the siege of Frederikshald brought all danger of war to an end.  And yet in the very interests of trade it would have been good policy for the States to act strongly in this matter of Swedish piracy in the Baltic.  Russia was the rising power in those regions.  The Dutch had really nothing to fear from Sweden, whose great days came to an end with the crushing defeat of Charles XII at Pultova in 1709.  Trade relations had been opened between Holland and Muscovy so early as the end of the 16th century; and, despite English rivalry, the opening out of Russia and of Russian trade had been almost entirely in Dutch hands during the 17th century.  The relations between the two countries became much closer and more important after the accession of the enterprising and reforming Tsar, Peter the Great.  It is well known how Peter in 1696 visited Holland to learn the art of ship-building and himself toiled as a workman at Zaandam.  As a result of this visit he carried back with him to Russia an admiration for all things Dutch.  He not only favoured Dutch commerce, but he employed numbers of Hollanders in the building and training of his fleet and in the construction of waterways and roads.  In 1716-17 Peter again spent a considerable time in Holland.  Nevertheless Dutch policy was again timid and cautious; and no actual alliance was made with Russia, from dread of entanglements, although the opportunity seemed so favourable.

It was the same when in this year 1717 Cardinal Alberoni, at the instigation of Elizabeth of Parma the ambitious second wife of Philip V, attempted to regain Spain’s lost possessions in Italy by an aggressive policy which threatened to involve Europe in war.  Elizabeth’s object was to obtain an independent sovereignty for her sons in her native country.  Austria, France and England united to resist this attempt to reverse the settlement of Utrecht, and the States were induced to join with them in a quadruple alliance.  It was not, however, their intention to take any active part in the hostilities which speedily brought Spain to reason, and led to the fall of Alberoni.  But the Spanish queen had not given up her designs, and she found another instrument for carrying them out in Ripperda, a Groningen nobleman, who had originally gone to Spain as ambassador of the States.  This able and scheming statesman persuaded Elizabeth that she might best attain her ends by an alliance with Austria, which was actually concluded at Vienna on April 1, 1725.  This alliance alarmed France, England and Prussia, but was especially obnoxious to the Republic, for the emperor had in 1722 erected an East India Company at Ostend in spite of the prohibition placed by Holland and Spain in the treaties of 1714-15 upon Belgian overseas commerce.  By the Treaty of Alliance in 1725 the Spanish crown recognised the Ostend Company and thus gave it a legal sanction.  The States therefore, after some hesitation, became parties to a defensive alliance against Austria and