The great victory, we are told, diminished the strategic importance of St. Petersburg, and almost entirely extinguished its value as a port; while its erection into the capital city of the empire was never anything but madness. Peter, being now the indisputable master of the Baltic shores, had nothing to fear from any Swedish attack in the Gulf of Finland. Before any attempt in that direction, the Swedes were certain to try to recover Narva or Riga. If in later years they turned their eyes to St. Petersburg, it was only because that town had acquired undue and unmerited political importance. It was easy of attack and difficult to defend. There was no possibility of concentrating any large number of troops there, for the whole country, forty leagues round, was a barren desert. In 1788 Catharine II complained that her capital was too near the Swedish frontier, and too much exposed to sudden movements, such as that which Gustavus III very nearly succeeded in carrying out. Here we have the military side of the question. From the commercial point of view St. Petersburg, we are assured, did command a valuable system of river communication; but that commanded by Riga was far superior. The Livonian, Esthonian, and Courland ports of Riga, Libau, and Revel, all at an equal distance from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and far less removed from the great German commercial centres, enjoyed a superior climate, and were, subsequent to the conquest of the above-mentioned provinces, the natural points of contact between Russia and the West. An eloquent proof of this fact may be observed nowadays in the constant increase of their commerce, and the corresponding decrease of that of St. Petersburg, which has been artificially developed and fostered.