The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
by Voltaire · English · Gutenberg #42540 · 746,502 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia
Author: Voltaire
Translator: T. Smollett
Release date: April 15, 2013 [eBook #42540]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including inconsistent spelling and tenses. Some changes
have been made. They are listed at the end of the text.
The table of contents was created by the transcriber.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
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[Illustration: _H. Corbould._ _W. Chevalier._
_He ran every where in person to put a stop to the pillage and
slaughter._
_Chap. 13._]
THE
HISTORY
_OF_
PETER THE GREAT.
[Illustration:
_H. Corbould._ _W. Chevalier._
_Council him for his own safety,
not to pardon me._
_Chap. 36._]
London:
ENGRAVED FOR THE ENGLISH CLASSICS.
PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL JOHNSON & SON.
MANCHESTER.
THE
HISTORY
OF
PETER THE GREAT,
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
FROM THE FRENCH OF VOLTAIRE,
BY SMOLLETT.
MANCHESTER:
S. JOHNSON & SON, No. 3, OLDHAM-STREET;
AND 48, CHURCH-ST., LIVERPOOL.
MDCCCXLV.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Description of Russia.
II. Continuation of the description of Russia, population,
finances, armies, customs, religion: state of Russia before
Peter the Great.
III. The ancestors of Peter the Great.
IV. John and Peter. Horrible Sedition among the Strelitzes.
V. Administration of the princess Sophia. Extraordinary quarrel
about religion. A conspiracy.
VI. The reign of Peter the First.--Beginning of the grand
reformation.
VII. Congress and Treaty with the Chinese.
VIII. Expedition to the Palus Mæotis; conquest of Azoph.--The czar
sends young gentlemen into foreign countries for improvement.
IX. Travels of Peter the Great.
X. A conspiracy punished.--The corps of strelitzes abolished,
alterations in customs, manners, church, and state.
XI. War with Sweden.--The battle of Narva.
XII. Resources after the battle of Narva. That disaster entirely
repaired. Peter gains a victory near the same place. The
person who was afterwards empress made prisoner at the
storming of a town. Peter's successes. His triumph at Moscow.
XIII. Reformation at Moscow.--Further successes.--Founding of
Petersburg.--The czar takes Narva, &c.
XIV. Peter the Great keeps possession of all Ingria, while Charles
XII. is triumphant in other places.--Rise of
Menzikoff.--Petersburg secured.--The czar executes his
designs notwithstanding the victories of the king of Sweden.
XV. While Peter is strengthening his conquests, and improving the
police of his dominion, his enemy Charles XII. gains several
battles: gives laws to Poland and Saxony, and to Augustus,
notwithstanding a victory gained by the Russians.--Augustus
resigns the crown, and delivers up Patkul, the czar's
ambassador.--Murder of Patkul, who is sentenced to be broke
upon the wheel.
XVI. Attempts made to set up a third king of Poland.--Charles XII.
sets out from Saxony with a powerful army, and marches through
Poland in a victorious manner.--Cruelties committed.--Conduct
of the czar.--Successes of the king of Sweden, who at length
advances towards Russia.
XVII. Charles XII. crosses the Boristhenes, penetrates into the
Ukraine, but concerts his measures badly.--One of his armies
is defeated by Peter the Great: he loses his supply of
provisions and ammunition: advances forward through a desert
country: his adventures in the Ukraine.
XVIII. Battle of Pultowa.
XIX. Consequences of the battle of Pultowa.--Charles XII. takes
refuge among the Turks.--Augustus, whom he had dethroned,
recovers his dominions.--Conquests of Peter the Great.
XX. Campaign of Pruth.
XXI. Conclusion of the Affairs of Pruth.
XXII. Marriage of the czarowitz.--The marriage of Peter and Catherine
publicly solemnized.--Catherine finds her brother.
XXIII. Taking of Stetin.--Descent upon Finland.--Event of the year
1712.
XXIV. Successes of Peter the Great.--Return of Charles XII. into his
own dominions.
XXV. State of Europe at the return of Charles XII. Siege of
Stralsund.
XXVI. New travels of the czar.
XXVII. Continuation of the Travels of Peter the Great.--Conspiracy of
baron Gortz.--Reception of the czar in France.
XXVIII. Of the return of the czar to his dominions.--Of his politics
and occupations.
XXIX. Proceedings against prince Alexis Petrowitz.
XXX. Works and establishments in 1718, and the following years.
XXXI. Of the trade of Russia.
XXXII. Of the laws.
XXXIII. Of Religion.
XXXIV. The congress of Aland or Oeland. Death of Charles XII., &c. The
treaty of Nystadt.
XXXV. Conquests in Persia.
XXXVI. Of the Coronation of the Empress Catherine I. and the Death of
Peter the Great.
Original Pieces Relative to this History:
Sentence pronounced against the Czarowitz Alexis.
The Peace of Nystadt.
Ordinance of the Emperor Peter I. for the crowning of the
Empress Catherine.
PETER THE GREAT.
CHAP. I.
DESCRIPTION OF RUSSIA.
The empire of Russia is the largest in the whole globe, extending from
west to east upwards of two thousand common leagues of France,[1] and
about eight hundred in its greatest breadth from north to south. It
borders upon Poland and the Frozen Sea, and joins to Sweden and China.
Its length from the island of Dago, in the westernmost part of Livonia,
to its most eastern limits, takes in near one hundred and seventy
degrees, so that when it is noon in the western parts of the empire, it
is nearly midnight in the eastern. Its breadth from north to south is
three thousand six hundred wersts, which make eight hundred and fifty of
our common French leagues.
The limits of this country were so little known in the last century,
that, in 1689, when it was reported, that the Chinese and the Russians
were at war, and that in order to terminate their differences, the
emperor _Camhi_ on the one hand, and the czars Ivan or John, and Peter,
on the other, had sent their ministers to meet an embassy within three
hundred leagues of Pekin, on the frontiers of the two empires, the
account was at first treated as a fiction.
The country now comprehended under the name of Russia, or the Russias,
is of a greater extent than all the rest of Europe, or than ever the
Roman empire was, or that of Darius subdued by Alexander; for it
contains upwards of one million one hundred thousand square leagues.
Neither the Roman empire, nor that of Alexander, contained more than
five hundred and fifty thousand each; and there is not a kingdom in
Europe the twelfth part so extensive as the Roman empire; but to make
Russia as populous, as plentiful, and as well stored with towns as our
southern countries, would require whole ages, and a race of monarchs
such as Peter the Great.
The English ambassador, who resided at Petersburg in 1733, and who had
been at Madrid, says, in his manuscript relation, that in Spain, which
is the least populous state in Europe, there may be reckoned forty
persons to every square mile, and in Russia not above five. We shall see
in the second chapter, whether this minister was mistaken. Marshal
Vauban, the greatest of engineers, and the best of citizens, computes,
that, in France, every square mile contains two hundred inhabitants.
These calculations are never very exact, but they serve to shew the
amazing disproportion in the population of two different countries.
I shall observe here, that from Petersburg to Pekin, there is hardly one
mountain to be met with in the route which the caravans might take
through independent Tartary, and that from Petersburg to the north of
France, by the road of Dantzic, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, there is not
even a hill of any eminence to be seen. This observation leaves room to
doubt of the truth of that theory, which makes the mountains to have
been formed by the rolling of the waves of the sea, and supposes all
that is at present dry land, to have been for a long time covered with
water: but how comes it to pass, that the waves, which, according to the
supposition, formed the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Mount Taurus, did not
likewise form some eminence or hill from Normandy to China, which is a
winding space of above three thousand leagues? Geography, thus
considered, may furnish lights to natural philosophy, or at least give
room for rational doubts.
Formerly we called Russia by the name of Muscovy, from the city of
Moscow, the capital of that empire, and the residence of the grand
dukes: but at present the ancient name of Russia prevails.
It is not my business in this place to inquire, why the countries from
Smolensko, to the other side of Moscow, were called White Russia, or why
Hubner gives it the name of Black, nor for what reason the government of
Kiow should be named Red Russia.
It is very likely that Madies the Scythian, who made an irruption into
Asia, near seven hundred years before our vulgar æra, might have carried
his arms into these regions, as Gengis-Khan and Tamerlane did
afterwards, and as probably others had done long before Madies. Every
part of antiquity is not deserving of our inquiries; that of the
Chinese, the Indians, the Persians, and the Egyptians, is ascertained
from illustrious and interesting monuments; but these monuments suppose
others of a far more ancient date, since it required many ages to teach
men the art of transmitting their thoughts by permanent signs, and no
less time was required to form a regular language; and yet we have no
such monuments even in this polite part of Europe. The art of writing
was a long time unknown to all the North: the patriarch Constantine, who
wrote the history of Kiow in the Russian language, acknowledges, that
the use of writing was not known in these countries in the fifth
century.
Let others examine whether the Huns, the Slavi, and the Tartars,
formerly led their wandering and famished tribes towards the source of
the Boristhenes;[2] my design is to shew what czar Peter created, and
not to engage in a useless attempt, to clear up the chaos of antiquity.
We should always keep in mind, that no family upon earth knows its first
founder, and consequently, that no nation knows its first origin.
I use the name of Russians to designate the inhabitants of this great
empire. That of Roxolanians, which was formerly given them, would indeed
be more sonorous, but we shall conform to the custom of the language in
which we write. News-papers and other memoirs have for some time used
the word Russians; but as this name comes too near to that of Prussians,
I shall abide by that of Russ, which almost all our writers have given
them. Besides, it appeared to me, that the most extensive people on the
earth ought to be known by some appellation that may distinguish them
absolutely from all other nations.[3]
This empire is at present divided into sixteen large governments, that
will one day be subdivided, when the northern and eastern countries come
to be more inhabited.
These sixteen governments, which contain several immense provinces are
the following:--
LIVONIA.
The nearest province to our part of the world is that of Livonia, one of
the most fruitful in the whole North. In the twelfth century the
inhabitants were pagans; at this time certain merchants of Bremen and
Lubeck traded to this country, and a body of religious crusaders, called
_port-glaives_, or sword-bearers, who were afterwards incorporated in
the Teutonic order, made themselves masters of this province in the
thirteenth century, at the time when the fury of the crusades armed the
Christians against every one who was not of their religion. Albert,
margrave of Brandenburg, grand-master of these religious conquerors,
made himself sovereign of Livonia and of Brandenburg-Prussia, about the
year 1514. From that time, the Russians and Poles began to dispute for
the possession of this province. Soon afterwards it was invaded by the
Swedes, and for a long while continued to be ravaged by these several
powers. Gustavus Adolphus having conquered it, it was then ceded to the
Swedes in 1660, by the famous treaty of Oliva; and, at length, czar
Peter wrested it from these latter, as will be seen in the course of
this history.
Courland, which joins to Livonia, is still in vassalage to Poland,
though it depends greatly upon Russia. These are the western limits of
this empire in Christendom.
_Of the Governments of_ REVEL, PETERSBURG, _and_ WYBURG.
More northward is the government of Revel and Esthonia. Revel was built
by the Danes in the thirteenth century. The Swedes were in possession
of this province, from the time that country put itself under the
protection of that crown in 1561. This is another of the conquests of
Peter the Great.
On the borders of Esthonia lies the gulf of Finland. To the eastward of
this sea, and at the junction of the Neva with the lake Ladoga,[4] is
situated Petersburg, the most modern and best built city in the whole
empire, founded by czar Peter, in spite of all the united obstacles
which opposed its foundation.
This city is situated on the bay of Kronstat, in the midst of nine
rivers, by which its different quarters are divided. In the centre of
this city is almost an impregnable fortress, built on an island, formed
by the main-stream of the river Neva: seven canals are cut from the
rivers, and wash the walls of one of the royal palaces of the admiralty,
of the dock-yard for the galleys, and of several buildings of
manufactories. Thirty-five large churches contribute to adorn the city;
among which five are allotted for foreigners of the Roman Catholic,
Calvinist, and Lutheran religions: these are as so many temples raised
to toleration, and examples to other nations. There are five palaces;
the old one, called the summer palace, situated on the river Neva, has a
very large and beautiful stone balustrade, which runs all along the
river side. The new summer palace near the triumphal gate, is one of the
finest pieces of architecture in Europe. The admiralty buildings, the
school for cadets, the imperial college, the academy of sciences, the
exchange, and the merchants' warehouses, are all magnificent structures,
and monuments of taste and public utility. The town-house, the public
dispensary, where all the vessels are of porcelain, the court magazines,
the foundery, the arsenal, the bridges, the markets, the squares, the
barracks for the horse and foot guards, contribute at once to the
embellishment and safety of the city, which is said to contain at
present four hundred thousand souls. In the environs of the city are
several villas or country-seats, which surprise all travellers by their
magnificence. There is one in particular which has water-works superior
to those of Versailles. There was nothing of all this in 1702, the whole
being then an impassable morass. Petersburg is considered as the capital
of Ingria, a small province subdued by Peter I. Wyburg, another of his
conquests, and that part of Finland which was lost, and ceded by the
Swedes in 1742, make another government.
ARCHANGEL.
Higher up, proceeding towards the north, is the province of Archangel, a
country entirely new to the southern nations of Europe. It took its name
from St. Michael, the Archangel, under whose patronage it was put long
after the Russians had embraced Christianity, which did not happen till
the beginning of the eleventh century; and they were not known to the
other nations of Europe till the middle of the sixteenth. The English,
in 1533, endeavouring to find out a north-east passage to the East
Indies, Chancellor, captain of one of the ships fitted out for this
expedition, discovered the port of Archangel in the White Sea; at that
time it was a desert place, having only one convent, and a little
church, dedicated to St. Michael, the Archangel.
The English sailing up the river Dwina,[5] arrived at the midland part
of the country, and at length at Moscow. Here they easily made
themselves masters of the trade of Russia, which was removed from the
city of Novogorod, where it was carried on by land to this sea-port,
which is inaccessible indeed during seven months in the year; but,
nevertheless, this trade proved more beneficial to the empire than the
fairs of Novogorod, that had fallen to decay in consequence of the wars
with Sweden. The English obtained the privilege of trading thither
without paying any duties; a manner of trading which is apparently the
most beneficial to all nations. The Dutch soon came in for a share of
the trade of Archangel, then unknown to other nations.
Long before this time, the Genoese and Venetians had established a trade
with the Russians by the mouth of the Tanais or Don,[6] where they had
built a town called Tana. This branch of the Italian commerce was
destroyed by the ravages of Tamerlane, in that part of the world; but
that of Archangel continued, with great advantages both to the English
and Dutch, till the time that Peter the Great opened a passage into his
dominions by the Baltic Sea.
RUSSIAN LAPLAND.
_Of the Government of Archangel._
To the west of Archangel, and within its government, lies Russian
Lapland, the third part of this country, the other two belonging to
Sweden and Denmark. This is a very large tract, occupying about eight
degrees of longitude, and extending in latitude from one polar circle to
the North Cape[7]. The natives of this country were confusedly known to
the ancients, under the name of troglodytes and northern pigmies;
appellations suitable enough to men, who, for the most part, are not
above four feet and a half high, and dwell in caverns; they are just the
same people they were at that time. They are of a tawny complexion,
though the other people of the north are white, and for the most part
very low in stature; though their neighbours, and the people of Iceland,
under the polar circle, are tall: they seem made for their mountainous
country, being nimble, squat, and robust; their skins are hard, the
better to resist the cold, their thighs and legs are slender, their feet
small, to enable them to run more nimbly amongst the rocks, with which
their province is covered. They are passionately fond of their own
country, which none but themselves can be pleased with, and are able to
live no where else. Some have affirmed, upon the credit of Olaus, that
these people were originally natives of Finland, and that they removed
into Lapland, where they diminished in stature: but why might they not
as well have made choice of lands less northerly, where the conveniences
of life were to be had in greater plenty? How comes it that they differ
so totally from their pretended ancestors in features, figure, and
complexion? Methinks we might, with as great reason, suppose that the
grass which grows in Lapland is produced from that of Denmark, and that
the fishes, peculiar to their lakes, came from those of Sweden. It is
most likely that the Laplanders are, like their animals, the produce of
their own country, and that nature has made the one for the other.
Those who inhabit the frontiers of Finland, have adopted some of the
expressions of their neighbours, as happens to every people: but when
two nations give to things of common use, to objects which are
continually before their eyes, names absolutely different, it affords a
strong presumption, that one of them is not a colony from the other. The
Finlanders call a bear Karu, the Laplanders Muriet: the sun in the
Finnish language is called Auringa, in the Lapland tongue Beve. Here is
not the least analogy. The inhabitants of Finland, and Swedish Lapland,
formerly worshipped an idol whom they called Iumalac, and since the
reign of Gustavus Adolphus, to whom they are indebted for the
appellation of Lutherans, they call Jesus Christ the son of Iumalac. The
Muscovite or Russian Laplanders, are at present thought to be of the
Greek church; but those who wander about the mountains of the North
Cape, are satisfied with adoring one God under certain rude forms, as
has been the ancient custom of all the nations called Nomades, or
wandering nations.
This race of people, who are inconsiderable in numbers, have but very
few ideas, and are happy in not having more, which would only occasion
them to have new wants which they could not satisfy: at present they
live contented, and free from diseases, notwithstanding the excessive
coldness of their climate; they drink nothing but water, and attain to a
great age. The custom imputed to them of entreating strangers to lie
with their wives and daughters, which they esteem as an honour done to
them, probably arose from a notion of the superiority of strangers, and
a desire of amending, by their means, the defects of their own race.
This was a custom established amongst the virtuous Lacedemonians. A
husband would entreat a favour of a comely young man, to give him
handsome children, whom he might adopt. Jealousy, and the laws, prevent
the rest of mankind from giving their wives up to the embraces of
another; but the Laplanders have few or no laws, and are in all
probability, strangers to jealousy.
MOSCOW.
Ascending the river Dwina from north to south, we travel up the country
till we come to Moscow, the capital of the empire. This city was long
the centre of the Russian dominions, before they were extended on the
side of China and Persia.
Moscow, lying in 55 degrees and a half, north latitude, in a warmer
climate, and more fruitful soil than that of Petersburg, is situated in
the midst of a large and delightful plain on the river Moskwa, and two
lesser rivers, which with the former lose themselves in the Occa, and
afterwards help to swell the stream of the Wolga. This city, in the 13th
century, was only a collection of huts inhabited by a set of miserable
wretches, oppressed by the descendants of Gengis Khan.
The Kremlin, or ancient palace of the great dukes, was not built till
the 14th century; of such modern date are cities in this part of the
world. This palace was built by Italian architects, as were several
churches in the Gothic taste which then prevailed throughout all Europe.
There are two built by the famous Aristotle, of Bologna, who flourished
in the 15th century; but the private houses were no better than wooden
huts.
The first writer who brought us acquainted with Moscow, was Olearius;
who, in 1633, went thither as the companion of an embassy from the duke
of Holstein. A native of Holstein must naturally be struck with wonder
at the immense extent of the city of Moscow, with its five quarters,
especially the magnificent one belonging to the czars, and with the
Asiatic splendour which then reigned at that court. There was nothing
equal to it in Germany at that time, nor any city by far so extensive or
well peopled.
On the contrary, the earl of Carlisle, who was ambassador from Charles
II. to the czar Alexis, in 1633, complains in his relation that he could
not meet with any one convenience of life in Moscow; no inns on the
road, nor refreshments of any kind. One judged as a German, the other as
an Englishman, and both by comparison. The Englishman was shocked to see
most of the Boyards or Muscovite noblemen, sleep upon boards or benches,
with only the skins of animals under them; but this was the ancient
practice of all nations. The houses, which were almost all built of
wood, had scarcely any furniture, few or none of their tables were
covered with cloth; there was no pavement in the streets; nothing
agreeable; nothing convenient; very few artificers, and those few
extremely awkward, and employed only in works of absolute necessity.
These people might have passed for Spartans, had they been sober.
But, on public days, the court displays all the splendour of a Persian
monarch. The earl says, he could see nothing but gold and precious
stones on the robes of the czar and his courtiers. These dresses were
not manufactured in the country; and yet, it is evident, that the people
might be rendered industrious long before that time. In the reign of the
czar Boris Godonow, the largest bell was cast at Moscow, in Europe; and
in the patriarchal church there were several ornaments in silver, worked
in a very curious manner. These pieces of workmanship, which were made
under the direction of Germans and Italians, were only transient
efforts. It is daily industry, and the continual exercise of a great
number of arts, that makes a nation flourishing. Poland, and the
neighbouring nations, were at that time very little superior to the
Russians. The handicraft trades were not in greater perfection in the
north of Germany, nor were the polite arts much better known, than in
the middle of the seventeenth century.
Though the city of Moscow, at that time, had neither the magnificence
nor arts of our great cities in Europe, yet its circumference of twenty
miles; the part called the Chinese town, where all the rarities of China
are exhibited; the spacious quarter of the Kremlin, where stood the
palace of the czars; the gilded domes, the lofty and conspicuous
turrets; and, lastly, the prodigious number of its inhabitants,
amounting to near 500,000. All this together, rendered Moscow one of the
most considerable cities in the world.
Theodore, or Foedor, eldest brother to Peter the Great, began to
improve Moscow. He ordered several large houses to be built of stone,
though without any regular architecture. He encouraged the principal
persons of his court to build, advancing them sums of money, and
furnishing them with materials. He was the first who collected studs of
fine horses, and made several useful embellishments. Peter, who was
attentive to every thing, did not neglect Moscow at the time he was
building Petersburg; for he caused it to be paved, adorned it with noble
edifices, and enriched it with manufactures; and, within these few
years, M. de Showalow, high chamberlain to the empress Elizabeth,
daughter to Peter the Great, has founded an university in this city.
This is the same person who furnished me with the memorials, from which
I have compiled the present history, and who was himself much more
capable to have done it, even in the French language, had not his great
modesty determined him to resign the task to me, as will evidently
appear from his own letters on this subject, which I have deposited in
the public library of Geneva.
SMOLENSKO.
Westward of the duchy of Moscow, is that of Smolensko, a part of the
ancient Sarmatia Europea. The duchies of Moscow and Smolensko composed
what is properly called White Russia. Smolensko, which at first belonged
to the great dukes of Russia, was conquered by the great duke of
Lithuania, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and was retaken
one hundred years afterwards by its old masters. Sigismund III. king of
Poland, got possession of it in 1611. The czar Alexis, father of Peter
I. recovered it again in 1654, since which time it has always
constituted part of the Russian empire. The panegyric of Peter the
Great, pronounced in the academy of sciences at Paris, takes notice,
that before his time the Russians had made no conquests either to the
west or south; but this is evidently a mistake.
_Of the Governments of_ NOVOGOROD _and_ KIOW, _or the_ UKRAINE.
Between Petersburg and Smolensko, lies the province of Novogorod;[8] and
is said to be the country in which the ancient _Slavi_, or Sclavonians,
made their first settlements. But from whence came these _Slavi_, whose
language has spread over all the north-east part of Europe? _Sla_
signifies a chief, and _slave_ one belonging to a chief. All that we
know concerning these ancient _Slaves_ is, that they were a race of
conquerors; that they built the city of Novogorod the Great, at the head
of a navigable river; and that this city was for a long time in
possession of a flourishing trade, and was a potent ally to the Hanse
Towns. Czar Iwan Wassiliawitsch (or John Basilowitz) made a conquest of
it in 1467, and carried away all its riches, which contributed to the
magnificence of the court of Moscow, till then almost unknown.
To the south of the province of Smolensko, we meet with the province of
Kiow, otherwise called the Lesser Russia, Red Russia, or the Ukraine,
through which runs the Dnieper, called by the Greeks the Boristhenes.
The difference of these two names, the one so harsh to pronounce, and
the other so melodious, served to shew us, together with a hundred other
like instances, the rudeness of all the ancient people of the North, in
comparison with the graces of the Greek language. Kiow, the capital
city, formerly Kisow, was built by the emperors of Constantinople, who
made it a colony: here are still to be seen several Greek inscriptions
upwards of twelve hundred years old. This is the only city of any
antiquity in these countries, where men lived so long together without
building walls. Here it was that the great dukes of Russia held their
residence in the eleventh century, before the Tartars brought it under
their subjection.
The inhabitants of the Ukraine, called Cossacks, are a mixture of the
ancient Roxolanians, Sarmatians, and Tartars, blended together. Rome and
Constantinople, though so long the mistress of other nations, are not to
compare in fertility of country with the Ukraine. Nature has there
exerted her utmost efforts for the service of mankind; but they have not
seconded those efforts by industry, living only upon the spontaneous
productions of an uncultivated, but fruitful soil, and the exercise of
rapine. Though fond, to a degree of enthusiasm, of that most valuable of
all blessings, liberty; yet they were always in subjection, either to
the Poles or to the Turks, till the year 1654, when they threw
themselves into the arms of Russia, but with some limitations. At length
they were entirely subdued by Peter the Great.
Other nations are divided into cities and towns; this into ten
regiments. At the head of which is a chief, who used to be elected by a
majority of votes, and is called by the name of Hetman, or Itman. This
captain of the nation was not invested with supreme power. At present
the itman is a person nominated by the czar, from among the great lords
of the court; and is, in fact, no more that the governor of the
province, like governors of the _pays d'etats_ in France, that have
retained some privileges.
At first the inhabitants of this country were all either Pagans or
Mahometans; but, when they entered into the service of Poland, they
were baptized Christians of the Roman communion; and now, that they are
in the service of Russia, they belong to the Greek church.
Amongst these are comprehended the Zaporavian Cossacks, who are much the
same as our Bucaniers, or freebooters, living upon rapine. They are
distinguished from all other people, by never admitting women to live
among them; as the Amazons are said never to have admitted any man. The
women, whom they make use of for propagation, live upon other islands on
the river; they have no marriages amongst them, nor any domestic
economy; they inroll the male children in their militia, and leave the
girls to the care of their mothers. A brother has frequently children by
his sister, and a father by his daughter. They know no other laws than
customs, introduced by necessity: however, they make use of some prayers
from the Greek ritual. Fort St. Elizabeth has been lately built on the
Boristhenes, to keep them in awe. They serve as irregulars in the
Russian armies, and hapless is the fate of those who fall into their
hands.
_Of the Governments of_ BELGOROD, WORONITZ, _and_ NISCHGOROD.
To the north-east of the province of Kiow, between the Boristhenes and
the Tanais, or Don, is the government of Belgorod, which is as large as
that of Kiow. This is one of the most fruitful provinces of Russia, and
furnishes Poland with a prodigious number of that large cattle known by
the name of Ukraine oxen. These two provinces are secured from the
incursions of the petty Tartar tribes, by lines extending from the
Boristhenes to the Tanais, and well furnished with forts and redoubts.
Farther northward we cross the Tanais, and come into the government of
Worownitz, or Veronise, which extends as far as the banks of the Palus
Mæotis. In the neighbourhood of the capital of this province, which is
called, by the Russians, Woronestch, at the mouth of the river of the
same name, which falls into the Don, Peter the Great built his first
fleet; an undertaking which was at that time entirely new to the
inhabitants of these vast dominions. From thence we come to the
government of Nischgorod, abounding with grain, and is watered by the
river Wolga.
ASTRACAN.
From the latter province we proceed southward to the kingdom of
Astracan. This country reaches from forty-three and a half degrees north
latitude (in a most delightful climate) to near fifty, including about
as many degrees of longitude as of latitude. It is bounded on one side
by the Caspian Sea, and on the other by the mountains of Circassia,
projecting beyond the Caspian, along mount Caucasus. It is watered by
the great river Wolga, the Jaick, and several other lesser streams,
between which, according to Mr. Perry, the English engineer, canals
might be cut, that would serve as reservoirs to receive the overflowing
of the waters; and by that means answer the same purposes as the canals
of the Nile, and make the soil more fruitful: but to the right and left
of the Wolga and Jaick, this fine country was inhabited, or rather
infested, by Tartars, who never apply themselves to agriculture, but
have always lived as strangers and sojourners upon the face of the
earth.
The above named engineer, Perry, who was employed by Peter the Great in
these parts, found a vast track of land covered with pasture, leguminous
plants, cherry and almond trees, and large flocks of wild sheep, who fed
in these solitary places, and whose flesh was excellent. The inhabitants
of these countries must be conquered and civilized, in order to second
the efforts of nature, who has been forced in the climate of Petersburg.
The kingdom of Astracan is a part of the ancient Capshak, conquered by
Gengis-Khan, and afterwards by Tamerlane, whose dominion extended as far
as Moscow. The czar, John Basilides, grandson of John Basilowitz, and
the greatest conqueror of all the Russian princes, delivered his country
from the Tartarian yoke, in the sixteenth century, and added the kingdom
of Astracan to his other conquests, in 1554.
Astracan is the boundary of Asia and Europe, and is so situated as to be
able to carry on a trade with both; as merchandizes may be conveyed from
the Caspian Sea, up to this town, by means of the Wolga. This was one of
the grand schemes of Peter the Great, and has been partly carried into
execution. An entire suburb of Astracan is inhabited by Indians.
OREMBURG.
To the south-east of the kingdom of Astracan, is a small country, newly
planted, called Oremburg. The town of this name was built in the year
1734, on the banks of the river Jaick. This province is thick covered
with hills, that are parts of Mount Caucasus. The passes in these
mountains, and of the rivers that run down from them, are defended by
forts raised at equal distances. In this region, formerly uninhabited,
the Persians come at present, to hide from the rapacity of robbers,
such of their effects as have escaped the fury of the civil wars. The
city of Oremburg is become the asylum of the Persians and their riches,
and is grown considerable by their calamities. The natives of Great
Bukari come hither to trade, so that it is become the mart of Asia.
_Of the Government of_ CASAN, _and of_ GREAT PERMIA.
Beyond the Wolga and Jaick, towards the north, lies the kingdom of
Casan, which, like that of Astracan, fell by partition to one of the
sons of Gengis Khan, and afterwards to a son of Tamerlane, and was at
length conquered by John Basilides. It is still inhabited by a number of
Mahometan Tartars. This vast country stretches as far as Siberia; it is
allowed to have been formerly very flourishing and rich, and still
retains some part of its pristine opulence. A province of this kingdom,
called Great Permia, and since Solikam, was the staple for the
merchandizes of Persia, and the furs of Tartary. There has been found in
Permia a great quantity of the coin of the first Caliphs, and some
Tartarian idols, made of gold;[9] but these monuments of ancient
opulence were found in the midst of barren deserts and extreme poverty,
where there were not the least traces of commerce: revolutions of this
nature may easily happen to a barren country, seeing they are so soon
brought about in the most fruitful provinces.
The famous Swedish prisoner, Strahlemberg, who made such advantageous
use of his misfortunes, and who examined those extensive countries with
so much attention, was the first who gave an air of probability to a
fact, which before had been always thought incredible; namely,
concerning the ancient commerce of these provinces. Pliny and Pomponius
Mela relate, that, in the reign of Augustus, a king of the Suevi made a
present to Metellus Celer of some Indians who had been cast by a storm
upon the coasts bordering on the Elbe. But how could inhabitants of
India navigate the Germanic seas? This adventure was deemed fabulous by
all our moderns, especially after the change made in the commerce of our
hemisphere by the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. But formerly it
was no more extraordinary to see an Indian trading to the parts to the
north west of his country, than to see a Roman go from India by the way
of Arabia. The Indians went to Persia, and thence embarked on the
Hyrcanian Sea, and ascending the Rha, now the Wolga, got to Great Permia
through the river Kama; from whence they might take shipping again on
the Black Sea, or the Baltic. They have, in all times, been enterprising
men. The Tyrians undertook most surprising voyages.
If after surveying all these vast provinces, we direct our view towards
the east, we shall find the limits of Europe and Asia again confounded.
A new name is wanting for a considerable part of the globe. The ancients
divided their known world into Europe, Asia, and Africa: but they had
not seen the tenth part of it: hence it happens, that when we pass the
Palus Mæotis we are at a loss to know where Europe ends, or Asia begins;
all that tract of country lying beyond mount Taurus was distinguished by
the general appellation of Scythia, and afterwards by that of Tartary.
It might not be improper, perhaps, to give the name of Terræ Arcticæ,
or Northern Lands, to the country extending from the Baltic Sea to the
confines of China; as that of Terræ Australes, or Southern Lands, are to
that equally extensive part of the world, situated under the Antarctic
Pole, and which serves to counterpoise the globe.
_Of the Governments of_ SIBERIA, _of the_ SAMOJEDES, _the_ OSTIAKS
KAMTSHATKA, _&c._
Siberia, with the territories beyond it, extends from the frontiers of
the provinces of Archangel, Casan, and Astracan, eastward as far as the
sea of Japan: it joined the southern parts of Russia by Mount Caucasus;
from thence, to the country of Kamtshatka, is about one thousand two
hundred computed French leagues; and from southern Tartary, which serves
as its boundary, to the Frozen Sea, about four hundred, which is the
least breadth of the Russian empire. This country produces the richest
furs; and this occasioned the discovery of it in the year 1563.
In the sixteenth century, in the reign of the czar, John Basilides,
and not in that of Foedor Johannowitz, a private person in the
neighbourhood of Archangel, named Anika, one tolerably rich for his
condition of life and country, took notice that certain men of an
extraordinary figure, and dressed in a manner unknown to that country,
and who spoke a language understood by none but themselves, came every
year down a river which falls into the Dwina,[10] and brought martens
and black foxes, which they trucked for nails and pieces of glass; just
as the first savages of America used to exchange their gold with the
Spaniards: he caused them to be followed by his sons and servants, as
far as their own country. These were the Samojedes, a people who seem
to resemble the Laplanders, but are of a different race. They are, like
that people, unacquainted with the use of bread; and like them, they
yoke rein-deer to draw their sledges. They live in caverns and huts,
amidst the snow;[11] but in other respects, nature has made a visible
difference between this species of men and the Laplanders. Their upper
jaw projects forward, so as to be on a level with their nose, and their
ears are placed higher. Both the men and women have no hair in any other
part of their bodies, but their heads; and their nipple is of a deep
black, like ebony. The Lapland men and women are distinguished by no
such marks. By memoirs sent from these countries so little known, I have
been informed, that the author of the curious natural history of the
king's garden, is mistaken, where, in speaking of the many curiosities
of human nature, he confounds the Lapland race with that of the
Samojedes. There are many more different species of men than is commonly
thought. The Samojedes, and the Hottentots, seem to be the two extremes
of our continent; and if we observe the black nipples of the Samojedian
women, and the apron with which nature has furnished the Hottentot
females, and which hangs half way down their thighs, we may have some
idea of the great variety of our animal species, a variety unknown to
those inhabiting great cities, who are generally strangers to almost
every thing that is not immediately within their view.
The Samojedes are as singular in their moral as in their physical
distinctions; they pay no worship to the Supreme Being; they border upon
Manicheism, or rather upon the religion of the ancient Magi in this one
point, that they acknowledge a good and an evil principle. The horrible
climate they inhabit may in some measure excuse this belief, which is of
such ancient date, and so natural to those who are ignorant and unhappy.
Theft, or murder, is never heard of amongst them; being in a manner
devoid of passions, they are strangers to injustice; they have no terms
in their language to denote vice and virtue, their extreme simplicity
has not yet permitted them to form abstract ideas, they are wholly
guided by pensation, and this is perhaps an incontestable proof that men
naturally love justice, when not blinded by inordinate passions.
Some of these savages were prevailed on to suffer themselves to be
carried to Moscow, where many things they saw struck them with
admiration. They gazed upon the emperor as their god, and voluntarily
engaged for themselves and countrymen a present of two martens, or
sables, every year for each inhabitant. Colonies were soon settled
beyond the Oby,[12] and the Irtis,[13] and some forts built. In the year
1595, a Cossack officer was sent into this country, who conquered it for
the czar with only a few soldiers and some artillery, as Cortez did
Mexico; but he only made a conquest of barren deserts.
In sailing up the Oby to the junction of the river Irtis with the Tobol,
they found a petty settlement, which they converted into the town of
Tobol,[14] now the capital of Siberia, and a considerable place. Who
could imagine that this country was for a long time the residence of
those very Huns, who under Attila carried their depredations as far as
the gates of Rome, and that these Huns came from the north of China? The
Usbeck Tartars succeeded the Huns, and the Russians the Usbecks. The
possession of these savage countries has been disputed with as much
murderous fury, as that of the most fruitful provinces. Siberia was
formerly better peopled than it is at present, especially towards the
southern parts; if we may judge from the rivers and sepulchral
monuments.
All this part of the world, from the sixtieth degree of latitude, or
thereabouts, as far as those mountains of perpetual ice which border the
north seas, is totally different from the regions of the temperate zone,
the earth produces neither the same plants, nor the same animals, nor
are there the same sort of fishes in their lakes and rivers.
Below the country of the Samojedes lies that of the Ostiaks, along the
river Oby. These people have no resemblance in any respect with the
Samojedes, save that like them and all the first race of men, they are
hunters, fishermen, and shepherds; some of them have no religion, not
being formed into any society, and the others who live together in herds
or clans, have a kind of worship, and pray to the principal object of
their wants; they adore the skin of a sheep, because this creature is of
all others the most serviceable to them; just as the Egyptian husbandmen
made choice of an ox, as an emblem of the Deity who created that
creature for the use of man.
The Ostiaks have likewise other idols, whose origin and worship are as
little deserving our notice as their worshippers. There were some
converts to Christianity made amongst them in the year 1712; but these,
like the lowest of our peasants, are Christians without knowing what
they profess. Several writers pretend that these people were natives of
Great Permia, but as Great Permia is in a manner a desert, how comes it
that its inhabitants should settle themselves at such a distance, and so
inconveniently? This is a difficulty not worth clearing up. Every nation
which has not cultivated the polite arts, deserves to remain in
obscurity.
In the country of the Ostiaks in particular, and amongst their
neighbours the Burates and Jakutians, they often discover a kind of
ivory under ground, the nature of which is as yet unknown. Some take it
to be a sort of fossil, and others the tooth of a species of elephants,
the breed of which have been destroyed: but where is the country that
does not afford some natural productions, which at once astonish and
confound philosophy.
Several mountains in this country abound with the amianthes or asbestos,
a kind of incombustible flax, of which a sort of cloth and paper is
sometimes made.
To the south of the Ostiaks are the Burates, another people, who have
not yet been made Christians. Eastward there are several hordes, whom
the Russians have not as yet entirely subdued.
None of these people have the least knowledge of the calendar: they
reckon their time by snows, and not by the apparent motion of the sun:
as it snows regularly, and for a long time every winter, they say, 'I am
so many snows old,' just as we say, I am so many years.
And here I must relate the accounts given by the Swedish officer
Strahlemberg, who was taken prisoner in the battle of Pultowa, and lived
fifteen years in Siberia, and made the entire tour of that country. He
says, that there are still some remains of an ancient people, whose skin
is spotted or variegated with different colours, and that he himself had
seen some of them, and the fact has been confirmed to me by Russians
born at Tobolsky. The variety of the human species seems to be greatly
diminished, as we find very few of these extraordinary people, and they
have probably been exterminated by some other race: for instance there
are very few Albinos, or White Moors; one of them was presented to the
academy of sciences at Paris, which I saw. It is the same with respect
to several other species of animals which are rare.
As to the Borandians, of whom mention is made so frequently in the
learned history of the king's garden, my memoirs say, that this race of
people is entirely unknown to the Russians.
All the southern part of these countries is peopled by numerous hordes
of Tartars. The ancient Turks came from this part of Tartary to conquer
these extensive countries, of which they are at present in possession.
The Calmucs and Monguls are the very Scythians who, under Madies, made
themselves masters of Upper Asia, and conquered Cyaxares, king of the
Medes. They are the men, whom Gengis Khan and his sons led afterwards as
far as Germany, and was termed the Mogul empire under Tamerlane. These
people afford a lively instance of the vicissitudes which have happened
to all nations; some of their hordes, so far from being formidable now,
are become vassals to Russia.
Among these is a nation of Calmucs, dwelling between Siberia and the
Caspian Sea, where, in the year 1720, there was discovered a
subterraneous house of stone, with urns, lamps, earrings, an equestrian
statue of an oriental prince, with a diadem on his head, two women
seated on thrones, and a roll of manuscripts, which were sent by Peter
the Great to the academy of inscriptions at Paris, and proved to be
written in the Thibet language: all these are striking proofs, that the
liberal arts formerly resided in this now barbarous country, and are
lasting evidences of the truth of what Peter the Great was wont several
times to say, viz. that the arts had made the tour of the globe.
The last province is Kamtshatka, the most eastern part of the continent.
The inhabitants were absolutely void of all religion when they were
first discovered. The north part of this country likewise affords fine
furs, with which the inhabitants clothed themselves in winter, though
they went naked all the summer season. The first discoverers were
surprised to find in the southern parts men with long beards, while in
the northern parts, from the country of the Samojedes, as far as the
mouth of the river Amur, they have no more beards than the Americans.
Thus, in the empire of Russia, there is a greater number of different
species, more singularities, and a greater diversity of manners and
customs, than in any country in the known world.
The first discovery of this country was made by a Cossack officer, who
went by land from Siberia to Kamtshatka, in 1701, by order of Peter the
Great, who, notwithstanding his misfortune at Narva, still continued to
extend his care from one extremity of the continent to the other.
Afterwards, in 1725, some time before death surprised him, in the midst
of his great exploits, he sent Captain Bering, a Dane, with express
orders to find out, if possible, a passage by the sea of Kamtshatka, to
the coast of America. Bering did not succeed in his first attempt; but
the empress Anne sent him out again in 1733. M. Spengenberg, captain of
a ship, his associate in this voyage, set out the first from Kamtshatka,
but could not put to sea till the year 1739, so much time was taken up
in getting to the port where they were to embark, in building and
fitting out the ships, and providing the necessaries. Spengenberg sailed
as far as the north part of Japan, through a streight, formed by a long
chain of islands, and returned without having discovered the passage.
In 1741, Bering cruised all over this sea, in company with De Lisle de
la Croyere, the astronomer, of the same family of L'Isle, which has
produced such excellent geographers: another captain likewise went upon
the same discovery. They both made the coast of America, to the
northward of California. Thus the north-east passage, so long sought
after, was at length discovered, but there were no refreshments to be
met with in those barren coasts. Their fresh water failed them, and part
of the crew perished with the scurvy. They saw the northern bank of
California for above a hundred miles, and saw some leathern canoes, with
just such a sort of people in them as the Canadians. All their
endeavours however proved fruitless: Bering ended his life in an island,
to which he gave his name. The other captain, happening to be closer in
with the Californian coast, sent ten of his people on shore, who never
returned. The captain, after waiting for them in vain, found himself
obliged to return back to Kamtshatka, and De Lisle died as he was going
on shore. Such are the disasters that have generally attended every new
attempt upon the northern seas. But what advantages may yet arise from
these powerful and dangerous discoveries, time alone can prove.
We have now described all the different provinces that compose the
Russian dominions, from Finland to the sea of Japan. The largest parts
of this empire have been all united at different times, as has been the
case in all other kingdoms in the world. The Scythians, Huns,
Massagetes, Slavians, Cimbrians, Getes, and Sarmatians, are now subjects
of the czar. The Russians, properly so called, are the ancient Roxolani
or Slavi.
Upon reflection, we shall find that most states were formed in the same
manner. The French are an assemblage of Goths, of Danes called Normands,
of northern Germans, called Burgundians; of Franks, Allmans, and some
Romans, mixed with the ancient Celtæ. In Rome and Italy there are
several families descended from the people of the North, but none that
we know of from the ancient Romans. The supreme pontiff is frequently
the offspring of a Lombard, a Goth, a Teuton, or a Cimbrian. The
Spaniards are a race of Arabs, Carthaginians, Jews, Tyrians, Visigoths,
and Vandals, incorporated with the ancient inhabitants of the country.
When nations are thus intermixed, it is a long time before they are
civilized, or even before their language is formed. Some, indeed,
receive these sooner, others later. Polity and the liberal arts are so
difficult to establish, and the new raised structure is so often
destroyed by revolutions, that we may wonder all nations are not so
barbarous as Tartars.
CHAP. II.
Continuation of the description of Russia, population, finances,
armies, customs, religion: state of Russia before Peter the Great.
The more civilized a country is, the better it is peopled. Thus China
and India are more populous than any other empires, because, after a
multitude of revolutions, which changed the face of sublunary affairs,
these two nations made the earliest establishments in civil society: the
antiquity of their government, which has subsisted upwards of four
thousand years, supposes, as we have already observed, many essays and
efforts in preceding ages. The Russians came very late; but the arts
having been introduced amongst them in their full perfection, it has
happened, that they have made more progress in fifty years, than any
other nation had done before them in five hundred. The country is far
from being populous, in proportion to its extent; but, such as it is, it
has as great a number of inhabitants as any other state in Christendom.
From the capitation lists, and the register of merchants, artificers,
and male peasants, I might safely assert, that Russia, at present,
contains at least twenty-four millions of male inhabitants: of these
twenty-four millions, the greatest part are villains or bondmen, as in
Poland, several provinces of Germany, and formerly throughout all
Europe. The estate of a gentleman in Russia and Poland is computed, not
by his increase in money, but by the number of his slaves.
The following is a list, taken in 1747, of all the males who paid the
capitation or poll-tax:--
Merchants or tradesmen 198000
Handicrafts 16500
Peasants incorporated with the merchants and handicrafts 1950
Peasants called Odonoskis, who contribute to maintain the
militia 430220
Others who do not contribute thereto 26080
Workmen of different trades, whose parents are not known 1000
Others who are not incorporated with the companies of
tradesmen 4700
Peasants immediately dependent on the crown, about 555000
Persons employed in the mines belonging to the crown,
partly Christians, partly Mahometans and Pagans 64000
Other peasants belonging to the crown, who work in the
mines, and in private manufactories 24200
New converts to the Greek church 57000
Tartars and Ostiaks (peasants) 241000
Mourses, Tartars, Mordauts, and others, whether Pagans
or Christians, employed by the admiralty 7800
Tartars subject to contribution, called Tepteris,
Bobilitz, &c. 28900
Bondmen to several merchants, and other privileged persons,
who though not landholders, are allowed to have slaves 9100
Peasants in the lands set apart for the support of the crown 418000
Peasants on the lands belonging to her majesty,
independently of the rights of the crown 60500
Peasants on the lands confiscated to the crown 13600
Bondmen belonging to the assembly of the clergy, and who
defray other expenses 37500
Bondmen belonging to gentlemen 3550000
Bondmen belonging to bishops 116400
Bondmen belonging to convents, whose numbers were reduced
by Peter the Great 721500
Bondmen belonging to cathedral and parish churches 23700
Peasants employed as labourers in the docks of the
admiralty, or in other public works, about 4000
Labourers in the mines, and in private manufactures 16000
Peasants on the lands assigned to the principal
manufactures 14500
Labourers in the mines belonging to the crown 3000
Bastards brought up by the clergy 40
Sectaries called Raskolniky 2200
-------
Total 6646390
-------
Here we have a round number of six millions six hundred forty-six
thousand three hundred and ninety male persons, who pay the poll-tax. In
this number are included boys and old men, but girls and women are not
reckoned, nor boys born between the making of one register of the lands
and another. Now, if we only reckon triple the number of heads subject
to be taxed, including women and girls, we shall find near twenty
millions of souls.
To this number we may add the military list, which amounts to three
hundred and fifty thousand men: besides, neither the nobility nor
clergy, who are computed at two hundred thousand, are subject to this
capitation.
Foreigners, of whatever country or profession, are likewise exempt: as
also the inhabitants of the conquered countries, namely, Livonia,
Esthonia, Ingria, Carelia, and a part of Finland, the Ukraine, and the
Don Cossacks, the Calmucks, and other Tartars, Samojedes, the
Laplanders, the Ostiaks, and all the idolatrous people of Siberia, a
country of greater extent than China.
By the same calculation, it is impossible that the total of the
inhabitants of Russia should amount to less than twenty-four millions.
At this rate, there are eight persons to every square mile. The English
ambassador, whom I have mentioned before, allows only five; but he
certainly was not furnished with such faithful memoirs as those with
which I have been favoured.
Russia therefore is exactly five times less populous than Spain, but
contains near four times the number of inhabitants: it is almost as
populous as France or Germany; but, if we consider its vast extent, the
number of souls is thirty times less.
There is one important remark to be made in regard to this enumeration,
namely, that out of six million six hundred and forty thousand people
liable to the poll-tax, there are about nine hundred thousand that
belong to the Russian clergy, without reckoning either the ecclesiastics
of the conquered countries, of the Ukraine, or of Siberia.
Therefore, out of seven persons liable to the poll-tax, the clergy have
one; but, nevertheless, they are far from possessing the seventh part of
the whole revenues of the state, as is the case in many other kingdoms,
where they have at least a seventh of all estates; for their peasants
pay a capitation to the sovereign; and the other taxes of the crown of
Russia, in which the clergy have no share, are very considerable.
This valuation is very different from that of all other writers, on the
affairs of Russia; so that foreign ministers, who have transmitted
memoirs of this state to their courts, have been greatly mistaken. The
archives of the empire are the only things to be consulted.
It is very probable, that Russia has been better peopled than it is at
present; before the small-pox, that came from the extremities of Arabia,
and the great-pox that came from America, had spread over these
climates, where they have now taken root. The world owes these two
dreadful scourges, which have depopulated it more than all its wars, the
one to Mahomet, and the other to Christopher Columbus. The plague, which
is a native of Africa, seldom approached the countries of the North:
besides, the people of those countries, from Sarmatia to the Tartars,
who dwell beyond the great wall, having overspread the world by their
irruptions, this ancient nursery of the human species must have been
surprisingly diminished.
In this vast extent of country, there are said to be about seventy-four
thousand monks, and five thousand nuns, notwithstanding the care taken
by Peter the Great to reduce their number; a care worthy the legislator
of an empire where the human race is so remarkably deficient. These
thirteen thousand persons, thus immured and lost to the state, have, as
the reader may have observed, seventy-two thousand bondmen to till their
lands, which is evidently too great a number: there cannot be a stronger
proof how difficult it is to eradicate abuses of a long standing.
I find, by a list of the revenues of the empire in 1735, that reckoning
the tribute paid by the Tartars, with all taxes and duties in money, the
sum total amounted to thirteen millions of rubles, which makes
sixty-five millions of French livres, exclusive of tributes in kind.
This moderate sum was at that time sufficient to maintain three hundred
and thirty-nine thousand five hundred, as well sea as land forces: but
both the revenues and troops are augmented since that time.
The customs, diets, and manners of the Russians, ever bore a greater
affinity to those of Asia than to those of Europe: such was the old
custom of receiving tributes in kind, of defraying the expenses of
ambassadors on their journeys, and during their residence in the
country, and of never appearing at church, or in the royal presence with
a sword; an oriental custom, directly the reverse of that ridiculous and
barbarous one amongst us, of addressing ourselves to God, to our king,
to our friends, and to our women, with an offensive weapon, which hangs
down to the bottom of the leg. The long robe worn on public days, had a
more noble air than the short habits of the western nations of Europe. A
vest lined and turned up with fur, with a long scimar, adorned with
jewels for festival days; and those high turbans, which add to the
stature, were much more striking to the eye than our perukes and close
coats, and more suitable to cold climates; but this ancient dress of all
nations seems to be not so well contrived for war, nor so convenient for
working people. Most of their other customs were rustic; but we must not
imagine, that their manners were so barbarous as some writers would have
us believe. Albert Krants relates a story of an Italian ambassador, whom
the czar ordered to have his hat nailed to his head, for not pulling it
off while he was making his speech to him. Others attribute this
adventure to a Tartar, and others again to a French ambassador.
Olearius pretends, that the czar Michael Theodorowitz, banished the
marquis of Exideüil, ambassador from Henry IV. of France, into Siberia;
but it is certain, that this monarch sent no ambassador to Moscow, and
that there never was a marquis of Exideüil in France. In the same manner
do travellers speak about the country of Borandia, and of the trade they
have carried on with the people of Nova Zémbla, which is scarcely
inhabited at all, and the long conversations they have had with some of
the Samojedes, as if they understood their language. Were the enormous
compilations of voyages to be cleared of every thing that is not true
nor useful in them, both the works and the public would be gainers by
it.
The Russian government resembled that of the Turks, in respect to the
standing forces, or guards, called Strelitzes, who, like the
janissaries, sometimes disposed of the crown, and frequently disturbed
the state as much as they defended it. Their number was about forty
thousand. Those who were dispersed in the provinces, subsisted by rapine
and plunder; those in Moscow lived like citizens, followed trades, did
no duty, and carried their insolence to the greatest excess: in short,
there was no other way to preserve peace and good order in the kingdom,
but by breaking them; a very necessary, and at the same time a very
dangerous step.
The public revenues did not exceed five millions of rubles, or about
twenty-five millions of French livres. This was sufficient when czar
Peter came to the crown to maintain the ancient mediocrity, but was not
a third part of what was necessary to go certain lengths, and to render
himself and people considerable in Europe: but at the same time many of
their taxes were paid in kind, according to the Turkish custom, which
is less burthensome to the people than that of paying their tributes in
money.
OF THE TITLE OF CZAR.
As to the title of czar, it may possibly come from the tzars or tchars
of the kingdom of Casan. When John, or Ivan Basilides, completed the
conquest of this kingdom in the sixteenth century, which had been begun
by his grandfather, who afterwards lost it, he assumed this title, which
his successors have retained ever since. Before John Basilides, the
sovereign of Russia, took the title of Welike Knez, i. e. great prince,
great lord, great chief, which the Christian nations afterwards rendered
by that of great duke. Czar Michael Theodorowitz, when he received the
Holstein embassy, took to himself the following titles: 'Great knez, and
great lord, conservator of all the Russias, prince of Wolodomer, Moscow,
Novogorod, &c. tzar of Casan, tzar of Astracan, and tzar of Siberia.'
Tzar was, therefore, a title belonging to these eastern princes; and,
therefore, it is more probable to have been derived from the tshas of
Persia, than from the Roman Cæsars, whom the Siberian tzars, on the
banks of the Oby, can hardly be supposed to have ever heard.
No title, however pompous, is of any consequence, if those who bear it
are not great and powerful themselves. The word emperor, which
originally signified no more than general of the army, became the title
of the sovereign of the Roman republic: it is now given to the supreme
governor of all the Russias, more justly than to any other potentate, if
we consider the power and extent of his dominions.
RELIGION.
The established religion of this country has, ever since the eleventh
century, been that of the Greek church, so called in opposition to the
Latin; though there were always a greater number of Mahometan and Pagan
provinces, than of those inhabited by Christians. Siberia, as far as
China, was in a state of idolatry; and, in some of the provinces, they
were utter strangers to all kind of religion.
Perry, the engineer, and baron Strahlemberg, who both resided so many
years in Russia, tell us, that they found more sincerity and probity
among the Pagans than the other inhabitants; not that paganism made them
more virtuous, but their manner of living, which, was that of the
primitive ages, as they are called, freed them from all the tumultuous
passions; and, in consequence, they were known for their integrity.
Christianity did not get footing in Russia and the other countries of
the North, till very late. It is said, that a princess, named Olha,
first introduced it, about the end of the tenth century, as Clotilda,
niece to an Arian prince, did among the Franks; the wife of Miceslaus,
duke of Poland, among the Poles; and the sister of the emperor Henry II.
among the Hungarians. Women are naturally easily persuaded by the
ministers of religion, and as easily persuade the other part of mankind.
It is further added, that the princess Olha caused herself to be
baptized at Constantinople, by the name of Helena; and that, as soon as
she embraced Christianity, the emperor John Zimisces fell in love with
her. It is most likely that she was a widow; however, she refused the
emperor. The example of the princess Olha, or Olga, as she is called,
did not at first make many proselytes. Her son,[15] who reigned a long
time, was not of the same way of thinking as his mother, but her
grandson, Wolodomer, who was born of a concubine, having murdered his
brother and mounted the throne, sued for the alliance of Basiles,
emperor of Constantinople, but could obtain it only on condition of
receiving baptism: and this event, which happened in the year 987, is
the epocha when the Greek church was first established in Russia.
Photius, the patriarch, so famous for his immense erudition, his
disputes with the church of Rome, and for his misfortunes, sent a person
to baptize Wolodomer, in order to add this part of the world to the
patriarchal see.[16]
Wolodimer, or Wolodomer, therefore completed the work which his
grandmother had begun. A Greek was made the first metropolitan, or
patriarch of Russia; and from this time the Russians adopted an
alphabet, taken partly from the Greek. This would have been of advantage
to them, had they not still retained the principles of their own
language, which is the Sclavonian in every thing, but a few terms
relating to their liturgy and church government. One of the Greek
patriarchs, named Jeremiah, having a suit depending before the divan,
came to Moscow to solicit it; where, after some time, he resigned his
authority over the Russian churches, and consecrated patriarch, the
archbishop of Novogorod, named Job. This was in the year 1588, from
which time the Russian church became as independent as its empire. The
patriarch of Russia has ever since been consecrated by the Russian
bishops, and not by the patriarch of Constantinople. He ranked in the
Greek church next to the patriarch of Jerusalem, but he was in fact the
only free and powerful patriarch; and, consequently, the only real one.
Those of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, are mercenary
chiefs of a church, enslaved by the Turks; and even the patriarchs of
Jerusalem and Antioch are no longer considered as such, having no more
credit or influence in Turkey, than the rabbins of the Jewish synagogues
settled there.
It was from a person who was a patriarch of all the Russias, that Peter
the Great was descended in a right line. These new prelates soon wanted
to share the sovereign authority with the czars. They thought it not
enough that their prince walked bare-headed, once a year before the
patriarch, leading his horse by the bridle. These external marks of
respect only served to increase their thirst for rule; a passion which
proved the source of great troubles in Russia, as well as in other
countries.
Nicon, a person whom the monks look upon as a saint, and who was
patriarch in the reign of Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, wanted
to raise his dignity above that of the throne; for he not only assumed
the privilege of sitting by the side of the czar in the senate, but
pretended that neither war nor peace could be made without his consent.
His authority was so great, that, being supported by his immense wealth,
and by his intrigues with the clergy and the people, he kept his master
in a kind of subjection. He had the boldness to excommunicate some
senators who opposed his excessive insolence; till at last, Alexis,
finding himself not powerful enough to depose him by his own authority,
was obliged to convene a synod of all the bishops. There the patriarch
was accused of having received money from the Poles; and being
convicted, was deposed, and confined for the remainder of his days in a
monastery, after which the prelates chose another patriarch in his
stead.
From the first infancy of Christianity in Russia, there have been
several sects there, as well as in other countries; for sects are as
frequently the fruits of ignorance, as of pretended knowledge: but
Russia is the only Christian state of any considerable extent, in which
religion has not excited civil wars, though it has felt some occasional
tumults.
The Raskolnikys, who consist at present of about two thousand males, and
who are mentioned in the foregoing list,[17] are the most ancient sect
of any in this country. It was established in the twelfth century, by
some enthusiasts, who had a superficial knowledge of the New Testament:
they made use then, and still do, of the old pretence of all sectaries,
that of following the letter, and accused all other Christians of
remissness. They would not permit a priest, who had drank brandy, to
confer baptism; they affirmed, in the words of our Saviour, that there
is neither a first nor a last, among the faithful; and held, that one of
the elect might kill himself for the love of his Saviour. According to
them it is a great sin to repeat the hallelujah three times; and,
therefore, repeat it only twice. The benediction is to be given only
with three fingers. In other respects, no society can be more regular,
or strict in its morals. They live like the quakers, and, like them, do
not admit any other Christians into their assemblies, which is the
reason that these have accused them of all the abominations of which the
heathens accused the primitive Galileans: these latter, the gnostics,
and with which the Roman catholics have charged the protestants. They
have been frequently accused of cutting the throat of an infant, and
drinking its blood; and of mixing together in their private ceremonies,
without distinction of kindred, age, or even of sex. They have been
persecuted at times, and then they shut themselves up in their hamlets,
set fire to their houses, and thrown themselves into the flames. Peter
took the only method of reclaiming them, which was by letting them live
in peace.
But to conclude, in all this vast empire, there are but twenty-eight
episcopal sees; and in Peter's time there were but twenty-two. This
small number was, perhaps, one of the causes to which the Russian church
owes its tranquillity. So very circumscribed was the knowledge of the
clergy, that czar Theodore, brother to Peter the Great, was the first
who introduced the custom of singing Psalms in churches.
Theodore and Peter, especially the latter, admitted indifferently, into
their councils and their armies, those of the Greek, the Latin, the
Lutheran, and the Calvinist communion, leaving every one at liberty to
serve God after his own conscience, provided he did his duty to the
state. At that time there was not one Latin church in this great empire
of two thousand leagues, till Peter established some new manufactures at
Astracan, when there were about sixty Roman catholic families, under the
direction of the capuchins; but the jesuits endeavouring to establish
themselves in his dominions, he drove them out by an edict, published in
the month of April, 1718. He tolerated the capuchins as an insignificant
set of monks, but considered the jesuits as dangerous politicians.
The Greek church has at once the honour and satisfaction to see its
communion extended throughout an empire of two thousand leagues in
length, while that of Rome is not in possession of half that tract in
Europe. Those of the Greek communion have, at all times, been
particularly attentive to maintain an equality between theirs and the
Latin church; and always upon their guard against the zeal of the see of
Rome, which they look upon as ambition; because, in fact, that church,
whose power is very much circumscribed in our hemisphere, and yet
assumes the title of universal, has always endeavoured to act up to that
title.
The Jews never made any settlements in Russia, as they have done in most
of the other states of Europe, from Constantinople to Rome. The Russians
have carried on their trade by themselves, or by the help of the nations
settled amongst them. Theirs is the only country of the Greek communion,
where synagogues are not seen by the side of Christian temples.
_Conclusion of the State of_ RUSSIA _before_ PETER _the_ GREAT.
Russia is indebted solely to czar Peter for its great influence in the
affairs of Europe; being of no consideration in any other reign, since
it embraced Christianity. Before this period, the Russians made the same
figure on the Black Sea, that the Normans did afterwards on the coasts
of the ocean. In the reign of the emperor Heraclius, they fitted out an
armament of forty thousand small barks; appeared before Constantinople,
which they besieged, and imposed a tribute on the Greek emperors; but
the grand knez Wolodimar, being wholly taken up with the care of
establishing Christianity in his dominions, and wearied out with
intestine broils in his own family, weakened his dominions by dividing
them between his children. They almost all fell a prey to the Tartars,
who held Russia in subjection near two hundred years. At length John
Basilides freed it from slavery, and enlarged its boundaries: but, after
his time, it was ruined again by civil wars.
Before the time of Peter the Great, Russia was neither so powerful, so
well cultivated, so populous, nor so rich as at present. It had no
possessions in Finland, nor in Livonia; and this latter alone had long
been worth more than all Siberia. The Cossacks were still unsubjected,
nor were the people of Astracan reduced to obedience; what little trade
was carried on, was rather to their disadvantage. The White Sea, the
Baltic, the Pontus Euxinus, the sea of Azoph, and the Caspian Sea, were
entirely useless to a nation that had not a single ship, nor even a term
in their language to express a fleet. If nothing more had been wanting
but to be superior to the Tartars, and the other nations of the north,
as far as China, the Russians undoubtedly had that advantage, but they
were to be brought upon an equality with civilized nations, and to be in
a condition, one day, of even surpassing several of them. Such an
undertaking appeared altogether impracticable, inasmuch as they had not
a single ship at sea, and were absolutely ignorant of military
discipline by land: nay, the most common manufactures were hardly
encouraged, and agriculture itself, that _primum mobile_ of trade, was
neglected. This requires the utmost attention and encouragement on the
part of a government; and it is to this that the English are indebted,
for finding in their corn a treasure far superior to their woollen
manufacture.
This gross neglect of the necessary arts, sufficiently shews that the
people of Russia had no idea of the polite arts, which become necessary,
in their turn, when we have cultivated the others. They might indeed,
have sent some of the natives to gain instruction among foreigners, but
the difference of languages, manners, and religion, opposed it. Besides,
there was a law of state and religion, equally sacred and pernicious,
which prohibited any Russian from going out of his country, and thus
seemed to devote this people to eternal ignorance. They were in
possession of the most extensive dominions in the universe, and yet
every thing was wanted amongst them. At length Peter was born, and
Russia became a civilized state.
Happily, of all the great lawgivers who have lived in the world, Peter
is the only one whose history is well known. Those of Theseus and
Romulus, who did far less than him, and of the founders of all
well-governed states, are blended with the most absurd fictions: whereas
here, we have the advantage of written truths, which would pass for
fictions, were they not so well attested.
CHAP. III.
The ancestors of Peter the Great.
The family of Peter the Great have been in possession of the throne ever
since the year 1613. Before that time, Russia had undergone revolutions,
which had retarded the reformation of her police, and the introduction
of the liberal arts. This has been the fate of all human societies. No
kingdom ever experienced more cruel troubles. In the year 1597, the
tyrant Boris Godonow assassinated Demetrius (or Demetri, as he was
called), the lawful heir, and usurped the empire. A young monk took the
name of Demetrius, pretending to be that prince who had escaped from his
murderers; and with the assistance of the Poles, and a considerable
party (which every tyrant has against him), he drove out the usurper,
and seized the crown himself. The imposture was discovered as soon as he
came to the sovereignty, because the people were not pleased with him;
and he was murdered. Three other false Demetrius's started up, one after
another. Such a succession of impostors, supposes a country in the
utmost distraction. The less men are civilized, the more easily they are
imposed on. It may readily be conceived, how much these frauds augmented
the public confusion and misfortunes. The Poles, who had begun the
revolutions, by setting up the first false Demetrius, were on the point
of being masters of Russia. The Swedes shared in the spoils on the coast
of Finland, and laid claim to the crown. The state seemed on the verge
of utter destruction.
In the midst of these calamities, an assembly, composed of the principal
boyards, chose for their sovereign a young man of fifteen years of age:
this happened in 1613, and did not seem a very likely method of putting
an end to these troubles. This young man was Michael Romanow,[18]
grandfather to czar Peter, and son to the archbishop of Rotow, surnamed
Philaretes, and of a nun, and related by the mother's side to the
ancient czars.
It must be observed, that this archbishop was a powerful nobleman, whom
the tyrant Boris had obliged to become priest. His wife, Scheremetow,
was likewise compelled to take the veil; this was the ancient custom of
the western tyrants of the Latin church, as that of putting out the eyes
was with the Greek Christians. The tyrant Demetrius made Philaretes
archbishop of Rostow, and sent him ambassador to Poland, where he was
detained prisoner by the Poles, who were then at war with the Russians;
so little was the law of nations known to the different people of these
times. During his father's confinement, young Romanow was elected czar.
The archbishop was exchanged against some Polish prisoners; and, at his
return, his son created him patriarch, and the old man was in fact king,
under his son's name.
If such a government appears extraordinary to strangers, the marriages
of czar Michael Romanow, will seem still more so. The Russian princes
had never intermarried with foreign states since the year 1490, or after
they became masters of Casan and Astracan; they seem to have followed
the Asiatic customs in almost every thing, and especially in that of
marrying only among their own subjects.
This conformity to the ancient customs of Asia, was still more
conspicuous at the ceremonies observed at the marriage of a czar. A
number of the most beautiful women in the provinces were sent for to
court, where they were received by the grand gouvernante of the court,
who provided apartments for them in her own house, where they all eat
together. The czar paid them visits, sometimes incognito, and sometimes
in his real character. The wedding-day was fixed, without its being
declared on whom the choice had fallen. At the appointed time, the
happy she was presented with a rich wedding-suit, and other dresses
were given to the rest of the fair candidates, who then returned home.
There have been four instances of these marriages.
In this manner was Michael Romanow espoused to Eudocia, the daughter of
a poor gentleman, named Streschneu. He was employed in ploughing his
grounds with his servants, when the lords of the bed-chamber came to him
with presents from the czar, and to acquaint him that his daughter was
placed on the throne. The name of the princess is still held in the
highest veneration by the Russians. This custom is greatly different
from ours, but not the less respectable on that account.
It is necessary to observe, that before Romanow was elected czar, a
strong party had made choice of prince Ladislaus, son to Sigismund III.
king of Poland. At the same time, the provinces bordering on Sweden had
offered the crown to a brother of Gustavus Adolphus: so that Russia was
in the same situation then in which we have so frequently seen Poland,
where the right of electing a king has been the source of civil wars.
But the Russians did not follow the example of the Poles, who entered
into a compact with the prince whom they elected; notwithstanding they
had smarted from the oppression of tyrants, yet they voluntarily
submitted to a young man, without making any conditions with him.
Russia never was an elective kingdom; but the male issue of the ancient
sovereigns failing, and six czars, or pretenders, having perished
miserably in the late troubles, there was, as we have observed, a
necessity for electing a monarch; and this election occasioned fresh
wars with Poland and Sweden, who maintained, with force of arms, their
pretended rights to the crown of Russia. The right of governing a nation
against its own will, can never be long supported. The Poles, on their
side, after having advanced as far as Moscow, and exercised all the
ravages in which the military expeditions of those times chiefly
consisted, concluded a truce for fourteen years. By this truce, Poland
remained in possession of the duchy of Smolensko, in which the
Boristhenes has its source. The Swedes also made peace, in virtue of
which they remained in possession of Ingria, and deprived the Russians
of all communication with the Baltic Sea, so that this empire was
separated more than ever from the rest of Europe.
Michael Romanow, after this peace, reigned quietly, without making any
alteration in the state, either to the improvement or corruption of the
administration. After his death, which happened in 1645, his son, Alexis
Michaelowitz (or son of Michael), ascended the throne by hereditary
right. It may be observed, that the czars were crowned by the patriarch
of Russia, according to the ceremonies in use at Constantinople, except
that the patriarch of Russia, was seated on the same ascent with the
sovereign, and constantly affected an equality highly insulting to the
supreme power.
ALEXIS MICHAELOWITZ.
Alexis was married in the same manner as his father, and from among the
young women presented, he chose the one who appeared the most amiable in
his eyes. He married a daughter of the boyard Meloslauski, in 1647; his
second wife, whom he married in 1671, was of the family of Nariskin, and
his favourite Morosow was married to another. There cannot be a more
suitable title found for this favourite than that of vizier, for he
governed the empire in a despotic manner; and, by his great power,
excited several commotions among the strelitzes and the populace, as
frequently happens at Constantinople.
The reign of Alexis was disturbed by bloody insurrections, and by
domestic and foreign wars. A chief of the Don Cossacks, named
Stenko-Rasin, endeavoured to make himself king of Astracan, and was for
a long time very formidable; but, being at length defeated and taken
prisoner, he ended his life by the hands of the executioner; like all
those of this stamp, who have nothing to expect but a throne or a
scaffold. About twelve thousand of his adherents are said to have been
hanged on the high road to Astracan. In this part of the world, men
being uninfluenced by morality, were to be governed only by rigour; and
from this severity, frequently carried on to a degree of cruelty, arose
slavery, and a secret thirst of revenge.
Alexis had a war with the Poles that proved successful, and terminated
in a peace, which secured to him the possession of Smolensko, Kiow, and
the Ukraine: but he was unfortunate against the Swedes, and the
boundaries of the Russian empire were contracted within a very narrow
compass on that side of the kingdom.
The Turks were at that time his most formidable enemies: they invaded
Poland, and threatened the dominions of the czar that bordered upon Crim
Tartary, the ancient Taurica Chersonesus. In 1671, they took the
important city of Kaminiek, and all that belonged to Poland in the
Ukraine. The Cossacks of that country, ever averse to subjection, knew
not whether they belonged to the Turks, Poland, or Russia. Sultan
Mahomet IV. who had conquered the Poles, and had just imposed a tribute
upon them, demanded, with all the haughtiness of an Ottoman victor, that
the czar should evacuate his possessions in the Ukraine, but received as
haughty a denial from that prince. Men did not know at that time how to
disguise their pride, by an outside of civility. The sultan, in his
letter, styled the sovereign of the Russias only Christian Hospodar, and
entitled himself 'most gracious majesty, king of the universe.' The czar
replied in these terms, 'that he scorned to submit to a Mahometan dog,
and that his scimetar was as good as the grand seignior's sabre.'
Alexis at that time formed a design which seemed to presage the
influence which the Russian empire would one day obtain in the Christian
world. He sent ambassadors to the pope, and to almost all the great
sovereigns in Europe, excepting France (which was in alliance with the
Turks), in order to establish a league against the Ottoman Porte. His
ambassadors at the court of Rome succeeded only in not being obliged to
kiss the pope's toe; and in other courts they met with only unprofitable
good wishes; the quarrels of the Christian princes between themselves,
and the jarring interests arising from those quarrels, having constantly
prevented them from uniting against the common enemy of Christianity.
In the mean time, the Turks threatened to chastise the Poles, who
refused to pay their tribute: czar Alexis assisted on the side of Crim
Tartary, and John Sobieski, general of the crown, wiped off his
country's stain in the blood of the Turks, at the famous battle of
Choczim,[19] in 1674, which paved his way to the throne. Alexis
disputed this very throne with him, and proposed to unite his extensive
dominions to Poland, as the Jagellons had done; but in regard to
Lithuania, the greatness of his offer was the cause of its being
rejected. He is said to have been very deserving of the new kingdom, by
the manner in which he governed his own. He was the first who caused a
body of laws to be digested in Russia, though imperfect; and introduced
both linen and silk manufactures, which indeed were not long kept up;
nevertheless, he had the merit of their first establishment. He peopled
the deserts about the Wolga and the Kama, with Lithuanian, Polish, and
Tartarian families, whom he had taken prisoners in his wars: before his
reign, all prisoners of war were the slaves of those to whose lot they
fell. Alexis employed them in agriculture: he did his utmost endeavours
to introduce discipline among his troops. In a word, he was worthy of
being the father of Peter the Great; but he had no time to perfect what
he had begun, being snatched away by a sudden death, at the age of
forty-six, in the beginning of the year 1677, according to our style,
which is eleven days forwarder than that of Russia.
FOEDOR, or THEODORE ALEXIOWITZ.
Upon the death of Alexis, son of Michael, all fell again into confusion.
He left, by his first marriage, two princes, and six princesses.
Theodore, the eldest, ascended the throne at fifteen years of age. He
was a prince of a weak and sickly constitution, but of merit superior to
his bodily infirmities. His father Alexis had caused him to be
acknowledged his successor, a year before his death: a conduct observed
by the kings of France from Hugh Capet down to Lewis the Young, and by
many other crowned heads.
The second son of Alexis was Iwan, or John, who was still worse treated
by nature than his brother Theodore, being almost blind and dumb, very
infirm, and frequently attacked with convulsions. Of six daughters, born
of this first marriage, the only one who made any figure in Europe was
the princess Sophia, who was remarkable for her great talents; but
unhappily still more so for the mischief she intended against Peter the
Great.
Alexis, by his second marriage with another of his subjects, daughter of
the boyard Nariskin, had Peter and the princess Nathalia. Peter was born
the 30th of May (or the 10th of June new stile), in the year 1672, and
was but four years old when he lost his father. As the children of a
second marriage were not much regarded in Russia, it was little expected
that he would one day mount the throne.
It had ever been the character of the family of Romanow to civilize
their state. It was also that of Theodore. We have already remarked, in
speaking of Moscow, that this prince encouraged the inhabitants of that
city to build a great number of stone houses. He likewise enlarged that
capital, and made several useful regulations in the general police; but,
by attempting to reform the boyards, he made them all his enemies:
besides, he was not possessed of sufficient knowledge, vigour, or
resolution, to venture upon making a general reformation. The war with
the Turks, or rather with the Crim Tartars, in which he was constantly
engaged with alternate success, would not permit a prince of his weak
state of health to attempt so great a work. Theodore, like the rest of
his predecessors, married one of his own subjects, a native of the
frontiers of Poland; but having lost her in less than a year after
their nuptials, he took for his second wife, in 1682, Martha Matweowna,
daughter of the secretary Nariskin.[20] Some months after this marriage,
he was seized with the disorder which ended his days, and died without
leaving any children. As the czars married without regard to birth, they
might likewise (at least at that time) appoint a successor without
respect to primogeniture. The dignity of consort and heir to the
sovereign seemed to be entirely the reward of merit; and, in that
respect, the custom of this empire was much preferable to the customs of
more civilized states.
Theodore, before he expired, seeing that his brother Iwan was by his
natural infirmities incapable of governing, nominated his younger
brother Peter, heir to the empire of Russia. Peter, who was then only in
his tenth year, had already given the most promising hopes.
If, on the one hand, the custom of raising a subject to the rank of
czarina, was favourable to the females, there was another which was no
less hard upon them; namely, that the daughters of the czars were very
seldom married, but were most of them obliged to pass their lives in a
monastery.
The princess Sophia, third daughter of czar Alexis, by his first
marriage, was possessed of abilities, equally great and dangerous.
Perceiving that her brother Theodore had not long to live, she did not
retire to a convent; but finding herself situated between two brothers,
one of whom was incapable of governing, through his natural inability;
and the other, on account of his youth, she conceived the design of
placing herself at the head of the empire. Hence, in the last hours of
czar Theodore, she attempted to act the part that Pulcheria had formerly
played with her brother, the emperor Theodosius.
CHAP. IV.
JOHN AND PETER.
Horrible Sedition among the Strelitzes.[21]
[Sidenote: 1682.]
Czar Theodore's eyes were scarcely closed, when the nomination of a
prince of only ten years old to the throne, the exclusion of the elder
brother, and the intrigues of the princess Sophia, their sister, excited
a most bloody revolt among the strelitzes. Never did the janissaries,
nor the prætorian guards, exercise more horrible barbarities. The
insurrection began two days after the interment of Theodore, when they
all ran to arms in the Kremlin, which is the imperial palace at Moscow.
There they began with accusing nine of their colonels, for keeping back
part of their pay. The ministry was obliged to break the colonels, and
to pay the strelitzes the money they demanded: but this did not satisfy
them, they insisted upon having these nine officers delivered up to
them, and condemned them, by a majority of votes, to suffer the Battogs,
or Knout; the manner of which punishment is as follows:--
The delinquent is stripped naked, and laid flat on his belly, while two
executioners beat him over the back with switches, or small canes, till
the judge, who stands by to see the sentence put in execution, says, 'It
is enough.' The colonels, after being thus treated by their men, were
obliged to return them thanks, according to the custom of the eastern
nations; where criminals, after undergoing their punishment, must kiss
the judge's hand. Besides complying with this custom, the officers gave
them a sum of money, which was something more than the custom.
While the strelitzes thus began to make themselves formidable, the
princess Sophia, who secretly encouraged them, in order to lead them by
degrees from crime to crime, held a meeting at her house, consisting of
the princesses of the blood, the generals of the army, the boyards, the
patriarch, the bishops, and even some of the principal merchants; where
she represented to them, that prince John, by right of birth and merit,
was entitled to the empire, the reins of which she intended to keep in
her own hands. At the breaking up of the assembly, she caused a promise
to be made to the strelitzes, of an augmentation of pay, besides
considerable presents. Her emissaries were in particular employed to
stir up the soldiery against the Nariskin family, especially the two
brothers of the young dowager czarina, the mother of Peter the First.
These persuaded the strelitzes, that one of the brothers, named John,
had put on the imperial robes, had seated himself on the throne, and had
attempted to strangle prince John; adding, moreover, that the late czar
Theodore had been poisoned by a villain, named Daniel Vongad, a Dutch
physician. At last Sophia put into their hands a list of forty noblemen,
whom she stiled enemies to their corps, and to the state, and as such
worthy of death. These proceedings exactly resembled the proscriptions
of Sylla, and the Roman triumvirate, which had been revived by
Christian II. in Denmark and Sweden. This may serve to shew, that such
cruelties prevail in all countries in times of anarchy and confusion.
The mutineers began the tragedy with throwing the two knez, or princes,
Dolgorouki and Matheof, out of the palace-windows; whom the strelitzes
received upon the points of their spears, then stripped them, and
dragged their dead bodies into the great square; after this they rushed
into the palace, where meeting with Athanasius Nariskin, a brother of
the young czarina, and one of the uncles of czar Peter, they murdered
him in like manner; then breaking open the door of a neighbouring
church, where three of the proscribed persons had taken refuge, they
drag them from the altar, strip them naked, and stab them to death with
knives.
They were so blinded with their fury, that seeing a young nobleman of
the family of Soltikoff, a great favourite of theirs, and who was not
included in the list of the proscribed, and some of them mistaking him
for John Nariskin, whom they were in search of, they murdered him upon
the spot; and what plainly shews the manners of those times, after
having discovered their error, they carried the body of young Soltikoff,
to his father to bury it; and the wretched parent, far from daring to
complain, gave them a considerable reward for bringing him the mangled
body of his son. Being reproached by his wife, his daughters, and the
widow of the deceased, for his weakness, 'Let us wait for an opportunity
of being revenged,' said the old man. These words being overheard by
some of the soldiers, they returned furiously back into the room,
dragged the aged parent by the hair, and cut his throat at his own door.
Another party of the strelitzes, who were scouring the city in search
of the Dutch physician, Vongad, met with his son, of whom they inquired
for his father; the youth trembling, replied, he did not know where he
was, upon which they immediately dispatched him. Soon after, a German
physician falling in their way, 'You are a doctor,' said they, 'and if
you did not poison our master, Theodore, you have poisoned others, and
therefore merit death;' and thereupon killed him.
At length they found the Dutchman, of whom they were in quest, disguised
in the garb of a beggar; they instantly drag him before the palace. The
princesses who loved this worthy man, and placed great confidence in his
skill, begged the strelitzes to spare him, assuring them that he was a
very good physician, and had taken all possible care of their brother
Theodore. The strelitzes made answer, that he not only deserved to die
as a physician, but also as a sorcerer; and that they had found in his
house, a great dried toad, and the skin of a serpent. They furthermore
required to have young Nariskin delivered up to them, whom they had
searched for in vain for two days: alleging, that he was certainly in
the palace, and that they would set fire to it, unless he was put into
their hands. The sister of John Nariskin, and the other princesses,
terrified by their menaces, went to acquaint their unhappy brother in
the place of his concealment, with what had passed; upon which the
patriarch heard his confession, administers the viaticum, and extreme
unction to him, and then, taking an image of the blessed Virgin, which
was said to perform miracles, he leads the young man forth by the hand,
and presents him to the strelitzes, shewing them, at the same time, the
image of the Virgin. The princesses, who in tears surrounded Nariskin,
falling upon their knees before the soldiers, besought them, in the name
of the blessed Virgin, to spare their relation's life; but the inhuman
wretches tore him from their arms, and dragged him to the foot of the
stairs, together with the physician Vongad, where they held a kind of
tribunal among themselves, and condemned them both to be put to the
torture. One of the soldiers, who could write, drew up a form of
accusation, and sentenced the two unfortunate princes to be cut in
pieces; a punishment inflicted in China and Tartary on parricides, and
called the punishment of ten thousand slices. After having thus used
Nariskin and Vongad, they exposed their heads, feet, and hands, on the
iron points of a balustrade.
While this party of the strelitzes were thus glutting their fury in the
sight of the princesses, the rest massacred every one who was obnoxious
to them, or suspected by the princess Sophia.
This horrid tragedy concluded with proclaiming the two princes, John and
Peter, in June, 1682, joint sovereigns, and associating their sister
Sophia with them, in the quality of co-regent; who then publicly
approved of all their outrages, gave them rewards, confiscated the
estates of the proscribed, and bestowed them upon their murderers. She
even permitted them to erect a monument, with the names of the persons
they had murdered, as being traitors to their country: and to crown all,
she published letters-patent, thanking them for their zeal and
fidelity.
CHAP. V.
Administration of the princess Sophia. Extraordinary quarrel about
religion. A conspiracy.
Such were the steps by which the princess Sophia did in effect ascend
the throne of Russia, though without being declared czarina; and such
the examples that Peter the First had before his eyes. Sophia enjoyed
all the honours of a sovereign; her bust was on the public coin; she
signed all dispatches, held the first place in council, and enjoyed a
power without control. She was possessed of a great share of
understanding, and some wit; made verses in the Russian language, and
both spoke and wrote extremely well. These talents were set off by the
addition of an agreeable person, and sullied only by her ambition.
She procured a wife for her brother John, in the manner already
described in several examples. A young lady named Soltikoff, of the
family with the nobleman of that name who had been assassinated by the
seditious strelitzes, was sent for from the heart of Siberia, where her
father commanded a fortress, to be presented to czar John at Moscow. Her
beauty triumphed over all the intrigues of her rivals, and John was
married to her in 1684. At every marriage of a czar we seem to read the
history of Ahasuerus, or that of Theodosius the Younger.
In the midst of the rejoicings on account of this marriage, the
strelitzes raised a new insurrection, and (who would believe it?) on
account of religion! of a particular tenet! Had they been mere soldiers,
they would never have become controvertists, but they were also
citizens of Moscow. Whosoever has, or assumes a right of speaking in an
authoritative manner to the populace, may found a sect. This has been
seen in all ages, and all parts of the world, especially since the
passion of dogmatizing has become the instrument of ambition, and the
terror of weak minds.
Russia had experienced some previous disturbances on occasion of a
dispute, whether the sign of the cross was to be made with three
fingers, or with two! One Abakum, who was also a priest, had set up some
new tenets at Moscow, in regard to the Holy Spirit; which according to
the Scriptures, enlightened all the faithful; as likewise with respect
to the equality of the primitive Christians, and these words of
Christ:--'There shall be amongst you neither first nor last.' Several
citizens and many of the strelitzes, embraced the opinions of Abakum.
One Raspop[22] was the chief of this party, which became considerable.
The sectaries, at length, entered (July 16, 1682, new stile) the
cathedral, where the patriarch and his clergy were officiating; drove
them out of the church with stones, and seated themselves very devoutly
in their places, to receive the Holy Spirit. They called the patriarch
the 'ravenous wolf in the sheepfold;' a title which all sects have
liberally bestowed on each other. The princess Sophia, and the two
czars, were immediately made acquainted with these disturbances: and the
other strelitzes, who were staunch to the good old cause, were given to
understand, that the czars and the church were in danger. Upon this the
strelitzes and burghers of the patriarchal party attacked the
Abakumists: but a stop was put to the carnage, by publishing a
convocation of a council, which was immediately assembled in a hall of
the palace. This took up very little time, for they obliged every priest
they met to attend. The patriarch, and a bishop, disputed against
Raspop; but at the second syllogism, they began to throw stones at one
another. The council ended with ordering Raspop, and some of his
faithful disciples to have their heads struck off; and the sentence was
executed by the sole order of the three sovereigns, Sophia, John, and
Peter.
During these troubles, there was a knez, named Chowanskoi, who having
been instrumental in raising the princess Sophia to the dignity she then
held, wanted, as a reward for his services, to have a share in the
administration.
It may be supposed, that he found Sophia not so grateful as he could
wish; upon which he espoused the cause of religion, and the persecuted
Raspopians, and stirred up a party among the strelitzes and the people,
in defence of God's name.
This conspiracy proved a more serious affair than the enthusiastic riot
of Raspop. An ambitious hypocrite always carries things farther than a
simple fanatic. Chowanskoi aimed at no less than the imperial dignity;
and to rid himself of all cause of fear, he resolved to murder the two
czars, Sophia, the other princesses, and every one who was attached to
the imperial family. The czars and the princesses were obliged to retire
to the monastery of the Holy Trinity, within twelve leagues of
Petersburg.[23] This was, at the same time, a convent, a palace, and a
fortress, like Mount Cassino,[24] Corhy,[25] Fulda,[26] Kempten,[27]
and several others belonging to the Latin church. This monastery of the
Trinity belongs to the monks of St. Basil. It is surrounded by deep
ditches, and ramparts of brick, on which is planted a numerous
artillery. The monks are possessed of all the country round for four
leagues. The imperial family were in full safety there, but more on
account of the strength, than the sanctity of the place. Here Sophia
treated with the rebel knez; and having decoyed him half way, caused his
head to be struck off, together with those of one of his sons, and
thirty-seven strelitzes who accompanied him.
[Sidenote: 1682.]
The body of strelitzes upon this news, fly to arms, and march to attack
the convent of Trinity, threatening to destroy every thing that came in
their way. The imperial family stood upon their defence; the boyards arm
their vassals, all the gentlemen flocked in, and a bloody civil war
seemed on the point of beginning. The patriarch somewhat pacified the
strelitzes, who began to be intimidated with the number of troops that
were marching towards them on all sides: in short, their fury was
changed into fear, and their fear into the most abject submission; a
change common to the multitude. Three thousand seven hundred of this
corps, followed by their wives and children, with ropes tied about their
necks, went in procession to the convent of the Trinity, which three
days before they had threatened to burn to the ground. In this
condition, these unhappy wretches present themselves before the gate of
the convent, two by two, one carrying a block and another an axe; and
prostrating themselves on the ground, waited for their sentence. They
were pardoned upon their submission, and returned back to Moscow,
blessing their sovereigns; and still disposed, though unknown to
themselves, to commit the same crime upon the very first opportunity.
These commotions being subsided, the state resumed an exterior of
tranquillity; but Sophia still remained possessed of the chief
authority, leaving John to his incapacity, and keeping Peter in the
subjection of a ward. In order to strengthen her power, she shared it
with Prince Basil Galitzin, whom she created generalissimo, minister of
state, and lord keeper. Galitzin was in every respect superior to any
person in that distracted court: he was polite, magnificent, full of
great designs, more learned than any of his countrymen, as having
received a much better education, and was even master of the Latin
tongue, which was, at that time, almost entirely unknown in Russia. He
was of an active and indefatigable spirit, had a genius superior to the
times he lived in, and capable, had he had leisure and power, as he had
inclination, to have changed the face of things in Russia. This is the
eulogium given of him by La Neuville, at that time the Polish envoy in
Russia; and the encomiums of foreigners are seldom to be suspected.
This minister bridled the insolence of the strelitzes, by distributing
the most mutinous of that body among the several regiments in the
Ukraine, in Casan, and Siberia. It was under his administration that the
Poles, long the rivals of Russia, gave up, in 1686, all pretensions to
the large provinces of Smolensko and the Ukraine. He was the first who
sent an embassy to France, in 1687; a country which had, for upwards of
twenty years, been in the zenith of its glory, by the conquests, new
establishments, and the magnificence of Lewis XIV. and especially by the
improvement of the arts, there can be not only external grandeur, but
solid glory. France had not then entered into any correspondence with
Russia, or rather was unacquainted with that empire; and the academy of
inscriptions ordered a medal to be struck to commemorate this embassy,
as if it had come from the most distant part of the Indies; but
notwithstanding all this, the ambassador Dolgorouski miscarried in his
negotiation, and even suffered some gross affronts on account of the
behaviour of his domestics, whose mistakes it would have been better to
have overlooked; but the court of Lewis XIV. could not then foresee,
that France and Russia would one day reckon among the number of their
advantages, that of being cemented by the closest union.
Russia was now quiet at home, but she was still pent up on the side of
Sweden, though enlarged towards Poland, her new ally, in continual
alarms on the side of Crim Tartary, and at variance with China in regard
to the frontiers.
The most intolerable circumstance for their empire, and which plainly
shewed, that it had not yet attained to a vigorous and regular
administration, was, that the khan of the Crim Tartars exacted an annual
tribute of 6000 rubles, in the nature of that which the Turk had imposed
on the Poles.
Crim Tartary is the ancient Taurica Chersonesus, formerly so famous by
the commerce of the Greeks, and still more by their fables, a fruitful
but barbarous country. It took its name of Crimea, or Crim, from the
title of its first khans, who took this name before the conquests of the
sons of Gengis Khan. To free his country from this yoke, and wipe off
the disgrace of such tribute, the prime minister, Galitzin, marched in
person (1687, 1688,) into Crim Tartary, at the head of a numerous army.
These armies were not to be compared to the present troops; they had no
discipline; there was hardly one regiment completely armed; they had no
uniform clothing, no regularity: their men indeed were inured to hard
labour and a scarcity of provisions, but then they carried with them
such a prodigious quantity of baggage, as far exceeded any thing of the
kind in our camps, where the greatest luxury prevails. Their vast
numbers of waggons for carrying ammunition and provisions, in an
uninhabitable and desert country, greatly retarded the expedition
against Crim Tartary. The army found itself in the midst of the vast
deserts, on the river Samara, unprovided with magazines. Here Galitzin
did what in my opinion, was never done any where else: he employed
thirty thousand men in building a town on the banks of the Samara, to
serve as a place for magazines in the ensuing campaign: it was begun in
one year, and finished in the third month of the following; the houses
indeed were all wood except two, which were brick; the ramparts were of
turf, but well lined with artillery; and the whole place was in a
tolerable state of defence.
This was all that was done of any consequence in this ruinous
expedition. In the mean while Sophia continued to govern in Moscow,
while John had only the name of czar; and Peter, now at the age of
seventeen, had already the courage to aim at real sovereignty. La
Neuville, the Polish envoy, then resident at Moscow, and who was
eye-witness to all that passed, pretends that Sophia and Galitzin had
engaged the new chief of the strelitzes, to sacrifice to them their
young czar: it appears, at least, that six hundred of these strelitzes
were to have made themselves masters of his person. The private memoirs
which have been entrusted to my perusal by the court of Russia, affirm,
that a scheme had actually been laid to murder Peter the First: the blow
was on the point of being struck, and Russia for ever deprived of the
new existence she has since received. The czar was once more obliged to
take refuge in the convent of the Trinity, the usual asylum of the court
when threatened by the soldiers. There he assembled the boyards of his
party, raised a body of forces, treats with the captains of the
strelitzes, and called in the assistance of certain Germans, who had
been long settled in Moscow, and were all attached to his person from
his having already shewn himself the encourager of strangers. Sophia and
John, who continued at Moscow, used every means to engage the strelitzes
to remain firm to their interests; but the cause of young Peter, who
loudly complained of an attempt meditated against himself and his
mother, prevailed over that of the princess, and of a czar, whose very
aspect alienated all hearts. All the acomplices were punished with a
severity to which that country was as much accustomed as to the crimes
which occasioned it. Some were beheaded after undergoing the punishment
of the knout or battocks. The chief of the strelitzes was put to death
in the same manner, and several other suspected persons had their
tongues cut out. Prince Galitzin escaped with his life, through the
intercession of one of his relations, who was a favourite of czar Peter;
but he was stripped of all his riches, which were immense, and banished
to a place in the neighbourhood of Archangel. La Neuville, who was
present at the whole of this catastrophe, relates, that the sentence
pronounced upon Galitzin was in these terms: 'Thou art commanded, by the
most clement czar, to repair to Karga, a town under the pole, and there
to continue the remainder of thy days. His majesty, out of his extreme
goodness, allows thee three pence per day for thy subsistence.'
There is no town under the pole. Karga is in the 62nd degree of
latitude, and only six degrees and a half further north than Moscow.
Whoever pronounced this sentence must have been a very bad geographer.
La Neuville was probably imposed upon by a false account.
1689.] At length the princess Sophia was once more sent back to her
monastery at Moscow,[28] after having so long held the reins of
government; and this revolution proved, to a woman of her disposition, a
sufficient punishment.
From this instant Peter began to reign in reality; his brother John
having no other share in the government, but that of seeing his name to
all public acts. He led a retired life, and died in 1696.
CHAP. VI.
The reign of Peter the First.--Beginning of the grand reformation.
Peter the Great was tall, genteel, well made, with a noble aspect,
piercing eyes and a robust constitution, fitted for all kinds of
hardship and bodily exercise. He had a sound understanding, which is the
basis of all real abilities; and to this was joined an active
disposition, which prompted him to undertake and execute the greatest
things. His education was far from being worthy of his genius. The
princess Sophia was, in a peculiar manner, interested to let him remain
in ignorance, and to indulge himself in those excesses which youth,
idleness, custom, and the high rank he held, made but too allowable.
Nevertheless, he had been lately married, (June 1689) like others of his
predecessors, to one of his own subjects, the daughter of colonel
Lapuchin; but, as he was young, and for some time enjoyed none of the
prerogatives of the crown, but that of indulging his pleasures without
restraint, the ties of wedlock were not always sufficient to keep him
within just bounds. The pleasures of the table, in which he indulged
himself rather too freely, with foreigners, who had been invited to
Moscow by prince Galitzin, seemed not to presage that he would one day
become the reformer of his country; however, in spite of bad examples,
and even the allurements of pleasure, he applied himself to the arts of
war and government, and which, even then, shewed that he had the seeds
of greatness in him.
It was still less expected, that a prince, who was subject to such a
constitutional dread of water, as to subject him to cold sweats, and
even convulsions, when he was obliged to cross a small river or brook,
should become one of the best seamen in all the north. In order to
get the better of nature, he began by jumping into the water,
notwithstanding the horror he felt at it, till at length this aversion
was changed into a fondness for that element.[29]
He often blushed at the ignorance in which he had been brought up. He
learned, almost of himself, without the help of a master, enough of
German and high Dutch, to be able to write and explain himself tolerably
well in both those languages. The Germans and Dutch appeared to him as
the most civilized nations, because the former had already erected, in
Moscow, some of those arts and manufactures which he was desirous of
seeing established in his empire, and the latter excelled in the art of
navigation, which he already began to look upon as the most necessary of
all others.
Such were the dispositions which Peter cherished, notwithstanding the
follies of his youth. At the same time, he found himself disturbed by
factions at home, had the turbulent spirit of the strelitzes to keep
under, and an almost uninterrupted war to manage against the Crim
Tartars. For though hostilities had been suspended in 1689, by a truce,
it had no long continuance.
During this interval, Peter became confirmed in his design of
introducing the arts into his country.
His father Alexis had, in his lifetime, entertained the same views, but
he wanted leisure, and a favourable opportunity to carry them into
execution; he transmitted his genius to his son, who was more
clear-sighted, more vigorous, and more unshaken by difficulties and
obstacles.
Alexis had been at a great expense in sending for Bothler,[30] a ship
builder and sea captain, from Holland, together with a number of
shipwrights and sailors. These built a large frigate and a yacht upon
the Wolga, which they navigated down that river to Astracan, where they
were to be employed in building more vessels, for carrying on an
advantageous trade with Persia, by the Caspian Sea. Just at this time
the revolt of Stenko-Rasin broke out, and this rebel destroyed these two
vessels, which he ought to have preserved for his own sake, and murdered
the captain; the rest of the crew fled into Persia, from whence they got
to some settlements belonging to the Dutch East India company. A
master-builder, who was a good shipwright, staid behind in Russia, where
he lived a long time in obscurity.
One day, Peter taking a walk at Ishmaelof, a summer-palace built by his
grandfather, he perceived, among several other rarities, an old English
shallop, which had lain entirely neglected: upon which he asked
Timmerman, a German, and his mathematical teacher, how came that little
boat to be of so different a construction from any he had seen on the
Moska? Timmerman replied, that it was made to go with sails and oars.
The young prince wanted instantly to make a trial of it; but it was
first to be repaired and rigged. Brant, the ship-builder abovementioned,
was by accident found out at Moscow, where he lived retired; he soon put
the boat in order, and worked her upon the river Yauza, which washes the
suburbs of the town.
Peter caused his boat to be removed to a great lake, in the
neighbourhood of the convent of the Trinity; he likewise made Brant
build two more frigates, and three yachts, and piloted them himself. A
considerable time afterwards, viz. in 1694, he made a journey to
Archangel, and having ordered a small vessel to be built in that port,
by the same Brant, he embarked therein on the Frozen Sea, which no
sovereign beside himself had ever beheld. On this occasion, he was
escorted by a Dutch man of war, under the command of captain Jolson, and
attended by all the merchant-vessels then in the port of Archangel. He
had already learned the manner of working a ship; and, notwithstanding
the pains his courtiers took to imitate their master, he was the only
one who made a proficiency in it.
He found it no less difficult to raise a well disciplined body of land
forces, on whom he could depend, than to establish a navy. His first
essay in navigation, on a lake, previous to his journey to Archangel,
was looked upon only as the amusements of a young prince of genius; and
his first attempt to form a body of disciplined troops, likewise
appeared as nothing more than that of diversion. This happened during
the regency of the princess Sophia; and, had he been suspected of
meaning any thing serious by this amusement, it might have been attended
with fatal consequences to him.
He placed his confidence in a foreigner, the celebrated Le Fort, of a
noble and ancient family in Piedmont, transplanted near two centuries
ago to Geneva, where they have filled the most considerable posts in the
state. He was intended to have been brought up to the trade, to which
the town is indebted for the figure it now makes; having formerly been
known only as the seat of religious controversies.
But his genius, which prompted him to the greatest undertakings, engaged
him to quit his father's house at the age of fourteen; and he served
four months[31] in quality of a cadet in the citadel of Marseilles; from
thence he went to Holland, where he served some time as a volunteer, and
was wounded at the siege of Grave, a strong fortified town on the Meuse,
which the prince of Orange, afterwards king of England, retook from
Lewis XIV. in 1674. After this, led by hopes of preferment, wherever he
could find it, he embarked with a German colonel, named Verstin, who had
obtained a commission from Peter's father, the czar Alexis, to raise
soldiers in the Netherlands, and bring them to Archangel. But, when he
arrived at that port, after a most fatiguing and dangerous navigation,
the czar Alexis was no more; the government was changed, and Russia in
confusion. The governor of Archangel suffered Verstin, Le Fort, and his
whole troop, to remain a long time, in the utmost poverty and distress,
and even threatened to send them into the extremity of Siberia; upon
which every man shifted for himself. Le Fort, in want of every thing,
repaired to Moscow, where he waited upon the Danish resident, named De
Horn, who made him his secretary: there he learned the Russian language,
and some time afterwards found means to be introduced to the czar Peter;
the elder brother, Iwan, not being a person for his purpose. Peter was
taken with him, and immediately gave him a company of foot. Le Fort had
seen very little service, he knew but little of letters, not having
studied any particular art or science; but he had seen a great deal, and
had a talent of making the most of what he saw. Like the czar, he owed
every thing to his own genius; he understood the German and Dutch
languages, which Peter was learning, as those of two nations that might
be of service in his designs. Every thing conspired to make him
agreeable to Peter, to whom he strictly attached himself. From being the
companion of his pleasures, he became his favourite, and confirmed
himself in that station by his abilities. The czar made him his
confidant in the most dangerous design that a prince of that country
could possibly form, namely, that of putting himself in a condition to
be able one day to break the seditious and barbarous body of forces
called the strelitzes. It had cost the great sultan or basha Osman his
life, for attempting to disband the janissaries. Peter, young as he was,
went to work in a much abler manner than Osman.
He began with forming, at his country-seat at Preobrazinski, a company
of fifty of his youngest domestics; and some young gentlemen, the sons
of boyards, were chosen for their officers: but, in order to teach these
young noblemen a subordination, to which they were wholly unaccustomed,
he made them pass through all the different military degrees, and
himself set them the example, by serving first as a drum, then as a
private soldier, a serjeant, and a lieutenant of the company. Nothing
was ever more extraordinary, nor more useful, than this conduct. The
Russians had hitherto made war in the same manner as our ancestors at
the time of the feudal tenures, when the unexperienced nobles took the
field at the head of their vassals, undisciplined, and ill armed: a
barbarous method, sufficient indeed to act against the like armies, but
of no use against regular troops.
This company, which was formed wholly by Peter himself, soon increased
in numbers, and became afterwards the regiment of Preobrazinski guards.
Another regiment, formed on the same plan, became in time the regiment
of Semeniousky guards.
The czar had already a regiment of five thousand men that could be
depended upon, trained by general Gordon, a Scotchman, and composed
almost entirely of foreigners. Le Fort, who had borne arms but a short
time, but whose capacity was equal to every thing, undertook to raise a
regiment of twelve thousand men, which he effected: five colonels were
appointed to serve under him, and he saw himself on a sudden general of
this little army, which had been raised, as much to oppose the
strelitzes, as the enemies of the state.
One thing worthy of being remarked,[32] and which fully confutes the
hasty error of those who pretend that France lost very few of its
inhabitants by the revocation of the edict of Nantz, is, that one-third
of his army, which was only called a regiment, consisted of French
refugees. Le Fort disciplined his new troops, as if he had been all his
lifetime a soldier.
Peter was desirous of seeing one of those images of war, the mock
fights, which had lately been introduced in times of peace: a fort was
erected, which was to be attacked by one part of his new troops, and
defended by the other. The difference between this fight, and others of
the like nature, was, that instead of a sham engagement, there was a
real one, in which some of his men were slain, and a great many
wounded.[33] Le Fort, who commanded the attack, received a considerable
wound. These bloody sports were intended to initiate the young troops
into the service of the field; but it required much labour, and even
some degree of sufferings to compass this end.
These warlike amusements did not take off the czar's attention to his
naval project. As he had made Le Fort a general by land, notwithstanding
his having never borne a command; he now made him admiral, though he had
never had the direction of a ship, but he knew him deserving both of the
one and the other. It is true, that he was an admiral without a fleet,
and a general with only his regiment for an army.
By degrees the czar reformed that great abuse in the army, viz. the
independence of the boyards, who, in time of war, used to bring into the
field a multitude of their vassals and peasants: this was exactly the
ancient government of the Franks, Huns, Goths, and Vandals, who indeed
subdued the Roman empire in its state of decline, but would have been
totally destroyed, had they had the warlike disciplined legions of
ancient Rome to encounter, or such armies as are now brought into the
field.
Admiral Le Fort was not long, however, before he had something more than
an empty title. He employed some Dutchmen and Venetians in building a
number of barcolongos, or kind of long barks, and also two ships of
about thirty guns each, at the mouth of the Woronitz, which falls into
the Tanais, or Don: these vessels were to fall down the river, and keep
in awe the Crim Tartars, with whom hostilities had been renewed.
The czar was now to determine (in 1689) against which of the following
powers he would declare war, whether against the Turks, the Swedes, or
the Chinese. But here it will be proper to premise on what terms he then
stood with China, and which was the first treaty of peace concluded by
that nation.
CHAP. VII.
Congress and Treaty with the Chinese.[34]
We must set out by forming a proper idea of the limits of the Chinese
and Russian empires at this period. When we leave Siberia, properly so
called, and also far behind us to the south, a hundred hordes of
Tartars, with white and black Calmucks, and Mahometan and Pagan Monguls,
we come to the 130th degree of longitude, and the 52d of latitude upon
the river Amur.[35] To the northward is a great chain of mountains, that
stretches as far as the Frozen Sea, beyond the polar circle. This
river, which runs upwards of five hundred leagues,[36] through Siberia
and Chinese Tartary, falls, after many windings, into the sea of
Kamtshatka. It is affirmed for a truth, that at its mouth, which opens
with this sea, there is sometimes caught a monstrous fish, much larger
than the hippopotamus of the Nile, and that the tooth thereof is the
finest ivory. It is furthermore said, that this ivory was formerly an
object of trade; that they used to convey it through Siberia, which is
the reason why several pieces of it are still found under the ground in
that country. This is the most probable account of the fossil ivory, of
which we have elsewhere spoken; for it appears highly chimerical to
pretend, that there were formerly elephants in Siberia.
This Amur is likewise called the Black River by the Mantechoux Tartars,
and the Dragon's River by the Chinese.
It was in these countries, so long unknown, that the Russians and
Chinese contested the limits of their empires.[37] The Russians had some
forts on the river Amur, about three hundred leagues from the great
wall. Many hostilities had arisen between these two nations on account
of these forts: at length both began to understand their interests
better; the emperor Camhi preferred peace and commerce to an
unprofitable war, and sent several ambassadors to Niptchou, one of
those settlements. The ambassadors had ten thousand men in their
retinue, including their escort: this was Asiatic pomp; but what is very
remarkable, is, that there was not an example in the annals of the
empire, of an embassy being sent to another potentate; and what is still
more singular, that the Chinese had never concluded a treaty of peace
since the foundation of their monarchy. Though twice conquered by the
Tartars, who attacked and subjected them, they never made war upon any
people, excepting a few hordes that were quickly subdued, or as quickly
left to themselves, without any treaty. So that this nation, so renowned
for morality, knew nothing of what we call the 'Law of nations;' that is
to say, of those vague rules of war and peace, of the privileges of
foreign ministers, of the formalities of treaties, nor of the
obligations resulting from thence, nor of the disputes concerning
precedency and point of honour.
But in what language were the Chinese to negotiate with the Russians, in
the midst of deserts? This difficulty was removed by two jesuits, the
one a Portuguese, named Pereira, the other a Frenchman, whose name was
Gerbillon; they set out from Pekin with the Chinese ambassadors, and
were themselves the real negotiators. They conferred in Latin with a
German belonging to the Russian embassy, who understood this language.
The chief of that embassy was Golowin, governor of Siberia, who
displayed a greater magnificence than the Chinese themselves, and
thereby gave a high idea of the Russian empire, to a people who thought
themselves the only powerful nation under the sun.
The two jesuits settled the limits of both empires at the river
Kerbechi, near the spot where the treaty was concluded. All the country,
to the southward of this line of partition, was adjudged to the Chinese,
and the north to the Russians, who only lost a small fort which was
found to have been built beyond the limits: a peace was agreed to, and
after some few altercations, both parties swore to observe it, in the
name of the same God;[38] and in these terms, 'If any of us shall
entertain the least thought of kindling anew the flames of war, we
beseech the supreme Lord of all things, and who knows all hearts, to
punish the traitor with sudden death.'
From this form of treaty, used alike by Chinese and Christians, we may
infer two important truths: the first, that the Chinese government is
neither atheistical nor idolatrous, as has been so frequently and
falsely charged upon it, by contradictory imputations. Secondly, that
all nations, who cultivate the gift of reason and understanding, do, in
effect, acknowledge the same God, notwithstanding the particular
deviations of that reason, through the want of being properly
instructed.
The treaty was drawn up in Latin, and two copies were made of it. The
Russian ambassadors set their names the first to the copy that remained
in their possession, and the Chinese also signed theirs the first,
agreeable to the custom observed by European nations, when two equal
powers conclude a treaty with each other. On this occasion was observed
another custom belonging to the Asiatic nations, and which was indeed,
that of the earliest ages. The treaty was engraven on two large marble
pillars, erected on the spot, to determine the boundaries of the two
empires.
Three years after this, the czar sent Isbrand Ides, a Dane, his
ambassador to China; and the commerce he then established between the
two nations, continued with advantage to each, till the rupture between
them in the year 1722; but since this short interruption, it has been
revived with redoubled vigour.
CHAP. VIII.
Expedition to the Palus Mæotis; conquest of Azoph.--The czar sends
young gentlemen into foreign countries for improvement.
It was not so easy to have peace with the Turks, and indeed, the time
seemed come for the Russians to rise upon their ruins. The republic of
Venice, that had long groaned under their yoke, began now to rouse
itself. The Doge Morosini, the same who had surrendered Candy to the
Turks, afterwards took from them the Peloponnesus, which conquest got
him the title of Peloponnesian, an honour which revived the memory of
the Roman republic. Leopold, emperor of Germany, had proved successful
against the Ottoman power in Hungary; and the Poles made shift to check
the incursions of the Crim Tartars.
Peter took advantage of these circumstances, to discipline his troops,
and to procure himself the empire of the Black Sea. General Gordon
marched along the Tanais, towards Azoph, with his numerous regiment of
five thousand men, followed by general Le Fort, with his regiment of
twelve thousand; by a body of Strelitzes, under the command of Sheremeto
and Schein, natives of Prussia; by a body of Cossacks, and by a large
train of artillery: in a word, every thing was ready for this
expedition.
1694.] This grand army began its march under the command of marshal
Sheremeto, or Scheremetoff, in the beginning of the summer of 1695, to
attack the town of Azoph, at the mouth of the Tanais, and at the
extremity of the Palus Mæotis, now called the Zaback Sea. The czar
himself was with the army, but only in quality of a volunteer, being
determined to learn, some time before he took upon him to command.
During their march, they stormed two forts which the Turks had built on
the banks of the river.
This expedition was attended with some considerable difficulties. The
place was well fortified, and defended by a numerous garrison. A number
of barcolongos, resembling the Turkish saicks, and built by Venetians,
with two small Dutch ships of war, that were to sail out of the
Woronitz, could not be got ready soon enough to enter the sea of Azoph.
All beginnings meet with obstacles. The Russians had never yet made a
regular siege; and the first attempt did not meet with all the success
that could be desired.
One Jacob, a native of Dantzic, had the direction of the artillery,
under the command of general Schein; for as yet they had none but
foreign officers belonging to the train, and none but foreign engineers
and pilots. This Jacob had been condemned to the bastinade, or _knout_,
by Schein, the Russian general. At that time rigorous discipline was
thought to be the only method of strengthening command; and the Russians
quietly submitted to it, notwithstanding their natural bent to sedition;
and after the punishment, did their duty as usual. But the Dane thought
in a different manner, and resolved to be revenged for the treatment he
had received, and thereupon nailed up the cannon, deserted to the Turks,
turned Mahometan, and defended Azoph, with great success, against his
former masters. This instance shews, that the lenity which is now
practised in Russia, is much preferable to the former severities; and is
better calculated to retain those in their duty, who by a good
education, have a proper sense of honour. It was absolutely necessary at
that time, to use the utmost rigour towards the common people; but since
their manners have been changed, the empress Elizabeth[39] has
completed, by clemency, the work her father begun, by the authority of
the laws. This lenity has even been carried, by this princess, to a
degree unexampled, in the history of any nation. She has promised, that,
during her reign, no person shall be punished with death, and she has
kept her word. She is the first sovereign who ever shewed so much regard
for the lives of men. By an institution, equally prudent and humane,
malefactors are now condemned to serve in the mines, and other public
works: by which means their very punishments prove of service to the
state. In other countries, they know only how to put a criminal to
death, with all the apparatus of execution, without being able to
prevent the perpetration of crimes. The apprehension of death makes,
perhaps, less impression on those miscreants, who are, for the most
part, bred up in idleness, than the fear of punishment and hard labour,
renewed every day.
To return to the siege of Azoph, which place was now defended by the
same person who had before directed the attacks against it; the
Russians, in vain, attempted to take it by storm; and after losing a
great number of men, were obliged to raise the siege.
Perseverance in his undertakings, was the distinguishing character of
Peter the Great. In the spring of 1696, he brought a still more
considerable army before Azoph. About this time died czar John, his
brother, who though he had not, while living, been the least curb to
Peter's authority, having enjoyed only the bare title of czar, yet he
had been some restraint upon him in regard to appearances. The money
which had been appropriated to the support of John's dignity and
household, were now applied to the maintenance of the army. This proved
no small help to a government, whose revenues were not near so great as
they are at present. Peter wrote to the emperor Leopold, to the
states-general, and to the elector of Brandenburg, to obtain engineers,
gunners, and seamen. He likewise took some Calmucks into his pay, whose
light horse are very useful against the Crim Tartars.
The most agreeable of the czar's successes, was that of his little
fleet, which was at length completed, and well commanded. It defeated
the Turkish saicks, sent from Constantinople, and took some of them. The
siege was carried on regularly by trenches, but not altogether in our
method; the trenches being three times deeper than ours, with parapets
as high as ramparts. At length the garrison surrendered, the 28th of
July, 1696. N. S. without being allowed the honours of war, or to carry
out with them either arms or ammunition: they were likewise obliged to
deliver up the renegade, Jacob, to the conquerors.
The czar immediately set about fortifying Azoph, built strong forts to
protect it, and made a harbour capable of holding large vessels, with a
design to make himself master of the Streights of Caffa, or the
Cimmerian Bosphorus, which commands the entrance into the Pontus
Euxinus, or Black Sea; places famous in ancient times, by the naval
armaments of Mithridates. He left thirty-two armed saicks before
Azoph,[40] and made all the necessary preparations for fitting 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 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 fire-works, 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. Marshal Sheremeto, 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.[41]
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 Russia, with this
remarkable legend, in the language of the country. 'Peter the First,
august emperor of Muscovy.' On the reverse was the city of Azoph, with
these words; 'Victorious by Fire and Water.'
Peter felt a sensible concern in the midst of all these successes, that
his ships and gallies in the sea of Azoph, 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 gallies. He likewise sent forty others into
Holland,[42] 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, Brandenburg, 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 shewn 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.
CHAP. IX.
Travels of Peter the Great.
[Sidenote: 1697.]
Having thus determined to visit the several countries and courts
above-mentioned in a private character, he put himself into the retinue
of three ambassadors, in the same manner as he had before mingled in the
train of his generals at his triumphant entry into Moscow.
[43] 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 five-and-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 shewn to his person,
seemed to assure him the tranquillity of his kingdom during his absence.
He intrusted the regency in the hands of the boyard Strechnef, and the
knez 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 Azoph, 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 Azoph from him,
and threatened to make himself master of the Pontus Euxinus; nor even
against the Venetians, who had made themselves masters of all the
Peloponnesus.
John Sobieski, 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 had 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 Sarmatia. 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 most 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 same 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 shewn 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,[44] 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 apartment 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 times, 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 dispatch 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, 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 familiarized 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 work-loft, 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
Azoph, and a few months afterwards took from them the city of Or, or
Orkapi, which we call Precop.[45] 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 only because the czar espoused the
cause of Augustus against the prince of Conti, but also because king
William, whose friendship he was desirous 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
own 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 Azoph 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 Azoph, and likewise over a
body of janissaries sent by sultan Mustapha to their assistance. (July
1696.) This success 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 dockyard, 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,[46] 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 retain
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 Ocean, the Caspian, and the
Black Seas.
We must not forget to observe, that a set of English merchants, with the
marquis of Caermarthen[47] 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. This 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.
While he was thus transplanting the arts and manufacture 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 Sheremeto, 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 dock-yards 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 called Wurtchafft, is celebrated in the following manner:--
The emperor is landlord and the empress landlady, 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 or
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 milk-maid; 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[48] 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.
CHAP. X.
A conspiracy punished.--The corps of strelitzes abolished,
alterations in customs, manners, church, and state.
Czar Peter, when he left his dominions to set out on his travels, had
provided against every incident, even that of 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 priests, 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 not
a little to excite these seditions. Care was taken to spread abroad the
danger to be feared from the introduction of foreigners to instruct the
nation. In short, who would believe, that[49] the permission which the
czar had given to import tobacco into his empire, contrary to the
inclination of the clergy, was one of the chief motives of the
insurrection? Superstition, the scourge of every country, yet the
darling of the multitude, spread itself from the common people to the
strelitzes, who had been scattered on the frontiers of Lithuania: they
assembled in a body, and marched towards Moscow, with the intent to
place the princess Sophia on the throne, and for ever to prevent the
return of a czar who had violated the established customs,[50] by
presuming to travel for instruction among foreigners. The forces
commanded by Schein and Gordon, who were much better disciplined than
the strelitzes, met them fifteen leagues from Moscow, gave them battle,
and entirely defeated them: but this advantage, gained by a foreign
general over the ancient militia, among whom were several of the
burghers of Moscow, contributed still more to irritate the people.
To quell these tumults, the czar sets out privately from Vienna, passes
through Poland, has a private interview with Augustus, concerts measures
with that prince for extending the Russian dominions on the side of the
Baltic, and at length arrived at Moscow, where he surprised every one
with his presence: he then confers rewards on the troops who had
defeated the strelitzes, (Sept. 1698,) of whom the prisons were now
full. If the crimes of these unhappy wretches were great, their
punishment was no less so. Their leaders, with several of their officers
and priests, were condemned to death; some were broken upon the
wheel,[51] and two women were buried alive; upwards of two thousand of
the strelitzes were executed, part of whom were hung round about the
walls of the city, and others put to death in different manners, and
their dead bodies remained exposed for two days in the high roads,[52]
particularly about the monastery where the princesses Sophia and Eudocia
resided.[53] Monuments of stone were erected, on which their crimes and
punishments were set forth. A great number of them who had wives and
children at Moscow, were dispersed with their families into Siberia, the
kingdom of Astracan, and the country of Azoph. This punishment was at
least of service to the state, as they helped to cultivate and people a
large tract of waste land.
Perhaps, if the czar had not found it absolutely necessary to make such
terrible examples, he might have employed part of those strelitzes whom
he put to death, upon the public works; whereas they were now lost both
to him and the state: the lives of men ought to be held in great
estimation, especially in a country where the increase of inhabitants
ought to have been the principal care of the legislature: but he thought
it necessary to terrify and break the spirit of the nation by
executions, and the parade attending them. The entire corps of the
strelitzes, whose number not one of his predecessors had even dared to
think of diminishing, was broke for ever, and their very name abolished.
This change was effected without any resistance, because matters had
been properly prepared beforehand. The Turkish sultan, Osman, as I have
already remarked, was deposed and murdered in the same century, only for
giving the janissaries room to suspect that he intended to lessen their
number. Peter had better success, because he had taken better measures.
Of this powerful and numerous body of the strelitzes, he left only two
feeble regiments, from whom there could no longer be any danger; and yet
these still retaining their old spirit of mutiny, revolted again in
Astracan, in the year 1705, but were quickly suppressed.
But while we are relating Peter's severity in this affair of state, let
us not forget to commemorate the more than equal humanity he shewed some
time afterwards, when he lost his favourite Le Fort, who was snatched
away by an untimely fate, March 12, N. S. 1699, at the age of 46. He
paid him the same funeral honours as are bestowed on the greatest
sovereigns, and assisted himself in the procession, carrying a pike in
his hand, and marching after the captains, in the rank of a lieutenant,
which he held in the deceased general's regiment, hereby setting an
example to his nobles, of the respect due to merit and the military
rank.
After the death of Le Fort, it appeared plainly, that the changes in the
state were not owing to that general, but to the czar himself. Peter had
indeed been confirmed in his design by his several conversations with Le
Fort; but he had formed and executed them all without his assistance.
As soon as he had suppressed the strelitzes, he established regular
regiments on the German model, who were all clothed in a short and
commodious uniform, in the room of those long and troublesome coats,
which they used to wear before; and, at the same time, their exercise
was likewise more regular.
The regiment of Preobrazinski guards was already formed; it had taken
its name from the first company of fifty men, whom the czar had trained
up in his younger days, in his retreat at Preobrazinski, at the time
when his sister Sophia governed the state, and the other regiment of
guards was also established.
As he had himself passed through the lowest degrees in the army, he was
resolved that the sons of his boyards and great men, should serve as
common soldiers before they were made officers. He sent some of the
young nobility on board of his fleet at Woronitz and Azoph, where he
obliged them to serve their apprenticeship as common seamen. No one
dared to dispute the commands of a master who had himself set the
example. The English and Dutch he had brought over with him were
employed in equipping this fleet for sea, in constructing sluices, and
building docks, for careening the ships, and to resume the great work of
joining the Tanais, or Don, and the Wolga, which had been dropped by
Brekel, the German. And now he began to set about his projected
reformations in the council of state, in the revenue, in the church, and
even in society itself.
The affairs of the revenue had been hitherto administered much in the
same manner as in Turkey. Each boyard paid a stipulated sum for his
lands, which he raised upon the peasants, his vassals; the czar
appointed certain burghers and burgomasters to be his receivers, who
were not powerful enough to claim the right of paying only such sums as
they thought proper into the public treasury. This new administration of
the finances, was what cost him the most trouble: he was obliged to try
several methods before he could fix upon a proper one.
The reformation of the church, which in all other countries is looked
upon as so dangerous and difficult an attempt, was not so to him. The
patriarchs had at times opposed the authority of the crown, as well as
the strelitzes; Nicon with insolence, Joachin, one of his successors, in
an artful manner.
The bishops had arrogated the power of life and death, a prerogative
directly contrary to the spirit of religion, and the subordination of
government. This assumed power, which had been of long standing, was now
taken from them. The patriarch Adrian, dying at the close of this
century, Peter declared that there should for the future be no other.
This dignity then was entirely suppressed, and the great income
belonging thereto was united to the public revenue, which stood in need
of this addition. Although the czar did not set himself up as the head
of the Russian church, as the kings of Great Britain have done in regard
to the church of England; yet he was, in fact, absolute master over it,
because the synods did not dare either to disobey the commands of a
despotic sovereign, or to dispute with a prince who had more knowledge
than themselves.
We need only to cast an eye on the preamble to the edict, concerning his
ecclesiastical regulations, issued in 1721, to be convinced that he
acted at once as master and legislator: 'We should deem ourselves guilty
of ingratitude to the Most High, if, after having reformed the military
and civil orders, we neglect the spiritual, &c. For this cause,
following the example of the most ancient kings, who have been famed for
piety, we have taken upon us to make certain wholesome regulations,
touching the clergy.' It is true, he convened a synod for carrying into
execution his ecclesiastical decrees, but the members of this synod, at
entering upon their office, were to take an oath, the form of which had
been drawn up and signed by himself. This was an oath of submission and
obedience, and was conceived in the following terms: 'I swear to be a
faithful and obedient servant and subject to my true and natural
sovereign, and to the august successors whom it shall please him to
nominate, in virtue of the incontestable right of which he is possessed:
I acknowledge him to be the supreme judge of this spiritual college: I
swear by the all-seeing God, that I understand and mean this oath in the
full force and sense, which the words convey to those who read or hear
it.' This oath is much stronger than that of the supremacy in England.
The Russian monarch was not, indeed, one of the fathers of the synod,
but he dictated their laws; and, though he did not touch the holy
censer, he directed the hands that held it.
Previous to this great work, he thought, that in a state like his, which
stood in need of being peopled, the celibacy of the monks was contrary
to nature, and to the public good. It was the ancient custom of the
Russian church, for secular priests to marry at least once in their
lives: they were even obliged so to do: and formerly they ceased to be
priests as soon as they lost their wives. But that a multitude of young
people of both sexes should make a vow of living useless in a cloister,
and at the expense of others, appeared to him a dangerous institution.
He, therefore, ordered that no one should be admitted to a monastic
life, till they were fifty years old, a time of life very rarely subject
to a temptation of this kind; and he forbid any person to be admitted,
at any age soever, who was actually in possession of any public employ.
This regulation has been repealed since his death, because the
government has thought proper to shew more complaisance to the
monasteries: but the patriarchal dignity has never been revived, and its
great revenues are now appropriated to the payment of the troops.
These alterations at first excited some murmurings. A certain priest
wrote, to prove that Peter was antichrist, because he would not admit of
a patriarch; and the art of printing, which the czar encouraged in his
kingdom, was made use of to publish libels against him: but, on the
other hand, there was another priest who started up to prove that Peter
could not be antichrist, because the number 666 was not to be found in
his name, and that he had not the sign of the Beast. All complaints,
however, were soon quieted. Peter, in fact, gave much more to the church
than he took from it; for he made the clergy, by degrees, more regular
and more learned. He founded three colleges at Moscow, where they teach
the languages, and where those who are designed for the priesthood are
obliged to study.
One of the most necessary reforms was the suppression, or at least the
mitigation of the Three Lents, an ancient superstition of the Greek
church, and as prejudicial with respect to those who are employed in
public works, and especially to soldiers, as was the old Jewish
superstition of not fighting on the sabbath-day. Accordingly the czar
dispensed with his workmen and soldiers at least, observing these lents,
in which, though they were not permitted to eat, they were accustomed to
get drunk. He likewise dispensed with their observance of meagre days;
the chaplains of the fleet and army were obliged to set the example,
which they did without much reluctance.
The calendar, another important object. Formerly, in all the countries
of the world, the chiefs of religion had the care of regulating the
year, not only on account of the feasts to be observed, but because, in
ancient times, the priests were the only persons who understood
astronomy.
The year began with the Russians on the 1st of September. Peter ordered,
that it should for the future commence the first day of January, as
among the other nations of Europe. This alteration was to take place in
the year 1700, at the beginning of the century, which he celebrated by a
jubilee, and other grand solemnities. It was a matter of surprise, to
the common people, how the czar should be able to change the course of
the sun. Some obstinate persons, persuaded that God had created the
world in September, continued their old style: but the alteration took
place in all the public offices, in the whole court of chancery, and in
a little time throughout the whole empire. Peter did not adopt the
Gregorian calendar, because it had been rejected by the English
mathematicians; but which must, nevertheless, be one day received in all
countries.
Ever since the 5th century, the time when letters first came into use
amongst them, they had been accustomed to write upon long rolls, made
either of the bark of trees, or of parchment, and afterwards of paper;
and the czar was obliged to publish an edict, ordering every one, for
the future, to write after our manner.
The reformation now became general. Their marriages were made formerly
after the same manner as in Turkey and Persia, where the bridegroom does
not see his bride till the contract is signed, and they can no longer go
from their words. This custom may do well enough among those people,
where polygamy prevails, and where the women are always shut up; but it
is a very bad one in countries where a man is confined to one wife, and
where divorces are seldom allowed.
The czar was willing to accustom his people to the manners and customs
of the nations which he had visited in his travels, and from whence he
had taken the masters who were now instructing them.
It appeared necessary that the Russians should not be dressed in a
different manner from those who were teaching them the arts and
sciences; because the aversion to strangers, which is but too natural to
mankind, is not a little kept up by a difference of dress. The full
dress, which at that time partook of the fashions of the Poles, the
Tartars, and the ancient Hungarians, was, as we have elsewhere observed,
very noble; but the dress of the burghers and common people resembled
those jackets plaited round the waist, which are still given to the poor
children in some of the French hospitals.[54] In general, the robe was
formerly the dress of all nations, as being a garment that required the
least trouble and art; and, for the same reason, the beard was suffered
to grow. The czar met with but little difficulty in introducing our mode
of dress, and the custom of shaving among his courtiers; but the people
were more obstinate, he found himself obliged to lay a tax on long coats
and beards. Patterns of close-bodied coats were hung up in public
places; and whoever refused to pay the tax were obliged to suffer their
robes and their beards to be curtailed: all this was done in a jocular
manner, and this air of pleasantry prevented seditions.
It has ever been the aim of all legislators to render mankind more
sociable; but it is not sufficient to effect this end, that they live
together in towns, there must be a mutual intercourse of civility. This
intercourse sweetens all the bitterness of life. The czar, therefore,
introduced those assemblies which the Italians call _ridotti_. To these
assemblies he invited all the ladies of his court, with their daughters;
and they were to appear dressed after the fashions of the southern
nations of Europe. He was even himself at the pains of drawing up
rules for all the little decorums to be observed at these social
entertainments. Thus, even to good breeding among his subjects, all was
his own work, and that of time.
To make his people relish these innovations the better, he abolished the
word _golut_, _slave_, always made use of by the Russians when they
addressed their czar, or presented any petition to him; and ordered,
that, for the future, they should make use of the word _raab_, which
signifies _subject_. This alteration in no wise diminished the obedience
due to the sovereign, and yet was the most ready means of conciliating
their affections. Every month produced some new change or institution.
He carried his attention even to the ordering painted posts to be set up
in the road between Moscow and Woronitz, to serve as mile stones at the
distance of every verst; that is to say, every seven hundred paces, and
had a kind of caravanseras, or public inns, built at the end of every
twentieth verst.
While he was thus extending his cares to the common people, to the
merchants, and to the traveller, he thought proper to make an addition
to the pomp and splendour of his own court; for though he hated pomp or
show in his own person, he thought it necessary in those about him; he
therefore instituted the order of St. Andrew,[55] in imitation of the
several orders with which all the courts of Europe abound. Golowin, who
succeeded Le Fort in the dignity of high admiral, was the first knight
of this order. It was esteemed a high reward to have the honour of being
admitted a member. It was a kind of badge that entitled the person who
bore it to the respect of the people. This mark of honour costs nothing
to the sovereign, and flatters the self-love of a subject, without
rendering him too powerful.
These many useful innovations were received with applause by the wiser
part of the nation; and the murmurings and complaints of those who
adhered to the ancient customs were drowned in the acclamations of men
of sound judgment.
While Peter was thus beginning a new creation in the interior part of
his state, he concluded an advantageous truce with the Turks, which gave
him the liberty to extend his territories on another side. Mustapha the
Second, who had been defeated by prince Eugene, at the battle of Zeuta,
in 1697, stripped of the Morea by the Venetians, and unable to defend
Azoph, was obliged to make peace with his victorious enemies, which
peace was concluded at Carlowitz, (Jan. 26, 1699,) between Peterwaradin
and Salankamon, places made famous by his defeats. Temeswaer was made
the boundary of the German possessions, and of the Ottoman dominions.
Kaminieck was restored to the Poles; the Morea, and some towns in
Dalmatia, which had been taken by the Venetians, remained in their hands
for some time; and Peter the First continued in possession of Casaph,
and of a few forts built in its neighbourhood.
It was not possible for the czar to extend his dominions on the side of
Turkey, without drawing upon him the forces of that empire, before
divided, but now united. His naval projects were too vast for the Palus
Mæotis, and the settlements on the Caspian Sea would not admit of a
fleet of men of war: he therefore turned his views towards the Baltic
Sea, but without relinquishing those in regard to the Tanais and Wolga.
CHAP. XI.
War with Sweden.--The battle of Narva.
[Sidenote: 1700.]
A grand scene was now opened on the frontiers of Sweden. One of the
principal causes of all the revolutions which happened from Ingria, as
far as Dresden, and which laid waste so many countries for the space of
eighteen years, was the abuse of the supreme power, by Charles XI. king
of Sweden, father of Charles XII. This is a fact which cannot be too
often repeated, as it concerns every crowned head, and the subjects of
every nation. Almost all Livonia, with the whole of Esthonia, had been
ceded by the Poles to Charles XI. king of Sweden, who succeeded Charles
X. exactly at the time of the treaty of Oliva. It was ceded in the
customary manner, with a reservation of rights and privileges. Charles
XI. shewing little regard to these privileges, John Reinhold Patkul, a
gentleman of Livonia, came to Stockholm in 1692, at the head of six
deputies from the province, and laid their complaints at the foot of the
throne, in respectful, but strong terms.[56] Instead of an answer, the
deputies were ordered to be imprisoned, and Patkul was condemned to lose
his honour and his life. But he lost neither, for he made his escape to
the country of Vaud, in Switzerland, where he remained some time; when
he afterwards was informed, that Augustus, elector of Saxony, had
promised, at his accession to the throne of Poland, to recover the
provinces that had been wrested from that kingdom; he hastened to
Dresden, to represent to that prince, how easily he might make himself
master of Livonia, and revenge upon a king, only seventeen years of age,
the losses that Poland had sustained by his ancestors.
At this very time czar Peter entertained thoughts of seizing upon Ingria
and Carelia. These provinces had formerly belonged to the Russians, but
the Swedes had made themselves masters of them by force of arms, in the
time of the false Demetriuses, and had retained the possession of them
by treaties: another war and new treaties might restore them again to
Russia. Patkul went from Dresden to Moscow, and, by exciting up the two
monarchs to avenge his private causes, he cemented a close union between
them, and directed their preparations for invading all the places
situated to the east and south of Finland.
Just at this period, the new king of Denmark, Frederick IV. entered into
an alliance with the czar and the king of Poland, against Charles, the
young king of Sweden, who seemed in no condition to withstand their
united forces. Patkul had the satisfaction of besieging the Swedes in
Riga, the capital of Livonia, and directing the attack in quality of
major-general.
The czar marched near eighty thousand men into Ingria. It is true, that,
in this numerous army, he had not more than twelve thousand good
soldiers, being those he had disciplined himself; namely, the two
regiments of guards, and some few others, the rest being a badly armed
militia, with some Cossacks, and Circassian Tartars; but he carried
with him a train of a hundred and forty-five pieces of cannon. He laid
siege to Narva, a small town in Ingria, that had a very commodious
harbour, and it was generally thought the place would prove an easy
conquest.
Sept.] It is known to all Europe, how Charles XII. when not quite
eighteen years of age, made head against all his enemies, and attacked
them one after another; he entered Denmark, put an end to the war in
that kingdom in less than six weeks, sent succours to Riga, obliged the
enemy to raise the siege, and marched against the Russians encamped
before Narva, through the midst of ice and snow, in the month of
November.
The czar, who looked upon Narva as already in his possession, was gone
to Novogorod, (Nov. 18,) and had taken with him his favourite,
Menzikoff, then a lieutenant in the company of bombardiers, of the
Preobrazinski regiment, and afterwards raised to the rank of
field-marshal and prince; a man whose singular fortunes entitle him to
be spoken of more at large in another place.
Peter left the command of the army, with his instructions for the siege,
with the prince of Croi; whose family came from Flanders, and who had
lately entered into the czar's service.[57] Prince Dolgorouki acted as
commissary of the army. The jealousy between these two chiefs, and the
absence of the czar, were partly the occasion of the unparalleled defeat
at Narva.
Charles XII. having landed at Pernau, in Livonia, with his troops, in
the month of October advanced northward to Revel, where he defeated an
advanced body of Russians. He continued his march, and meeting with
another body, routed that likewise. The runaways returned to the camp
before Narva, which they filled with consternation. The month of
November was now far advanced; Narva, though unskilfully besieged, was
on the point of surrendering. The young king of Sweden had not at that
time above nine thousand men with him, and could bring only six pieces
of cannon to oppose to a hundred and forty-five, with which the Russian
intrenchments were defended. All the relations of that time, and all
historians without exception, concur in making the Russian army then
before Narva amount to eighty thousand men. The memoirs with which I
have been furnished say sixty thousand; be that as it may, it is
certain, that Charles had not quite nine thousand; and that this battle
was one of those which have proved, that the greatest victories have
been frequently gained by inferior numbers, ever since the famed one of
Arbela.[58]
Nov. 30.] Charles did not hesitate one moment to attack with his small
troop this army, so greatly superior; and, taking advantage of a violent
wind, and a great storm of snow, which blew directly in the faces of the
Russians, he attacked their intrenchments under cover of some pieces of
cannon, which he had posted advantageously for the purpose. The Russians
had not time to form themselves in the midst of that cloud of snow, that
beat full in their faces, and astonished by the discharge of cannon,
that they could not see, and never imagined how small a number they had
to oppose.
The duke de Croi attempted to give his orders, but prince Dolgorouki
would not receive them. The Russian officers rose upon the German
officers; the duke's secretary, with Colonel Lyon, and several others,
were murdered. Every one abandoned his post; and tumult, confusion, and
a panic of terror, spread through the whole army. The Swedish troops had
nothing more to do, but to cut in pieces those who were flying. Some
threw themselves into the river Narva, where great numbers were drowned;
others threw down their arms, and fell upon their knees before the
conquering Swedes.
The duke de Croi, general Alland, and the rest of the general officers,
dreading the Russians more than the Swedes, went in a body and
surrendered themselves prisoners to count Steinbock. The king of Sweden
now made himself master of all the artillery. Thirty thousand of the
vanquished enemy laid down their arms at his feet, and filed off
bare-headed and disarmed before him. Prince Dolgorouki, and all the
Russian generals, came and surrendered themselves, as well as the
Germans, but did not know till after they had surrendered, that they had
been conquered by eight thousand men. Amongst the prisoners, was the son
of a king of Georgia, whom Charles sent to Stockholm: his name was
Mittelesky Czarovits, or czar's son, an additional proof that the title
of czar, or tzar, had not its original from the Roman Cæsars.
Charles XII. did not lose more than one thousand two hundred men in this
battle. The czar's journal, which has been sent me from Petersburg,
says, that including those who died at the siege of Narva, and in the
battle, and those who were drowned in their flight, the Russians lo
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