"Did I, an English shipmaster, ever think that I would come to this, to be insulted by a Russian serf? I will let the Government know that an Englishman has been insulted. I will lay the iniquities of this Russian system of rascality before Benjamin Disraeli. I knows him; and if he is the man I takes him for, he won't stand any nonsense when it comes to insulting English subjects. He has brought the Indian troops from India for that purpose, and when the honour of England is at stake he will send the fleet into the Baltic, and neither your ships nor your forts will prevent his orders to blow Cronstadt down about your blooming ears being carried out. I know where your torpedoes and mines are, and Disraeli has confidence in me showing them the road to victory. The British Lion never draws back!"
The Russian deal-yard man, to whom this harangue was particularly directed, went to the Governor on landing, and stated what the rough, weather-beaten old sailor had been saying. The Governor communicated with the authorities at St. Petersburg, and an order came to have the old Englishman banished from Cronstadt and Russia for ever within twenty-four hours. The poor creature had made a home for himself in Cronstadt, his wife and four children being with him. The blow was so sharp and unexpected, it stupefied him. His first thought was his family, but there was little or no time for thought or preparation. He had either to be got away or concealed. A liberal distribution of roubles at the instigation of many sympathizers made it possible for him to be put aboard an English steamer, and a week after his banishment was supposed to have taken effect he sailed from Cronstadt, a ruined and broken-hearted man. The old sailor's grief for the harm his wayward conduct had done to his wife and family was quite pathetic, and so far as kindness could appease the mental anguish he was having to endure it was ungrudgingly extended to him, and when he left Cronstadt he left behind him a host of sympathizers who regarded the punishment as odious.
The fact of any public official listening to a miscreant who told the story of a stevedores' row, to which he himself had been a party, and seriously believing that the threats, however extravagant and bellicose, of a verbose old sailor could be a national danger, is, on the face of it, so ludicrous that the English reader may easily doubt the accuracy of such an incident; and yet it is true.
In other days I used occasionally to meet members of the Russian revolutionary party at my brother's home in London. They were all men and women of education and refinement. The first time I met them the late Robert Louis Stevenson (who generally used the window as a means of exit instead of the door), William Henley, George Collins (editor of the Schoolmaster), and, I think, Mr. Wright (author of the Journeyman Engineer) were there. The talk was very brilliant. My brother, who was a charming conversationalist, kept his visitors fascinated with anecdotes about Carlyle and John Ruskin, whom he knew well. They spoke, too, about the unsigned articles which they were each contributing to a paper called the London, and their criticism of each other's work was very lively. But to me the most touching incident of the afternoon was the story told by one of the revolutionary party about Sophie Peroffsky, who mounted the scaffold with four of her friends, kissed and encouraged them with cheering words until the time came that they should be executed. He related also a touching and detailed story of little Marie Soubitine, who refused to purchase her own safety by uttering a word to betray her friends, and was kept lingering in an underground dungeon for three years, at the end of which she was sent off to Siberia, and died on the road. No amount of torture could make her betray her friends. They spoke of Antonoff, who was subjected to the thumbscrew, had red-hot wires thrust under his nails, and when his torturers gave him a little respite he would scratch on his plate cipher signals to his comrades.
The account of the cause and origin of the revolutionary movement and its subsequent history, which sparkled with heroic deeds, was told in a quiet, unostentatious manner. I had just come from Russia. I had been much in that country, and thought I knew a great deal about it and the sinister system of government that breeds revolutionaries; but the tales of cruel, senseless despotism told by these people made me shudder with horror. I had been accustomed to abhor and look upon Nihilists as a scoundrelly gang of lawless butchers, but I found them the most cultured of patriots, loving their country, though detesting the barbarous system of government which had driven them and thousands of their compatriots from the land and friends they loved, and from the estates they owned, into resigned and determined agitation for popular government and the amelioration of their people. The upholders of this despotic system of government are now engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and all civilized nations are looking forward to the time when, for the first time in its history, Right and not Might shall prevail in Russia. It has been said, "Happy is the nation that has no history." Russia knows this to her cost, for her history is being made every day, with all the horrible accompaniments of massacres, injustice, and tyranny. Only it should be remembered that the fight must be between tyranny and liberty, and that the Russian peasant must work out his own salvation. This may be—nay, must be—the work of years, but England's sympathy will be with the workers for freedom. English feeling on the matter was well expressed by the statesman who had the courage to say publicly, "Long live the Duma!" and every Englishman will in his heart of hearts applaud any efforts made to secure constitutional government.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Napier was a great favourite with his sailors, notwithstanding his apparent harshness to them at times. Whenever he wanted a dash made on a strong position, he inspired them with a fury of enthusiasm by giving the word of command incisively, and then adding as an addendum, "Now, off you go, you damned rascals, and exterminate them." This was a form of endearment, and they knew it.