[78] The Memoirs of Peter the Great, by the pretended boyard Iwan Nestesuranoy, printed at Amsterdam, in 1730, say, that the king of Sweden, before he passed the Boristhenes, sent a general officer with proposals of peace to the czar. The four volumes of these Memoirs are either a collection of untruths and absurdities, or compilations from common newspapers.
[79] This fact is likewise found in a letter, printed before the Anecdotes of Russia, p. 23.
[80] La Motraye, in the relation of his travels, quotes a letter from Charles XII. to the grand vizier; but this letter is false, as are most of the relations of that mercenary writer; and Norberg himself acknowledges that the king of Sweden never could be prevailed on to write to the grand vizier.
[81] The czar, says the preface to lord Whitworth's account of Russia, who had been absolute enough to civilize savages, had no idea, could conceive none, of the privileges of a nation civilized in the only rational manner by laws and liberties. He demanded immediate and severe punishment of the offenders: he demanded it of a princess, whom he thought interested, to assert the sacredness of the persons of monarchs, even in their representatives; and he demanded it with threats of wreaking his vengeance on all English merchants and subjects established in his dominions. In this light the menaces were formidable; otherwise, happily, the rights of the whole people were more sacred here than the persons of foreign ministers. The czar's memorials urged the queen with the satisfaction which she herself had extorted, when only the boat and servants of the earl of Manchester had been insulted at Venice. That state had broken through the fundamental laws, to content the queen of Great Britain. How noble a picture of government, when a monarch, that can force another nation to infringe its constitution, dare not violate his own? One may imagine with what difficulty our secretaries of state must have laboured through all the ambages of phrase in English, French, German, and Russ, to explain to Muscovite ears and Muscovite understandings, the meaning of indictments, pleadings, precedents, juries, and verdicts; and how impatiently Peter must have listened to promises of a hearing next term? With what astonishment must he have beheld a great queen, engaging to endeavour to prevail on her parliament to pass an act to prevent any such outrage for the future? What honour does it not reflect on the memory of that princess to own to an arbitrary emperor, that even to appease him she dare not put the meanest of her subjects to death uncondemned by law!—There are, says she, in one of her dispatches to him, insuperable difficulties, with respect to the ancient and fundamental laws of the government of our people; which we fear do not permit so severe and rigorous a sentence to be given, as your imperial majesty at first seemed to expect in this case; and we persuade ourself, that your imperial majesty, who are a prince famous for clemency and exact justice, will not require us, who are the guardian and protectress of the laws, to inflict a punishment upon our subjects, which the law does not impower us to do. Words so venerable and heroic, that this broil ought to become history, and be exempted from the oblivion due to the silly squabbles of ambassadors and their privileges. If Anne deserved praise for her conduct on this occasion, it reflects still greater glory on Peter, that this ferocious man should listen to these details, and had moderation and justice enough to be persuaded by the reason of them.
[82] Afterwards created lord Whitworth, by king George I.
[83] The account this chaplain gives of the demands of the grand seignior is equally false and puerile. He says, that sultan Achmet, previous to his declaring war against the czar, sent to that prince a paper, containing the conditions on which he was willing to grant him peace. These conditions, Norberg tells us, were as follows: 'That Peter should renounce his alliance with Augustus, reinstate Stanislaus in the possession of the crown of Poland, restore all Livonia to Charles XII., and pay that prince the value in ready money of what he had taken from him at the battle of Pultowa; and, lastly, that the czar should demolish his newly-built city of Petersburg.' This piece was forged by one Brazey, a half-starved pamphleteer, and author of a work entitled, Memoirs, Satirical, Historical, and Entertaining. It was from this fountain Norberg drew his intelligence; and however he may have been the confessor of Charles XII. he certainly does not appear to have been his confidant.
[84] The new vizier embraced every opportunity of affronting the czar, in the person of his envoy, and particularly in giving the French ambassador the preference. It was customary, on the promotion of the grand vizier, for all the foreign ministers to request an audience of congratulation. Count Tolstoy was the first who demanded that audience; but was answered—That the precedence had always been given to the ambassador of France: whereupon Tolstoy informed the vizier—That he must be deprived of the pleasure of waiting on him at all: which, being maliciously represented, as expressing the utmost contempt of his person, and the khan of Tartary being at the same time instigated to make several heavy complaints against the conduct of the Russians on the frontiers, count Tolstoy was immediately committed to the castle of the Seven Towers.
[85] It is very strange that so many writers always confound Walachia and Moldavia together.
[86] This duke of Holstein, at the time he married the daughter of Peter I. was a prince of very inconsiderable power, though of one of the most ancient houses in Germany. His ancestors had been stripped of great part of their dominions by the kings of Denmark; so that, at the time of this marriage, he found himself greatly circumscribed in point of possessions; but, from this epoch of his alliance with the czar of Muscovy, we may date the rise of the ducal branch of Holstein, which now fills the thrones of Russia and Sweden, and is likewise in possession of the bishopric of Lubec, which, in all probability, will fall to this house, notwithstanding the late election, which at present is the subject of litigation, the issue of which will, to all appearance, terminate in favour of the prince, son to the present bishop, through the protection of the courts of Vienna and Petersburg. The empress Catherine, who now sits on the throne of Russia is herself descended from this august house, by the side of her mother, who was sister to the king of Sweden, to the prince-bishop of Lubec, and to the famous prince George of Holstein, whose achievements made so much noise during the war. This princess, whose name was Elizabeth, married the reigning prince of Anbak Zerbst, whose house was indisputably the most ancient; and, in former times, the most powerful in all Germany, since they can trace their pedigree from the dukes of Ascania, who were formerly masters of the two electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg, as appears by their armorial bearings, which are, quarterly, the arms of Saxony and Brandenburg. Of this branch of Zerbst there is remaining only the present reigning prince, brother to the empress Catherine, who, in case he should die without issue, will succeed to the principality of Yevern, in East Friesland; from all which it appears already, that the family of Holstein is at present the most powerful in Europe, as being in possession of three crowns in the North.—[Since the above was written important changes have taken place.]
[87] This same count Poniatowsky, who was at that time in the service of Charles XII., died afterwards castellan of Cracovia, and first senator of the republic of Poland, after having enjoyed all the dignities to which a nobleman of that country can attain. His connexions with Charles XII. during that prince's retirement at Bender, first made him taken notice of; and, it is to be wished, for the honour of his memory, that he had waited till the conclusion of a peace between Sweden and Poland, to be reconciled to king Augustus; but following the dictates of ambition, rather than those of strict honour, he sacrificed the interests of both Charles and Stanislaus, to the care of his own fortune; and, while he appeared the most zealous in their cause, he secretly did them all the ill services he could at the Ottoman Porte: to this double dealing he owed the immense fortune of which he was afterwards possessed. He married the princess Czartoriski, daughter of the castellan of Vilna, a lady, for her heroic spirit, worthy to have been born in the times of ancient Rome: when her eldest son, the present grand chamberlain of the crown, had that famous dispute with Count Tarlo, palatine of Lublin; a dispute which made so much noise in all the public papers in the year 1742, this lady, after having made him shoot at a mark every day, for three weeks, in order to be expert at firing, said to him, as he was mounting his horse, to go to meet his adversary—'Go, my son; but, if you do not acquit yourself with honour in this affair, never appear before me again.' This anecdote may serve as a specimen of the character of our heroine. The family of Czartoriski is descended from the ancient Jagellins, who were, for several ages, in lineal possession of the crown of Poland; and is, at this day, extremely rich and powerful, by the alliances it has contracted, but they have never been able to acquire popularity; and so long as count Tarlo (who was killed in a duel with the young count Poniatowsky) lived, had no influence in the dictines, or lesser assembly of the states, because Tarlo, who was the idol of the nobles, and a sworn enemy to the Czartoriski family, carried every thing before him, and nothing was done but according to his pleasure.