“Query VIII. Whether, if it happened two years ago, that this trade became something more necessary to us than formerly, it is not easily proved, that it was occasioned only by the Czar’s forcing us out of our old channel of trade to Archangel, and bringing us to Petersburg, and our complying therewith. So that all the inconveniences we laboured under upon that account, ought to have been laid to the Czar’s door, and not to the King of Sweden’s?
“Query IX. Whether the Czar did not in the very beginning of 1715 again permit us to trade our old way to Archangel, and whether our ministers had not notice thereof a great while before our fleet was sent that year to protect our trade to Petersburg, which by this alteration in the Czar’s resolution was become as unnecessary for us as before?
“Query X. Whether the King of Sweden had not declared, that if we would forbear trading to Petersburg, etc., which he looked upon as ruinous to his kingdom, he would in no manner disturb our trade, neither in the Baltic nor anywhere else; but that in case we would not give him this slight proof of our friendship, he should he excused if the innocent came to suffer with the guilty?