Those of the north had undergone a still greater change. Peter was become sole arbiter in that part of the world: the elector of Hanover, who had been called to fill the British throne, had views of extending his territories in Germany, at the expense of Sweden, who had never had any possessions in that country, but since the reign of the great Gustavus. The king of Denmark aimed at recovering Scania, the best province of Sweden, which had formerly belonged to the Danes. The king of Prussia, as heir to the dukes of Pomerania, laid claim to a part of that province. On the other hand, the Holstein family, oppressed by the king of Denmark, and the duke of Mecklenburg, almost at open war with his subjects, were suing to Peter the Great to take them under his protection. The king of Poland, elector of Saxony, was desirous to have the duchy of Courland annexed to Poland; so that, from the Elbe to the Baltic Sea, Peter the First was considered as the support of the several crowned heads, as Charles XII. had been their greatest terror. Many negotiations were set on foot after the return of Charles to his dominions, but nothing had been done. That prince thought he could raise a sufficient number of ships of war and privateers, to put a stop to the rising power of the czar by sea; with respect to the land war, he depended upon his own valour; and Gortz, who was on a sudden become his prime minister, persuaded him, that he might find means to defray the expense, by coining copper money, to be taken at ninety-six times less than its real value, a thing unparalleled in the histories of any state; but in the month of April, 1715, the first Swedish privateers that put to sea were taken by the czar's men of war, and a Russian army marched into the heart of Pomerania. The Prussians, Danes, and Saxons, now sat down with their united forces before Stralsund, and Charles XII. beheld himself returned from his confinement at Demirtash and Demirtoca on the Black Sea, only to be more closely pent up on the borders of the Baltic.