“One instance of the wisdom and foresight of our then truly British statesmen is the peace at Stolbowa, in the year 1617.[126] James the First was the mediator of that treaty, by which the Muscovite was obliged to give up all the provinces which he then was possessed of in the Baltic, and to be barely an inland power on this side of Europe.”
The same policy of preventing a new maritime power from starting in the Baltic was acted upon by Sweden and Denmark.
“Who knows not that the Emperor’s attempt to get a seaport in Pomerania weighed no less with the great Gustavus, than any other motive for carrying his arms even into the bowels of the house of Austria? What befell, at the times of Charles Gustavus, the crown of Poland itself, who, besides it being in those days by far the mightiest of any of the Northern powers, had then a long stretch of coast on, and some ports in the Baltic? The Danes, though then in alliance with Poland, would never allow them, even for their assistance against the Swedes, to have a fleet in the Baltic, but destroyed the Polish ships wherever they could meet them.”