They seemed to have summoned him home only to make war on him. At the beginning of these troubles not a word was said of Stanislas, his party seemed to have disappeared, and the King of Sweden was no more remembered than as a kind of torrent, which had for a time borne down all before it. Pultawa and Charles’s absence, which caused the fall of Stanislas, was also the cause of the fall of the Duke of Holstein, Charles’s nephew, who was dispossessed of his dominions by the King of Denmark. The King of Sweden had a great regard for the father, and was moved and humiliated by the son’s losses. Besides, as he only acted for the sake of glory, the fall of princes which he had himself set up was as vexing to him as his own losses. His enemies vied with each other in profiting by his ruin. Frederic William, the new King of Prussia, who seemed as anxious for war as his father had been for peace, took Stetin and a part of Pomerania for four hundred thousand crowns, which he advanced to the King of Denmark and the Czar. George, Elector of Hanover, now King of England, had the Duchy of Bremen and Verden for three-score thousand pistoles which he had lent to the King of Denmark. Thus was Charles spoiled, and those who had gained these territories as pledges were from their interests as much opposed to him as those who had taken them from him. The Czar was indeed most of all to be feared. His former losses, his victories, and his very mistakes, combined with his diligence to learn, and care to teach his subjects in their turn, and his hard work, made him a remarkable man. Riga, Livonia, Ingria, Carelia, part of Finland, and all the countries that had been won by Charles’s ancestors, were now subject to Russia. Peter, who had only twenty years before not so much as one ship on the Baltic, had gained control of those seas with a fleet of no fewer than thirty ships of the line. He built one of these ships with his own hands; he was the best carpenter, admiral and pilot in the North. From the Gulf of Bothnia to the ocean he had sounded every league of the way. He had united the labour of a common sailor to the experiments of a theorist, and having become admiral gradually, and by dint of victories, as he had before when he aimed at land command. While Prince Gallitsin, a general made by him, and the best at seconding his plans, was completing the conquest of Poland, by taking Vasa and beating the Swedes, this Emperor put to sea to make a descent on Alan, on the Baltic, about twelve leagues from Stockholm. He went on the expedition in the beginning of July 1714, while his rival Charles was in bed at Demotica. He embarked at Cronslot, a harbour he had built four miles from St. Petersburg. The harbour, the fleet, the officers and sailors were all the work of his own hands, and he could see nothing that he had not made himself.