Note 888 — Chapter VI

Sir A. Alison, who certainly cannot be accused of want of respect for military conquerors, says of Sweden, ‘the attempt which Charles XII. made to engage her in long and arduous wars, so completely drained the resources of the country, that they did not recover the loss for half a century.’ Hist. of Europe, vol. x. p. 504. See also, on the effects produced by the conscriptions of Charles XII., Laing's Sweden, p. 59; Koch, Tableau des Révolutions, vol. ii. p. 63; and above all, a curious passage in Duclos, Mém. Secrets, vol. i. p. 448. Several of the soldiers of Charles XII. who were taken prisoners, were sent into Siberia, where Bell fell in with them early in the eighteenth century. Bell's Travels in Asia, edit. Edinb. 1788, vol. i. pp. 223–224.