved their superiority in these conflicts, that when, on one occasion, eight thousand Russians repulsed four thousand Swedes, the tzar said,