On the 13th of July, 1704, only a single Swedish colonel, at the head of his detachment, obliged the Polish nobility to nominate a new king, on the field of election, called Kolo, near the city of Warsaw. The cardinal-primate of the kingdom, and several bishops, submitted to a Lutheran prince, notwithstanding the menaces and excommunications of the supreme pontiff: in short, every thing gave way to force. All the world knows in what manner Stanislaus Leczinsky was elected king, and how Charles XII. obliged the greatest part of Poland to acknowledge him. Peter, however, would not abandon the dethroned king, but redoubled his assistance, in proportion to the necessities of his ally; and, while his enemy was making kings, he beat the Swedish generals one after another in Esthonia and Ingria; from thence he passed to the siege of Narva, and gave several vigorous assaults to the town. There were three bastions, famous at least for their names, called Victory, Honour, and Glory. The czar carried them all three sword-in-hand. The besiegers forced their way into the town, where they pillaged and exercised all those cruelties which were but too customary at that time, between the Swedes and Russians. August 20.] Peter, on this occasion, gave an example that ought to have gained him the affections of all his new subjects: he ran every where in person, to put a stop to the pillage and slaughter, rescues several women out of the clutches of the brutal soldiery, and, after having, with his own hand, killed two of those ruffians who had refused to obey his orders, he enters the town-house, whither the citizens had ran in crowds for shelter, and laying his sword, yet reeking with blood, upon the table--'This sword,' said he, 'is not stained with the blood of your fellow citizens, but with that of my own soldiers, which I have spilt to save your lives'. CHAP. XIV. Peter the Great keeps possession of all Ingria, while Charles XII. is triumphant in other places.--Rise of Menzikoff.--Petersburg secured.--The czar executes his designs notwithstanding the victories of the king of Sweden.[69] [Sidenote: 1704.]