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, whileJohn 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 othersuspected 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.
The reign of Peter the First.—Beginning of the grand reformation.
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 evenconvulsions, 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, thecelebrated 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 whichevery 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. LeFort 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.
Congress and Treaty with the Chinese.[34]
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 FrozenSea, 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 unprofitablewar, 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.
Expedition to the Palus Mæotis; conquest of Azoph.—The czar sends young gentlemen into foreign countries for improvement.
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, orknout, 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 defendedAzoph, 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 splendidshows 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 thelanguage 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 1697, 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 travelincognitothrough 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.
Travels of Peter the Great.
Travels of Peter the Great.
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 thewhole 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 theseevents, 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 arerendered 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 ofroyalty. 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 Saardamimmediately 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 thevery 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, theengineer, 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 aguest: 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 duringhis 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 inthe 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.