Sultan Mustapha II. sat at that time on the Ottoman throne; the weakness of whose administration would not permit him to make any great efforts, either against Leopold, emperor of Germany, whose arms were successful in Hungary, nor against the czar, who had lately taken Azoph from him, and threatened to make himself master of the Pontus Euxinus; nor even against the Venetians, who had made themselves masters of all the Peloponnesus.
John Sobieski, king of Poland, for ever famous by the victory of Chocksim, and the deliverance of Vienna, died the 17th of June, 1696, and the possession of that crown was in dispute between Augustus, elector of Saxony, who obtained it, and Armond, prince of Conti, who had only the honour of being elected.
1697.] Sweden had lately lost, but without regret, Charles XI. her sovereign, who was the first king who had ever been really absolute in that country, and who was the father of a prince still more so, and with whom all despotic power ceased. He left the crown to his son Charles XII. a youth of only fifteen years of age. This was in all appearance a conjuncture the most favourable for the czar's design; he had it in his power to extend his dominions on the Gulf of Finland, and on the side of Livonia. But he did not think it enough to harass the Turks on the Black Sea; the settlements on the Palus Mæotis, and the borders of the Caspian Sea, were not sufficient to answer his schemes of navigation, commerce, and power. Besides, glory, which is the darling object of every reformer, was to be found neither in Persia, nor in Turkey, but in our parts of Europe, where great talents are rendered immortal. In a word, Peter did not aim at introducing either the Persian or Turkish manners among his subjects.
Germany, then at war both with the Turks and with the French, and united with Spain, England, and Holland, against the single power of Lewis XIV. was on the point of concluding peace, and the plenipotentiaries were already met at the castle of Ryswick, in the neighbourhood of the Hague.
It was during this situation of affairs, that Peter and his ambassador began their journey in the month of April, 1697, by the way of Great Novogorod: from thence they travelled through Esthonia and Livonia, provinces formerly disputed by the Russians, Swedes, and Poles, and which the Swedes at last acquired by superiority of arms.