this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort; at
whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, who were clothed and
disciplined in the European manner; the Russian army at that time being
little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little corps was
formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a private soldier.
It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man, that he thought no
condescension degrading, which forwarded any of his ends. In the army he
entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed successively the
duties of every other: in the navy he went still further, for he
insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising
step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was
this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that every
officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank of
his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every task
or manœuvre which it was his duty to see properly executed: and he felt
that his nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in their
eyes would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the Czar
himself. By the help of Lefort and some veteran officers, several of
whom, and those the objects of his especial confidence, were Scotchmen,
he was enabled in a short time to command the services of a large body
of disciplined troops, composed, one corps principally of foreigners,
another of natives. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm
of war; for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in
building gun-boats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don,
intended to secure the command of the sea of Asof, and to assist in
capturing the strong town of Asof, then held by the Turks. The
possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation at
the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean seas. His
first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and he
succeeded in taking it in 1696.
In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil, and the
young Czar’s authority apparently established on a safe footing, he
determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own eyes,
and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and
institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his manner
of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than even its
real merit, to make it one of the common places of history. Every child
knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in
Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been
affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the
earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the
dock-yard, and, in all points of outward manners and appearance, put
himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily
bread. Most men too would have thought it unnecessary, that a prince,
intent upon creating a navy, should learn the mere mechanical art of
putting a ship together; and that his time would have been better
employed in studying the sciences connected with navigation, and the
discipline and details of the naval service as established in the best
schools. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter’s mind always
to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here perhaps pushed
beyond reasonable bounds. We have said, that he scrupulously went
through the lowest services in the army and navy: probably he thought it
as necessary that one who aimed at creating and directing a navy should
not be ignorant of the practical art of ship-building, as that a general
should be capable of performing himself the movements which he directs
the private to execute. And his abode and occupations in Holland formed
only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty young
Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and navigation,
and especially the construction and management of the large galleys
moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian republic. Others
he sent into Holland, with similar instructions; others into Germany, to
study the art of war, and make themselves well acquainted with the
discipline and tactics of the German troops. So that while his personal
labour at Saardam may have been stimulated in part by affectation of
singularity, in part perhaps by a love of bodily exertion common in men
of his busy and ardent temper, it would be unjust not to give him credit
for higher motives; such as the desire to become thoroughly acquainted
with the art of ship-building, which he thought so important, and to set
a good example of diligence to those whom he had sent out on a similar
voyage of education.
Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he
spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in
seeking out and endeavouring to comprehend every thing of interest in
science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January, 1698,
he sailed for London in an English man-of-war, sent out expressly to
bring him over. His chief object was to perfect himself in the higher
branches of ship-building. With this view he occupied Mr. Evelyn’s
house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and there remain in that
gentleman’s journal some curious notices of the manners of the Czar and
his household, which were of the least refined description. During his
stay he showed the same earnestness in inquiring into all things
connected with the maritime and commercial greatness of the country, as
before in Holland; and he took away near five hundred persons in his
suite, consisting of naval captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and
workmen in various trades, especially those connected with the naval
service. In England, without assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the
attire and adopt the habits of a common workman; and he had frequent
intercourse with William III., who is said to have conceived a strong
liking for him, notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller
painted a portrait of him for the King, said to be a good likeness, from
which our print is engraved.
He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to
inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe. He
had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the tidings
of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though suppressed,
seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of government
inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the Russian
soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought every thing Russian good,
and hated and dreaded the Czar’s innovating temper. Of those who had
taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with many persons of
more rank and consequence, suspected of being implicated in the revolt,
were retained in prison until the Czar himself should decide their fate.
Numerous stories of his extravagant cruelties on this occasion have been
told, which may safely be passed over as unworthy of credit. It is
certain, however, that considerable severity was shown. Many citizens
who had not borne arms were condemned to death as instigators of the
rebellion, and their frozen bodies exposed on the gibbets, or thrown by
the way-side, remained throughout the winter, a fearful spectacle to
passers by. In some accounts it is stated that two thousand of the
soldiery were put to death: but the absurd falsehoods told of Peter’s
conduct on this occasion afford opportunity for a doubt, which we gladly
entertain, whether justice was suffered to lead to such wholesale
butchery. This insurrection led to the complete remodelling of the
Russian army, on the same plan which had already been partially adopted.
During the year 1699 the Czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms.
According to his own account, as published in his journal, he regulated
the press, caused translations to be published of various treatises on
military and mechanical science, and history; he founded a school for
the navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and other
languages; he encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign trade, which
before they had absolutely been forbidden to do under pain of death; he
altered the Russian calendar, in which the year began on September 1, to
agree in that point with the practice of other nations; he broke through
the Oriental custom of not suffering women to mix in general society;
and he paid sedulous attention to the improvement of his navy on the
river Don. We have the testimony of Mr. Deane, an English ship-builder,
that the Czar had turned his manual labours to good account, who states
in a letter to England, that “the Czar has set up a ship of sixty guns,
where he is both foreman and master builder; and, not to flatter him,
I’ll assure your Lordship, it will be the best ship among them, and it
is all from his own draught: how he framed her together, and how he made
the moulds, and in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful.”
He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia;
despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his extensive
empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various districts in
which mines were to be found; established manufactories of arms, tools,
stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the useful arts to settle
in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their industry.
We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden
and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken: we
can only state the causes of the war, and the important results to which
it led. Peter’s principal motive for engaging in it was his leading wish
to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this end it was
necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which however she
had none but Archangel and Asof, both most inconveniently situated, as
well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the chief commercial
nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia did not possess a
foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides of the Gulf of
Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and the lake Ladoga,
including both sides of the river Neva, and the western side of lake
Ladoga itself, and the northern end of lake Peipus, belonged to Sweden.
In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but eighteen years of age, Denmark,
Poland, and Russia, which had all of them suffered from the ambition of
Sweden, formed a league to repair their losses, presuming on the
weakness usually inherent in a minority. The object of Russia was the
restoration of the provinces of Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country
round the head of the Gulf of Finland, which formerly had belonged to
her; that of Poland, was the recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the
greater part of which had been ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden.
Denmark was to obtain Holstein and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very
soon withdrew, and left Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To
this she was entirely unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined,
and even the disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for
the veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of
Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus lake, fought
November 30, 1700, nine thousand Swedes defeated signally near forty
thousand Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery.
Had Charles prosecuted his success with vigour, he might probably have
delayed for many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt or
mistake he devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and left
the Czar at liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and improve the
resources of his kingdom. In these labours he was most diligent. His
troops, practised in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes quartered in
Ingria and Livonia, rapidly improved, and on the celebrated field of
Pultowa broke for ever the power of Charles XII. This decisive action
did not take place until July 8, 1709. The interval was occupied by a
series of small, but important additions to the Russian territory. In
1701–2, great part of Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the
banks of the Neva, where, on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg
was founded. It was not till 1710 that the conquest of Courland, with
the remainder of Livonia, including the important harbours of Riga and
Revel, gave to Russia that free navigation of the Baltic sea which Peter
had longed for as the greatest benefit which he could confer upon his
country.
After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued
for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on
spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but
hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning, by the battle of
the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not
mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times
that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catharine, first the
mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner
and successor of Peter in the throne of Russia. By her coolness and
prudence, while the Czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and
self-reproach, was labouring under nervous convulsions, to which he was
liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the Vizier in
command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed
life, liberty, and honour, but were obliged to resign Asof, to give up
the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that
name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very
bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of
government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to
breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by
prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland.
Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of
the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by
the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion, the senate or state
assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all
the Russias, with the adjuncts of Great, and Father of his Country.
Of the private history and character of Peter, we have hitherto said
nothing. He was passionately fond of ardent spirits, and not only drank
very largely himself, but took a pleasure in compelling others to do the
same, until the royal banqueting-room became a scene of the most
revolting debauchery and intoxication. But towards the close of life,
his habits, when alone, were temperate even to abstemiousness. In his
domestic relations he was far from happy. At the age of seventeen he
married a Russian lady, named Eudoxia Lapouchin, whom he divorced in
less than three years. According to some accounts, this separation was
caused by her infidelities; according to others, by her obstinate
hostility to all his projects of improvement: a hostility inculcated and
encouraged by the priesthood, in whose eyes all change was an
abomination, and the worst of changes those made professedly in
imitation of the barbarous nations inhabiting the rest of Europe. By her
the Czar had one son, Alexis, heir to the throne; who, under the
guardianship of his weak and bigoted mother, grew up in the practice of
all low debauchery, and with the same deference to the priesthood, and
dislike to change, which had cost herself the society of her husband.
The degeneracy of this, his eldest, and long his only son, was a serious
affliction to Peter; the more so, if he reflected justly, because he
could not hold himself guiltless of it, in having intrusted the
education of his legitimate successor to one, of whose incapacity for
the charge he had ample proof. It appears from authentic documents that
even so early as the battle of the Pruth, Peter had contemplated the
necessity of excluding his son from the throne. In the close of the year
1716, he addressed a serious expostulation to Alexis, in which, after
reviewing the errors of his past life, he declared his fixed intention
of cutting off the prince from the succession, unless he should so far
amend as to afford a reasonable hope of his reigning for the good of his
people. He required him either to work a thorough reformation in his
life and manners, or to retire to a monastery; and allowed him six
months to deliberate upon this alternative. At the end of the time
Alexis quitted Russia, under pretence of going to his father at
Copenhagen; but instead of doing so he fled to Vienna. He was induced,
however, to return by promises of forgiveness, mixed with threats in the
event of his continued disobedience, and arrived at Moscow, February 13,
1718. On the following day the clergy, the chief officers of state, and
the chief nobility were convened, and Alexis, being brought before them
as a prisoner, acknowledged himself unworthy of the succession, which he
resigned, entreating only that his life might be spared. A declaration
was then read on the part of the Czar, reciting the various
delinquencies of which his son had been guilty, and ending with the
solemn exclusion of him from the throne, and the nomination of Peter,
his own infant son by Catharine, as the future emperor. To this solemn
act of renunciation Alexis set his hand. Thus far there is nothing to
blame in the parent’s conduct, unless it be considered that in the
promise of forgiveness, a reservation of his son’s hereditary right was
implied. His subsequent conduct was severe, if not faithless. Not
content with what had been done, Peter determined to extract from Alexis
a full confession of the plans which he had entertained, and of the
names of his advisers. For near five months the wretched young man was
harassed by constant interrogatories, in his replies to which
considerable prevarication took place. It was on the ground of this
prevarication that, in July, 1718, the Czar determined to bring his son
to trial. By the laws of Russia a father had power of life or death over
his child, and the Czar absolute power over the lives of his subjects.
Waving these rights, however, if such oppressive privileges deserve the
name, he submitted the question to an assembly of the chief personages
of the realm; and the document which he addressed to them on this
occasion bears strong evidence to the honesty of his purpose, unfeeling
as that purpose must appear. On July 5, that assembly unanimously
pronounced Alexis worthy of death, and on the next day but one Alexis
died. The manner of his death will never probably be entirely cleared
up. Rumour of course attributed it to violence; but there are many
circumstances which render this improbable. One argument against it is
to be found in the character of Peter himself, who would hardly have
hesitated to act this tragedy in the face of the world, had he thought
it necessary to act it at all. Why he should have incurred the guilt of
an action scarce one degree removed from midnight murder, when the
object might have been effected by legal means, and the odium was
already incurred, it is not easy to say. He courted publicity for his
conduct, and submitted himself to the judgment of Europe, by causing the
whole trial to be translated into several languages, and printed. His
own statement intimates that he had not intended to enforce the
sentence; and proceeds to say that on July 6, Alexis, after having heard
the judgment read, was seized by fits resembling apoplexy, and died the
following day; having seen his father and received his forgiveness,
together with the last rites of the Greek religion. This is the less
improbable, because intemperance had injured the prince’s constitution,
and a tendency to fits was hereditary in the family.
If our sketch of the latter years of Peter’s life appear meagre and
unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life is
the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within
our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are
competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of
Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve
the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which
he had already made, than to effect farther conquests, or new
revolutions in policy or manners. He died February 8, 1725, leaving no
surviving male issue. Sometime before, he had caused the Empress
Catharine to be solemnly crowned and associated with him on the throne,
and to her he left the charge of fostering those schemes of civilization
which he had originated.
Of the numerous works which treat wholly or in part of the history of
Peter the Great, that of Voltaire, not the most trustworthy, is probably
the most widely known. Fuller information will be found in the ‘Journal
de Pierre le Grand, ecrit par lui-même;’ in the memoirs published under
the name of Nestesuranoi, and the Anecdotes of M. Stæhlin. For English
works, we may refer to Tooke’s History of Russia, and the ‘Life of
Peter,’ in the Family Library.
[Illustration]
END OF VOL. II.
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke-Street, Lambeth.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed “Ecole” and “Ecoles” to “École” and “Écoles” on p. 92.
2. Changed “Eloge” to “Éloge” on p. 88.
3. Changed “Veritá” to “Verità” on p. 139.
4. Silently corrected typographical errors.
5. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
6. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
7. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.