Kings & rulers > History of Charles XII, King of Sweden

BOOK vir. CHARLES XII. 263
ter of those seas, with a fleet of thirty ships of the
line.
One of these ships had been built by his own hands.
He was the best carpenter, the best admiral, and the
best pilot, of the North. There was not a difficult
passage from the Gulf of Bothnia to the ocean which
he had not sounded. And having thus joined the
labours of a common sailor to the curious experiments
of a philosopher, and the grand designs of an Em¬
peror, he arrived by degrees, and a course of victo¬
ries, to the rank of Admiral, in the same manner as
he had become a General in the land service.
While Prince Gallitzin, a General formed under
his auspices, and one of those who seconded his en¬
terprises with the greatest vigour, completed the re¬
duction of Finland, took the town of Vasa, and beat
the Swedes, the Emperor put to sea, in order to at¬
tempt the conquest of Aland, an island in the Baltic,
ftbout twelve leagues from Stockholm.
He set out on this expedition in the beginning of
July ITH, while his rival Charles XII. was keeping
bis bed at Demotica. He embarked at Cronstadt, ad
harbour which he bad built a few years before, about
four miles from Petersburgh. The new harbour, the
fleet, the officers, the sailors, were all the work of his
own hands; and wherever he turned his eyes, he could
behold nothing but what he himself had, in some
measure, created.
On the lijth of July the Russian fleet, consisting of
thirty ships of the line, eighty gallies, and an hundred
half-gallies, reached the coast of Aland. On board
of these ships wete twenty thousand soldiers; Admiral
Apraxim was commander in chief; and the Russian
Emperor served as rear-admiral. On the 16th, the
Swedish fleet, commanded by Vice-admiral Erinchild,