that there is an East India company in Sweden, which has advanced three millions of dollars to the crown, and pay a duty to the king on every voyage: that there is also a Levant company: that the bank of Sweden is a loan and paper bank: and that its profits are estimated at between two and three millions of dollars annually.-Moreover that the crown owed this bank in 1772 above forty-five millions of silver dollars.':

PUBLIC WORKS.

Notwithstanding the want of money in the state and nation, some very great works have been undertaken by them.-One of the most remarkable of these is the canal of Trothætta, intended to form a navigable communication between the Baltic and the German seas.-The design, according to Mr. Coxe, was first conceived by the illustrious Gustavus Vasa. His perfect acquaintance with the interior parts of the country, where he had sought a retreat during his adverse fortune, probably concurred with his greatness of mind to suggest it.-Some steps preparatory to the execution of it were taken by several of his successors. Charles the Twelfth approved a plan laid before him by Polhem, a celebrated engineer, and caused the work to be entered upon under his direction. Had that monarch expended the money which his war cost him in the prosecution of this undertaking, it would probably have been accomplished: and his spirit of enterprise would have enriched instead of impoverishing and ruining his people.Parts of the plan were executed at different periods, particularly in the reign of Adolphus Frederic, under the administration of count Tessin; but with

revived once more. The breeding of sheep was also regulated and encouraged; tobacco was "planted; foreign artists and manufacturers were allowed the free exercise of their religion; and "other useful regulations were made in Sweden. It was resolved by the states at the last diet, "which was held 1752, to give all possible encouragement to new manufactures that should be set "up in this kingdom. There are at present in Sweden manufactories of silk, cloth, cotton, fustian, " and other stuffs, linen, sailcloth, morocco leather, cotton-printing, dying; and also for boiling or refining of alum, sugar, soap, and salt; making glass, porcelain, and brimstone; here are also paper-mills, boring-mills, stamping, &c. Vast quantities of copper, steel, brass and iron, are "likewise wrought in Sweden. Here are also founderies for great guns, &c. Forges for fire-arms, armours, anchors, &c. Wire and flatting mills, &c. However the Swedes are not completely "skilled in the working of metals."-Busching. 1. 259.

A silver dollar according to Busching is one shilling and sixpence three farthings, sterling. Zimmermann. 56.

with little prospect of a completion. It was carried on by the late king, and a sluice upon such a scale as to take vessels of eighty tons burthen was finished in 1768.-New obstacles presenting themselves, the original plan was laid aside, and another was projected; which will, probably, never be completed till a better system of government shall have led to an extension of the Swedish trade, and have rendered the state and nation more affluent. *

Another of these works are the docks of Carlscroon.-These were begun by Charles the Twelfth, under the direction of Polhem; and were completed, as far as the original plan extended, in 1724.-They have since been enlarged; and were of the following dimensions when Mr. Coxe inspected them: 190 Swedish feet in length; 33 in depth: and 46 in breadth. They contain 300,000 cubic feet of water, and are usually emptied in ten hours.

Mr. Coxe informs us that new docks have been begun upon a stupendous plan. He also says "that the project, begun in 1797, was much neglected "till the accession of the present king, who warmly patronised the " arduous undertaking. At the commencement of the work," he says, £.25,000 was annually expended upon them; which sum has been "lessened to about £.6,000 per annum; and the number of docks reduced "to twenty."-Mr. Coxe wrote during the reign of Gustavus the Third; at whose death these works were probably discontinued.

RUSSIA.

Mr. Coxe, who had viewed these works, has given a minute description of them, accompanied with a chart which renders it much more easily comprehended.

h Coxe. 4. 303. 315.

i Idem. 4. 339.-The number intended was thirty.

3 F 2

RUSSIA.

EXTENT AND POPULATION.

WE may form an idea of the vastness of the Russian empire from this circumstance, that, according to Zimmermann, an author of repute who wrote in 1784, it comprehends fifty different nations, speaking as many different languages, or at least dialects. The European part is stated by him to be 1,194,976 square miles in extent, and the Asiatic to be 3,695,024, making together 4,880,000 miles.

Happily for the peace and independency of Europe, its population is not proportionate to its extent, nor its strength to its population. Before the last partition of Poland, in 1794, it was estimated by Zimmermann and Levesque at 24,000,000 souls.-Mr. Coxe estimates the population at 26,764,360, including in that number 200,000 nobles, 120 clergy and their families, 250,000 merchants and their families, 80,000 Kuban and Crim Tartars, and 600,000 wandering hordes. This brings the population to about twenty persons upon a square mile in the European part, and a far smaller proportion in the Asiatic.-When we compare this with the population of other countries, and consider that the strength of a state is generally increased by the compression of its population,* Russia will cease to be seen in so formidable a light as its extent alone would represent it.-Peter the Great and the late empress endeavoured

Had the population of the Dutch provinces been dispersed over twenty times the extent of country, the Dutch would not, probably, have been able to defend themselves against the arms of Spain.

a

Zimmermann's Polit. Survey. 28.

Travels in Russia. 3. 343.

endeavoured to increase the population of their dominions, by offering lands and privileges to such foreigners as would settle in them. But their labours appear to have been attended with little success. Voltaire estimated the population at 24,000,000 persons in the reign of Peter the Great. And the repulsive force of tyranny, aggravated by delegated power at a distance from the seat of government, operating as a counterbalance to the allurement of Russian privileges and lands in desert countries, has prevented any material increase.

REVENUE.

The revenue of Russia was much augmented in the course of fifty years. -Voltaire estimates it at 13,000,000 roubles, or 65,000,000 livres, in the year 1725.-Mr. Coxe estimates it 41,830,910. -And Levesque in 1783 estimates the revenue which is ascertained at 36,765,000 roubles; beside a very considerable revenue from sources which are not ascertainable. d

ARMY.

The Russian army has received a great increase even since the war between the Czar and Charles the Twelfth.-Stralenberg, who wrote about the end of Peter's reign, gives this account of his army after the termination of that war. Forty-eight regiments of regular infantry, the number of men in which he does not give. Forty-four regiments of irregular infantry, amounting to 63,360 men.-The cavalry consisted of thirty-three regiments, making 31,680 men. And the artillery amounted to 798 men.-Zimmermann represents the whole army in 1784, which was a year of peace as amounting to 368,901, besides the body hussars. -And Mr. Coxe's statement of the force in 1785 is exactly correspondent with this. But the latter author informs us that, the real number of effective men always falls short of this nominal list. "That the Russians can seldom bring into the field more than 100,000 effective men."{

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N. B. Voltaire's rouble is five livres and Levesque's three livres and fifteen sols.

f Zimmermann. 43. Coxe. 3. 365.

Stralenberg's Descript, of Russia. 306.

NAVY.

It is well known that Russia did not exist as a naval power till the time of Peter the Great. But that illustrious monarch, convinced that the future greatness of his empire must depend on its having access to the Baltic, and its becoming a maritime power, laboured indefatigably to accomplish these objects. objects. He not only procured able ship-builders and engineers; but he travelled through Holland and England, and even condescended to work in the dock-yards, that he might make himself perfectly well acquainted with the practical part of naval architecture. After which he first learned the art of war of Charles the Twelfth, and then made his way to the Baltic by defeating him.-At the close of his reign, we are informed

Stralenberg, he had on the Baltic thirty-six ships of the line, twelve frigates, nine yachts, and two hundred and forty galleys. The same number of galleys lay in the magazines ready for construction, with their rigging and stores. And three ships of the line and one frigate were upon the

stocks.

The Russian monarchs made no great advances in augmenting their naval force in the next fifty years. According to Mr. Coxe, "the navy " of Russia, in the ports of Baltic and Archangel, consisted, in the latter "end of 1778, of thirty-eight ships of the line, fifteen frigates, four

prames, and one hundred and nine galleys.""It is probable, however, that, as Peter the Great never sent a fleet further than the Baltic or the Euxine, and as Mr. Coxe's account is subsequent to the grand expedition to the Mediterranean, by the Straits of Gibraltar, Catharine's ships were larger than the emperor's.

COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, &c.

Russia, being on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, appears to have been one of the lines of commercial intercourse between them in very remote ages. According to Stralenberg, the Russians in the earliest periods of authentic information, when Petersburg was a morass, and even before Novogorod

g Stralenberg. 308.

h Travels in Russia. 3. 357.