"Adieu! I wish you happiness and health.
"Catherine."
The letter to Besborodko referred to by Catherine was a request from Patiomkine that Jones might be induced to come immediately to his headquarters, that his talents might be employed in the approaching campaign. Patiomkine promised to to do all in his power to give him an opportunity for displaying his ability and courage,[[45]] Jones had protested against being under anybody; Catherine refused to consider his protest, hence the reason for her farewell epistle and her inclosure of Patiomkine's promise to be all that he should be to Jones. He arrived at Elizabethgrad on the 30th of May and was most kindly received. But before entering upon the story of his campaign it will be well to consider the situation of the country in which he found himself, and the characters of those with whom he was to be associated in service.
Note with reference to the Danish pension.
The most recent biographer of Paul Jones, whose book was issued simultaneously with this one, makes no mention of the Danish pension, and states that his reasons for omitting any reference to it were "because it was never accepted, never paid, and never was intended to be paid." I am forced to disagree with this statement. Certainly, it never was paid, though what the Danish government may have intended it is impossible to say. Probably if Jones had continued in favor in Russia the pension would have been paid. Certainly the commodore accepted the pension, and he endeavored to procure its payment, and estimated it as an asset in the schedule of property which accompanied his will. See Appendix V, page 473.
CHAPTER XVIII.
[IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE--OTCHAKOFF AND THE CAMPAIGN IN THE LIMAN.]
Far to the north is Russia. Extending through no less than one hundred and seventy-three degrees of longitude, and covering forty parallels of latitude, from the Baltic to the Pacific, and from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean, with an area of eight and a half million square miles, lies this great lone land. This gigantic empire, touching on the one hand the ice-bound shores of Nova Zembla, and on the other the caravan trails of Bokhara, stretches from the Gulf of Finland in the west to Kamtchatka on the east. Within its boundaries are comprised bleak deserts and fertile plains. Verdant valleys, unscalable mountains, and vast steppes break the monotony of the landscape, and diversify a surface watered by great rivers from the arctic Yenisei to the Oriental Oxus. Great among the powers is this mysterious Colossus, her head white with the snows of eternal winter and her feet laved in the sunlight of tropic streams. The land of the seafarers--so its name indicates--developing enormously and steadily in power, wealth, and civilization, in the nine hundred years which have elapsed since Rurik the Viking first stepped upon its shores, has not yet reached its zenith. It is to-day the home of more diverse nationalities than any other existent country, and foreshadowings of unlimited predominance are apparent. Its sway extends over more races and peoples than any other power has governed since the days of Augustus Cæsar, and the end is not yet. Well do its rulers arrogate to themselves the imperial title of the ancient head of the Roman Empire. Holy Russia, the home of the Orthodox Church, the country of the White Czar, the land of the once despised Slav, yet contains within its borders, in Lithuania, the focal point of that Aryan race which has filled Europe with its splendor. This Russia, the land of the Tartar, the Mongol, the Samoyede, the Cossack, the Finn, and the Pole; this Russia, the land of Ivan the Terrible, of Peter the Great, was now in the hands of a woman--of Catherine II.
The little maiden, born on the 2d of May, 1729, in the quaint old town of Stettin, and of the insignificant house of Anhalt-Zerbst, christened Sophia, was received into the Greek Church on her marriage with Peter of Holstein, grandson of the Romanoff Peter the Great, under the name of Catherine. She had assumed the reins of government after the murder of her wretched impotent husband, against whom she had conspired in conjunction with the Orloffs. When she had deposed and imprisoned him, unable to strike a blow for himself, he had stipulated that in his confinement he might have the undisputed enjoyment of his mistress, his monkey, and his violin! Even these kingly pleasures were soon of little use to him, for on the 18th of July, 1762, but a few days after the revolution which had hurled him from his throne, Peter lay dead in the palace with some ominous and ineffaceable black marks around his throat, telling of the manner of his death from the giant hands of the terrible Orloffs--and his wife was privy to the murder and consenting to it! That her husband had been a knave and a fool--almost a madman--does not excuse her. Catherine was then immediately proclaimed empress in her own right. As the Neapolitan Caraccioli said, the Russian throne was neither hereditary nor elective, but occupative! Catherine occupied it, and as long as she lived Russia knew no other master. The world marveled at her audacity, and trembled for the consequences of her usurpation, but men soon found that, gigantic as had been her assurance, and tremendous as was her task, she was entirely equal to the undertaking. She had a genius for reigning as great as had been exhibited by Elizabeth Tudor--good Queen Bess! In spite of her bad qualities and evil beginning, Russia never progressed more than while under her sway. She fairly divides honor as a sovereign, in Slavonic history, with Peter the Great. True it is that Catherine had "woven out of the bloody vestments of Peter III the most magnificent imperial mantle that a woman had ever worn."
Some one wrote to Madame Vigée le Brun, who essayed to paint her picture: