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necessary preparations for fixing out a fleet against the Turks, to consist of nine ships of sixty guns, and of forty-one, from thirty to fifty. He obliged his principal nobles, and the richer merchants, to contribute towards this armament; and thinking that the estates of the clergy ought to help towards the common cause, he obliged the patriarch, the bishops, and the principal clergy, to pay down a sum of ready money to forward this expedition, in honour of their country, and the advantage of the Christian faith, The cossacks were employed in building a number of those light boats in use amongst them, and which were excellent for the purpose of cruising on the coast of Crim Tartary. The Ottoman empire was alarmed at this powerful armament; the first that had ever been attempted on the Palus Mæotis. The czar's scheme was to drive the Turks and the Tartars for ever out of the Taurica Chersonesus, and afterwards to establish a free and easy commerce with Persia through Georgia. This is the very trade which the Greeks formerly carried on to Colchos, and to this peninsula of Crim Tartary, which Peter now seemed on the point of conquering.

Having subdued the Turks and the Tartars, he was willing to accustom his people to splendid shows as well as to military labour. He made his army to enter into Moscow under triumphal arches, in the midst of superb fireworks, and every thing that could add to the lustre of the festival. The soldiers who had fought on board the Venetian saicks against the Turks, and who were a distinct corps of themselves, marched first. Marsha! Scheremetow, the generals Gordon and Schein, admiral Le Fort, and the other general officers, all took the precedence of their monarch in this procession, who declared he had no rank in the army, being desirous to convince the nobility, by his example, that the only way to acquire military preferment, was to deserve it.*

This triumphal entry seemed somewhat a-kin to those of the ancient Romans, in which the conquerors were wont to expose the prisoners they had taken, to public view, and sometimes put them to death in like manner, the slaves taken in this expedition, follow the army; and the deserter, Jacob, who had betrayed them, was drawn in an open cart, in which was a gibbet, to which his body was fastened after he had been broke upon the wheel.

On this occasion was struck the first medal in

* It is in consequence of this glorious and equitable distinction, that at this day we find nobility gives no precedence in the court of Russia; nor can the son of a prince appear there in any other rank, than that which his situation in the army gives him; while a private citizen, who by his merit has raised himself above his condition, receives all the honours due to his post; or more properly speaking, to the merit which obtained hirn that post. A reputation of this kind would, methinks, be attended with great advantages, both in England and France, as it would be a means to raise in the youth of all ranks, a virtuous and noble emulation.

Russia, witn this remarkable legend, in the language of the country. "Peter the First, august emperor of Muscovy." On the reverse was the city of Asoph, with these words; "Victorious by Fire and Water."

Peter felt a sensible concern in the midst of all these successes, that his ships and galleys in the sea of Asoph, had been built entirely by the hands of foreigners; and wished as earnestly to have a harbour in the Baltic Sea, as upon the Pontus Euxinus.

Accordingly, in the month of March 1677, he sent threescore young Russians of Le Fort's regiment, into Italy, most of them to Venice, and the rest to Leghorn, to instruct themselves in the naval art, and the manner of constructing galleys. He likewise sent forty others into Holland,* to learn the method of building and working large ships: and others likewise into Germany, to serve in the land forces, and instruct themselves in the military discipline of that nation. At length he took a resolution to absent himself for a few years from his own dominions, in order to learn how to govern them the better. He had an irresistible inclination to improve himself by his own observation and practice in the knowledge, of naval affairs, and of the several arts which he was so desirous to establish in his own country. He proposed to travel incognito through Denmark, Brandenburgh, Holland, Vienna, Venice, and Rome. France and Spain, were the only countries he did not take into his plan; Spain, because the arts he was in quest of, were too much neglected there; and France, because in that kingdom they reigned with too much ostentation, and that the parade and state of Lewis XIV. which had disgusted so many crowned heads, ill agreed with the private manner in which he proposed to travel. Moreover, he was in alliance with most of the powers, whose dominions he intended to visit, except those of France and Rome. He likewise remembered, with some degree of resentment, the little respect shown by Lewis XIV. to his embassy in 1687, which had proved more famous than successful and lastly, he already began to espouse the cause of Augustus, elector of Saxony, with whom the prince of Conti had lately entered into a competition for the crown of Poland.

CHAPTER IX.

Travels of Peter the Great.

HAVING thus determined to visit the several countries and courts above mentioned 1697. in a private character, he put himself into the retinue of three ambassadors, in the same

* General Le Fort's MSS.

manner as he had before mingled in the train of his generals at his triumphant entry into Moscow.

The three ambassadors were, general Le Fort, the boyard Alexis Gollowin, commissary general of war, and governor of Siberia, the same who signed the perpetual treaty of peace with the plenipotentiaries of China, on the frontiers of that empire; and Wonitzin, diak, or secretary of state, who had been long employed in foreign courts. Four principal secretaries, twelve gentlemen, two pages for each ambassador, a company of fifty guards, with their officers, all of the regiment of Preobrazinski, composed the chief retinue of this embassy, which consisted in the whole of two hundred persons; and the czar, reserving to himself only one valet de chambre, a servant in livery,and a dwarf, mingled with the crowd. It was a thing unparalleled in history, for a king of fiveand-twenty years of age, to quit his dominions, in order to learn the art of governing. His victory over the Turks and Tartars, the splendour of his triumphant entry into Moscow, the number of foreign troops attached to his service, the death of his brother John, his co-partner in the empire, and the confinement of the princess Sophia to a cloister, and above all, the universal respect shown to his person, seemed to assure him the tranquillity of his kingdom during his absence. He entrusted the regency in the hands of the boyard,Strechnef, and the knes or prince Romadonowski, who were to deliberate with the rest of the boyards in cases of importance.

Two troops raised by general Gordon remained behind in Moscow, to keep every thing quiet in that capital. Those Strelitzes, who were thought likely to create a disturbance, were distributed in the frontiers of Crim Tartary, to preserve the conquest of Asoph, and to check the incursions of the Tartars. Having provided against every incident, he gave a free scope to his passion and desire of improvement.

As this journey proved the cause, or at least the pretext, of the bloody war, which so long traversed, but in the end promoted all the designs of the czar; which drove Augustus, king of Poland from the throne; placed that crown on the head of Stanislaus, and then stript him of it; which made Charles XII. king of Sweden, the first of conquerors for nine years, and the most unfortunate of kings for nine more; it is necessary, in order to enter into a detail of these events, to take a view of the state of Europe at that time.

Sultan Mustapha II. sat at that time on the Ottoman throne; the weakness of whose administration would not permit him to make any great efforts, either against Leopold, emperor of Germany, whose arms were successful in Hungary, nor against the czar, who had lately taken Asoph from him, and threatened to make himself master of the

The Petersburg Memoirs, and Memoirs of Le Fort. 30

Pontus Euxinus; nor even against the Venetians, who had made themselves masters of all the Peloponnesus.

John Sobiesky, king of Poland, for ever famous by the victory of Chocksim, and the deliverance of Vienna, died the 17th of June, 1696, and the possession of that crown was in dispute between Augustus, elector of Saxony, who obtained it, and Armond, prince of Conti, who had only the honour of being elected.

1697. Sweden bad lately lost, but without regret, Charles XI. her sovereign, who was the first king who had ever been really absolute in that country, and who was the father of a prince still more so, and with whom all despotic power ceased. He left the crown to his son Charles XII. a youth of only fifteen years of age. This was in all appearance a conjuncture the most favourable for the czar's design; he had it in his power to extend his dominions on the Gulf of Finland, and on the side of Livonia. But he did not think it enough to harass the Turks on the Black Sea; the settlements on the Palus Mæotis, and the borders of the Caspian Sea, were not sufficient to answer his schemes of navigation, commerce, and power. Besides, glory, which is the darling object of every reformer, was to be found neither in Persia, nor in Turkey, but in our parts of Europe, where great talents are rendered immortal. In a word, Peter did not aim at introducing either the Persian or Turkish manners among his subjects.

Germany, then at war both with the Turks and with the French, and united with Spain, England, and Holland, against the single power of Lewis XIV. was on the point of concluding peace, and the plenipotentiaries were already met at the castle of Ryswick, in the neighbourhood of the Hague.

It was during this situation of affairs, that Peter and his ambassador began their journey in the month of April, 1697, by the way of Great Novogorod from thence they travelled through Esthonia and Livonia, provinces formerly disputed by the Russians, Swedes, and Poles, and which the Swedes at last acquired by superiority of arms.

The fertility of Livonia, and the situation of its capital, Riga, were temptations to the czar to possess himself of that country. He expressed a curiosity to see the fortifications of the citadel. But count D'Alberg, governor of Riga, taking umbrage at this request, refused him the satisfaction he desired, and affected to treat the embassy with contempt. This behaviour did not at all contribute to cool the inclination the czar might have to make himself one day master of those provinces.

From Livonia they proceeded to Brandenburg Prussia, part of which had been inhabited by the ancient Vandals; Polish Prussia had been included in European Salmatia. Brandenburg Prussia was a poor country, and badly peopled; but its elector, who afterwards took the name of king,

displayed a magnificence on this occasion, equally new and destructive to his dominions. He piqued himself upon receiving this embassy in his city of Konigsberg, with all the pomp of royalty. The mast sumptuous presents were made on both sides. The contrast between the French dress, which the court of Berlin affected, and the long Asiatic robes of the Russians, with their caps buttoned up with pearls and diamonds, and their scimitars hanging at their belts, produced a singular effect. The czar was dressed after the German fashion. The prince of Georgia, who accompanied him, was clad in a Persian habit, which displayed a different magnificence. This is the saine who was taken prisoner afterwards at the battle of Narva, and died in Sweden.

Peter despised all this ostentation; it was to have been wished that he had shown an equal contempt for the pleasures of the table, in which the Germans at that time placed their chiefest glory. It was at one of those entertainments,* then too much in fashion, and which are alike fatal to health and morality, that he drew his sword upon his favourite, Le Fort; but he expressed as much contrition for this sudden sally of passion, as Alexander did for the murder of Clytus; he asked pardon of Le Fort, saying, that he wanted to reform his subjects, and could not yet reform himself. General Le Fort, in his manuscript praises the czar more for this goodness of heart, than he blames him for his excess of passion.

The ambassadors then went through Pomerania and Berlin; and from thence one part took its way through Magdeburg, and the other by Hamburg, a city which already began to be considerable by its extensive commerce, but not so rich and populous as it has become since. From thence they directed their route towards Minden, crossed Westphalia, and at length, by the way of Cleves, arrived at Amsterdam.

The czar reached this city fifteen days before the ambassadors. At his first coming, he lodged in a house belonging to the East India company; but soon afterwards he took a small appartment in the dock-yard, belonging to the admiralty. He then put on the habit of a Dutch skipper, and in that dress went to the village of Saardam, a place where a great many more ships were built at that time than at present. This village is as large, as populous, and as rich, and much neater, than many opulent towns. The czar greatly admired the multitude of people who were constantly employed there, the order and regularity of their times of working, the prodigious despatch with which they built and fitted out ships, the incredible number of warehouses, and machines, for the greater ease and security of labour. The czar began with purchasing a bark, to which he made a mast with his own hands; after that, he worked upon all the different parts in the construction of a vessel,

* Le Fort's MS. Memoirs.

living in the same manner as the workmen at Saardam, dressing and eating the same as them, and working in the forges, the rope-walks, and in the several mills, which are in prodigious numbers in that village, for sawing timber, extracting oil, making paper, and wire-drawing. He caused himself to be enrolled in the list of carpenters, by the name of Peter Michaelhoff, and was commonly called Peter Bas, or Master Peter; the workmen were at first confounded at having a crowned head for a fellow-labourer, but soon became familiarised to the sight.

While he was thus handling the compass and the axe at Saardam, a confirmation was brought him of the division in Poland, and of the double nomination of the elector Augustus, and the prince of Conti. The carpenter of Saardam immediately promised king Augustus to assist him with thirty thousand men; and, from his workloft, issued out orders to his army that was assembled in the Ukraine against the Turks.

11th Aug. 1697.] His troops gained a victory over the Tartars near Asoph, and a few months afterwards took from them the city of Or, or Orkapi, which we call Precop.* As to himself, he still continued improving in different arts: he went frequently from Saardam to Amsterdam, to hear the lectures of the celebrated anatomist, Ruysch; and made himself master of several operations in surgery, which, in case of necessity, might be of use both to himself and his officers. He went through a course of natural philosophy, in the house of the burgomaster Witzen, a person for ever estimable for his patriotic virtue, and the noble use he made of his immense riches, which he distributed like a citizen of the world, sending men of abilities, at a great expense, to all parts of the globe, in search of whatever was most rare and valuable, and fitting out vessels at his own charge to make new discoveries.

Peter Bas gave a truce to his labours for a short time, but it was only to pay a private visit at Utrecht, and at the Hague, to William, king of England, and stadtholder of the United Provinces. General Le Fort was the only one admitted to the private conference of the two monarchs. Peter assisted afterwards at the public entry of his ambassadors, and at their audience: they presented, in his name, to the deputy of the states, six hundred of the most beautiful sables that could be procured; and the states, over and above the customary presents on these occasions, of a gold chain and a medal, gave them three magnificent coaches. They received the first visits of all the plenipotentiaries who were at the congress of Ryswick, excepting those of France, to whom they had not notified their arrival, not

* Precop, or Perekop, once a fortress on the Isthmus, which joins the peninsula of Crim Tartary to the main land of little Tartary, in European Turkey, and thence considered as the key to that country. It has its name from the ditches cut across for the defence of the peninsula,

only because the czar espoused the cause of Augustus against the prince of Conti, but also because king William, whose friendship he was de sirous of cultivating, was averse to a peace with France.

At his return to Amsterdam he resumed his former occupations, and completed, with his own hands, a ship of sixty guns, that he had begun himself, and sent her to Archangel; which was the only port he had at that time on the ocean.

He not only engaged in his service several French refugees, Swiss, and Germans; but he also sent all sorts of artists over to Moscow, and he previously made a trial of their several abilities himself. There were few trades or arts which he did not perfectly well understand, in their minutest branches: he took a particular pleasure in correcting, with his hands, the geographical maps, which at that time laid down at hazard the positions of the towns and rivers in his vast dominions, then very little known. There is still preserved, a map, on which he marked out, with his own hand, his projected communication of the Caspian and Black Seas, the execution of which he had given in charge to Mr. Brekel, a German engineer. The junction of these two seas was indeed a less difficult enterprise than that of the Ocean and Mediterranean, which was effected in France; but the very idea of joining the sea of Asoph with the Caspian, astonished the imagination at that time: but new establishments in that country became the object of his attention, in proportion as his successes begat new hopes.

His troops, commanded by general Schein and prince Dolgorowski, had lately gained a victory

over the Tartars near Asoph, and likewise July over a body of janissaries sent by sultan 1696. Mustapha, to their assistance. This suc

cess served to make him more respected, even by those who blamed him, as a sovereign, for having quitted his dominions to turn workman at Amsterdam. They now saw that the affairs of the monarch did not suffer by the labours of the philosopher, the traveller, and the artificer.

He remained at Amsterdam, constantly employed in his usual occupations of shipbuilding, engineering, geography, and the practice of natural philosophy, till the middle of January 1698, and then he set out for England, but still as one of the retinue of his ambassadors.

King William sent his own yacht to meet him, and two ships of war as convoy. In England he observed the same manner of living as at Amsterdam and Saardam; he took an apartment near the king's dock-yard, at Deptford, where he applied himself wholly to gain instruction. The Dutch builders had only taught him their method, and the practical part of shipbuilding. In England he found the art better explained; for there they work according to mathematical proportion. He soon made himself so perfect in this science, that he was able to give lessons to others. He began to build

a ship according to the English method of construction, and it proved a prime sailor. The art of watchmaking, which was already brought to perfection in London, next attracted his attention, and he made himself complete master of the whole theory. Captain Perry, the engineer, who followed him from London to Russia, says, that from the casting of cannon, to the spinning of ropes, there was not any one branch of trade belonging to a ship that he did not minutely observe, and even put his hand to, as often as he came into the places where those trades were carried on.

In order to cultivate his friendship, he was allowed to engage several English artificers into his service, as he had done in Holland; but, over and above artificers, he engaged likewise some mathematicians, which he would not so easily have found in Amsterdam. Ferguson, a Scotchman, an excellent geometrician, entered into his service, and was the first person who brought arithmetic into use in the exchequer in Russia, where, before that time, they made use only of the Tartarian method of reckoning, with balls strung upon a wire; a method which supplied the place of writing, but was very perplexing and imperfect, because, after the calculation, there was no method of proving it, in order to discover any error. The Indian ciphers, which are now in use, were not introduced among us till the ninth century, by Arabs; and they did not make their way into the Russian empire till one thousand years afterwards. Such has been the fate of the arts, to make their progress slowly round the globe. He took with him two young students from a mathematical school,* and this was the beginning of the marine academy, founded afterwards by Peter the Great. He observed and calculated eclipses with Ferguson. Perry, the engineer, though greatly discontented at not being sufficiently rewarded, acknowledges that Peter made himself a proficient in astronomy; that he perfectly well understood the motions of the heavenly bodies, as well as the laws of gravitation, by which they are directed. This force, now so evidently demonstrated, and before the time of the great Newton so little known, by which all the planets gravitate towards each other, and which retained them in their orbits, was already become familiar to a sovereign of Russia, while other countries amused themselves with imaginary vertices, and, in Galileo's nation, one set of ignorant persons ordered others, as ignorant, to believe the earth to be immoveable.

Perry set out in order to effect a communication between rivers, to build bridges, and construct sluices. The czar's plan was to open a communication by means of canals between the Occan, the Caspian, and the Black Seas.

We must not forget to observe, that a set of English merchants, with the marquis of Caer

*These were two scholars from Christ Church Hospital, commonly called blue coat boys.

marthen at their head, gave Peter fifteen thousand pounds sterling for the permission of vending tobacco in Russia. The patriarch, by a mistaken severity, had interdicted this branch of trade; for the Russian church forbid smoking, as an unclean and sinful action. Peter, who knew better things, and who, amongst his many projected changes, meditated a reformation of the church, introduced this commodity of trade into his dominions.

Before Peter left England, he was entertained by king William with a spectacle worthy such a guest: this was a mock sea-fight. Little was it then imagined that the czar would one day fight a real battle on this element against the Swedes, and gain naval victories in the Baltic. In fine, William made him a present of the vessel in which he used to go over to Holland, called the Royal Transport, a beautiful yacht, and magnificently adorned. In this vessel Peter returned to Holland the latter end of 1698, taking with him three captains of ships of war, five and twenty captains of merchant ships, forty lieutenants, thirty pilots, as many surgeons, two hundred and fifty gunners, and upwards of three hundred artificers. little colony of persons skilful in all branches, sailed from Holland to Archangel, on board the Royal Transport, and from thence were distributed into all the different places where their services were necessary. Those who had been engaged at Amsterdam went by the way of Narva, which then belonged to the Swedes.

This

While he was thus transplanting the arts and manufactures of England and Holland into his own country, the officers, whom he had sent to Rome, and other places in Italy,had likewise engaged some artists in his service. General Sheremetow, who was at the head of his embassy to Italy, took the tour of Rome, Naples, Venice, and Malta, while the czar proceeded to Vienna with his other ambassadors. He had now only to view the military discipline of the Germans, after having seen the English fleets, and the dockyards of Holland. Politics had likewise as great a share in this journey as the desire of instruction. The emperor was his natural ally against the Turks. Peter had a private audience of Leopold, and the two monarchs conferred standing, to avoid the trouble of ceremony.

There happened nothing worthy remark during his stay at Vienna, except the celebration of the ancient feast of the landlord and landlady, which had been disused for a considerable time, and which Leopold thought proper to revive on the czar's account. This feast, which by the Germans is call Wurtchafft, is celebrated in the following

manner:

The emperor is landlord and the empress land

* The czar was particularly fond of this nobleman, because he was a great lover of maritime affairs, frequently rowed and sailed with him upon the water, and gave him what information he could concerning ship

ping.

VOL. V.-2

lady, the King of the Romans, the archdukes and the archduchesses are generally their assistants : they entertain people of all nations as their guests, who come dressed after the most ancient fashion of their respective countries: those who are invited to the feast, draw lots for tickets, on each of which is written the name of the nation, and the character of the person they are to represent. One perhaps draws a ticket for a Chinese mandarin ; another for a Tartarian mirza ; a third a Persian satrap; and a fourth for a Roman senator; a princess may, by her ticket, be a gardener's wife, or a milkmaid; a prince a peasant, or a common soldier. Dances are composed suitable to all those characters, and the landlord and landlady with their family wait at table. Such was the ancient institution; but on this occasion* Joseph, king of the Romans, and the countess of Traun, represented the ancient Egyptians. The archduke Charles, and the countess of Walstein, were dressed like Flemings in the time of Charles the Fifth. The archduchess Mary Elizabeth and count Traun were in the habits of Tartars; the archduchess Josephina and the count of Workslaw were habited like Persians, and the archduchess Mariamne and prince Maximilian of Hanover in the character of North Holland peasants. Peter appeared in the dress of a Friesland boor, and all who spoke to him addressed him in that character, at the same time talking to him of the great czar of Muscovy. These are trifling particulars; but whatever revives the remembrance of ancient manners and customs, is in some degree worthy of being recorded.

Peter was ready to set out from Vienna, in order to proceed to Venice, to complete his tour of instruction, when he received the news of a rebellion, which had lately broke out in his dominions.

CHAPTER X.

A conspiracy punished.-The corps of Strelitzes abolished, alterations in customs, manners, church, and state.

CZAR Peter, when he left the dominions to set out on his travels, had provided against every incident, even that of a rebellion. But the great and serviceable things he had done for his country, proved the very cause of this rebellion.

Certain old boyards, to whom the ancient customs were still dear, and some precepts, to whom the new ones appeared little better than sacrilege, began these disturbances, and the old faction of the princess Sophia took this opportunity to rouse itself anew. It is said that one of her sisters, who was confined to the same monastery, contributed

* Le Fort's MSS. and those of Petersburg.

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