ut create the dry land for it to stand upon; and it
is said that six hundred acres have been reclaimed from the sea at St.
Petersburg since it was founded.

Charles XII. was too much occupied to care for these insignificant
events. He sent word that when he had time he would come and burn down
Peter's wooden town. He was leading a victorious army toward Poland,
he had beheaded the traitorous Patkul, and everything was bowing before
him. The great Marlborough was suing for his aid in the coalition
against Louis XIV. in the War of the Spanish Succession. Flushed with
victory, Charles felt that the fate of Europe was lying in his hands.
He had only to decide in which direction to move--whether to help to
curb the ambition of the Grand Monarque in the West, or to carry out
his first design of crushing the rising power of the Great Autocrat in
the East. He preferred the latter. The question then arose whether to
enter Russia by the North or by way of Poland, where he was now master.
The scale was turned probably by learning that the Cossacks in Little
Russia were growing impatient and were ripe for rebellion against the
Tsar.

Peter was anxious to prevent the invasion. He had a wholesome
admiration for the terrible Swedish army, not much confidence in his
own, and his empire was in disorder. He sent word to Charles that he
would be satisfied to withdraw from the West if he could have one port
on the Baltic. The king's haughty reply was: "Tell your Tsar I will
treat with him in Moscow," to which Peter rejoined: "My brother Charles
wants to play the part of an Alexander, but he will not find in me a
Darius."

It is possible that upon Ivan Mazeppa, who was chief or Hetman of the
Cossacks at this time, rests the responsibility of the crushing defeat
which terminated the brilliant career of Charles XII. Mazeppa was the
Polish gentleman whose punishment at the hands of an infuriated husband
has been the subject of poems by Lord Byron and Pushkin, and also of a
painting by Horace Vernet. This picturesque traitor, who always rose
upon the necks of the people who trusted him, whose friendships he one
after another invariably betrayed, reached a final climax of infamy by
offering to sacrifice the Tsar, the friend who believed in him so
absolutely that he sent into exile or to death anyone who questioned
his fidelity. Mazeppa had been with Peter at Azof, and abundant honors
were waiting for him; but he was dazzled by the