First Sentence

"WE shall certainly not err in pronouncing the Tzar Peter I. of Russia to have been one of the most extraordinary men that ever appeared in any age or country; but whether he merited the title of GREAT, which his own countrymen have bestowed on him, and the rest of Europe has sanctioned, it would seem to be necessary to know, in the first place, something of the state of the country, to which he was by universal admission a benefactor, when he first began to govern it, and the state in which he left it; and, in the second place, what were the means employed, and the resources at his command, by which he was enabled to extend its limits, to secure its peace, and to improve of his subjects."