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ART. III. On the growing power of Russia, and her late Acqui- 
sitions, especially those in Asia. By James BEuu, Esa. 
Ever since the accession of Peter the Great, Russia has been 
advancing with steady, undeviating, and accelerating pace, to the 
possession of universal empire. At his accession, Russia had nei- 
ther ships, nor sailors, nor ports, except those of Astracan on the 
Caspian, and Archangel on the White Sea. The Seas of Azoff and 
the Euxine were then wholly surrounded by the dominions of the 
Osmanlee sultans and the khans of the Crimea, whilst the Gulfs of 
Finland and Bothnia owned the naval sway of the successors of 
Gustavus Vasa. If Russia was then wholly destitute of naval sci- 
ence, she was equally so of military. Her soldiers were contemp- 
tible, as they consisted chiefly of raw, undisciplined boors, collected 
for the occasion from the serfs of the feudal nobility ; and her 
standing army, the strelitzes, like the janissaries of Turkey, or the 
pretorian guards of declining Rome, were a haughty, turbulent, 
and ungovernable race, a disorderly militia, totally unfitted for the 
purpose of offensive war, and qualified for nothing, but to raise in- 
testine commotions,—cast the die in favour of a successful compe- 
titor for imperial power,—and be alternately, as they took the 
whim, the rulers or the satellites of a tyrant. As to science or li- 
terature, or those elegant arts which adorn, or soften, or accom- 
plish humanity, Russia had none ; for universal barbarism swayed 
the whole mass, from the sceptered czar to the rude peasant, the 
serf of his lord, whilst the intellectual state of the boyars and boers 
was exactly on a par; and but for the exertions long and steadily 
pursued by Peter, in spite of numerous and opposing obstacles, suf- 
ficient to paralyze an ordinary mind, Russia might have still re- 
mained in the same state of national barbarism, rude ignorance, 
and political imbecility, as her now fallen rival Turkey. 
Peter was not merely a successful warrior, like an Attila, ora 
Zingis Khan, or a Timoor, at the head of rude and _ barbarous 
hordes, who conquered but to destroy. He was more. He was the 
legislator of his country ; and, conscious of his own ignorance, as 
well as that of his subjects, he endeavoured first to have himself in- 
structed, and then his nation. He abolished the strelitzes ; set on 
foot a regular army ; and hired military officers from every quar- 
ter of Europe to train and command it, as Germans, French, and 
Scots ; and compelled his proud nobility to enrol themselves in the 
humble rank of recruits, and obey the orders of drill-serjeants. He 
formed a navy, and got shipwrights from England and Holland to 
build it, and instruct his subjects in naval science. He erected 
military and naval academies: obtained the aid of foreign engineers 
for the purposes of taking levels, making canals, constructing docks 
and naval arsenals, and founded the city of St. Petersburgh, in the 
midst of marshes, and whilst he was engaged in active hostilities 
in the very territories of a people then every way superior to his 
