Scarcely Were These Provinces Secured To Him, When He Built, First
Cronstadt, And Then St. Petersburgh.
The erection of this city, and the
canals he constructed in the interior for the purpose of facilitating the
transportation of merchandize from the more southerly and fertile districts
of his empire to the new capital, soon drew to it the greater portion of
Russian commerce.
Archangel, to which there had previously resorted
annually upwards of one hundred ships from England, Holland, Hamburgh, &c.
declined; and early in the eighteenth century Petersburgh, then scarcely
ten years old, beheld itself a commercial city of great importance.
Having now brought the historical sketch of the progress of discovery and
of commercial enterprise down to the commencement of the eighteenth
century, it will be necessary, as well as proper, to contract the scale on
which the remainder of this volume is to be constructed. For, during nearly
the whole of the period which intervenes between the commencement of the
eighteenth century and the present time, the materials are either so
abundant or so minute, that to insert them all without discrimination and
selection, would be to give bulk, without corresponding interest and value,
to the work.
So far as discovery is concerned, it is evident, from the sketch of it
already given, that nearly the entire outline of the globe had been traced
before the period at which we are arrived: what remained was to fill up
this outline. In Asia, to gain a more complete knowledge of Hither and
Farther India, of China, of the countries to the north of Hindostan, of the
north and north-east of Asia, and of some of the Asiatic islands.
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