Sweden severed, Persia and Turkey conquered, Poland subjugated, our armies united, the Black and Baltic Seas guarded by our vessels, you must make propositions separately and discreetly—first to the Court of Versailles, then to that of Vienna, to share with them the Empire of the Universe.
If one of them accept—and it cannot be otherwise, so as you flatter their pride and ambition—make use of it to crush the other—then crush, in its turn, the surviving one, by engaging with it in a death-struggle; the issue of which cannot be doubtful, Russia possessing already all the East and a great part of Europe.
XIV.
If—which is not likely—both refuse the propositions of Russia, you must manage to raise quarrels for them, and make them exhaust one another; then profiting by a decisive moment, Russia will bring down her assembled troops on Germany; at the same time, two considerable fleets will set out—the one from the Sea of Azov, the other from the port of Archangel—loaded with Asiatic hordes, under the convoy of the armed fleets from the Black Sea and the Baltic; advancing by the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, they will invade France on one side, whilst Germany will already have been invaded on the other. These countries conquered, the rest of Europe will easily pass under the yoke, without striking a single blow.
XV.
Thus Europe can, and ought, to be subdued.
PETER I.,
Autocrat of All the Russias.
Lest the reader of this WILL may form an opinion antagonistic to its author, it may be well to state that while Peter the Great was a Despot he was also a Patriot—and while a Tyrant he was yet a Humanitarian. This man, who could icily command death by the knout was the same man who yielded up his own life in rescuing a sailor who had fallen overboard in the ice-laden waters of the Neva. And Peter was, above and beyond all, a Statesman, an Inventor, a finished Mechanic and Progenerator of the Russian Life-Saving Service.