Never did a crowned head suffer greater affronts in the persons of his ministers, than czar Peter. In the space of a few years, his ambassador at the court of London was thrown into jail for debt, his plenipotentiary at the courts of Poland and Saxony was broke upon the wheel, by order of the king of Sweden; and now his minister at the Ottoman Porte was seized and thrown into a dungeon at Constantinople, like a common felon.[84]
We have already observed, in the first part of this history, that he received satisfaction from queen Anne, of England, for the insult offered to his ambassador at London. The horrible affront he suffered, in the person of Patkul, was washed away in the blood of the Swedes slain at the battle of Pultowa; but fortune permitted the violation of the law of nations by the Turks to pass unpunished.
Jan. 1711.] The czar now found himself obliged to quit the theatre of war in the west, and march towards the frontiers of Turkey. He began by causing ten regiments, which he had in Poland, to advance towards Moldavia.[85] He then ordered marshal Sheremeto to set out from Livonia, with his body of forces; and, leaving prince Menzikoff at the head of affairs at Petersburg, he returned to Moscow, to give orders for opening the ensuing campaign.
Jan. 18.] He now establishes a senate of regency: the regiment of guards begin their march, he issues orders for all the young nobility to follow him to the field, to learn the art of war, and places some of them in the station of cadets, and others in that of subaltern officers. Admiral Apraxin goes to Azoph to take the command by sea and land. These several measures being taken, the czar publishes an ordonnance in Moscow for acknowledging a new empress. This was the person who had been taken prisoner in Marienburg, in the year 1702. Peter had, in 1696, repudiated his wife Eudoxia Lopoukin (or Lapouchin) by whom he had two children. The laws of his church allow of no divorces; but, had they not, Peter would have enacted a new law to permit them.
The fair captive of Marienburg, who had taken the name of Catherine, had a soul superior to her sex and her misfortunes. She rendered herself so agreeable to the czar, that this prince would have her always near his person. She accompanied him in all his excursions, and most fatiguing campaigns: sharing in his toils, and softening his uneasiness by her natural gaiety, and the great attention she shewed to oblige him on all occasions, and the indifference she expressed for the luxury, dress, and other indulgences, of which the generality of her sex are, in other countries, wont to make real necessities. She frequently softened the passionate temper of the czar, and, by making him more clement and merciful, rendered him more truly great. In a word, she became so necessary to him, that he married her privately, in 1707. He had already two daughters by her, and the following year she bore him a third, who was afterwards married to the duke of Holstein.[86]
March 17, 1711.] The czar made this private marriage known the very day he set out with her to try the fortune of his arms against the Turks. The several dispositions he had made seemed to promise a successful issue. The hetman of the Cossacks was to keep the Tartars in awe, who had already began to commit ravages in the Ukraine. The main body of the Russian army was advancing towards Niester, and another body of troops, under prince Galitzin, were in full march through Poland. Every thing went on favourably at the beginning: for Galitzin having met with a numerous body of Tartars near Kiow, who had been joined by some Cossacks and some Poles of king Stanislaus' party, as also a few Swedes, he defeated them entirely, and killed near five thousand men. These Tartars had, in their march through the open country, made about ten thousand prisoners. It has been the custom of the Tartars, time immemorial, to carry with them a much greater number of cords than scimitars, in order to bind the unhappy wretches they surprise. The captives were all set free, and those who had made them prisoners were put to the sword. The whole Russian army, if it had been assembled together, would have amounted to sixty thousand men. It was to have been farther augmented by the troops belonging to the king of Poland. This prince, who owed every thing to the czar, came to pay him a visit at Jaroslaw, on the river Sana, the 3d of June, 1714, and promised him powerful succours. War was now declared against the Turks, in the name of these two monarchs: but the Polish diet, not willing to break with the Ottoman Porte, refused to ratify the engagement their king had entered into. It was the fate of the czar to have, in the king of Poland, an ally who could never be of any service to him. He entertained the same hopes of assistance from the princes of Moldavia and Walachia, and was, in the like manner, disappointed.
These two provinces ought to have taken this opportunity to shake off the Turkish yoke. These countries were those of the ancient Daci, who, together with the Gepidi, with whom they were intermixed, did, for a long time, disturb the Roman empire. They were at length subdued by the emperor Trajan, and Constantine the First made them embrace the Christian religion. Dacia was one of the provinces of the eastern empire; but shortly after these very people contributed to the ruin of that of the west, by serving under the Odoacers and Theodorics.
They afterwards continued to be subject to the Greek empire; and when the Turks made themselves masters of Constantinople, were governed and oppressed by particular princes; at length they were totally subjected by the Padisha, or Turkish emperor, who now granted them an investiture. The Hospodar, or Waiwod, chosen by the Ottoman Porte to govern these provinces, is always a Christian of the Greek church. The Turks, by this choice, give a proof of their toleration, while our ignorant declaimers are accusing them of persecution. The prince, nominated by the Porte, is tributary to, or rather farms these countries of the grand seignior; this dignity being always conferred on the best bidder, or him who makes the greatest presents to the vizier, in like manner as the Greek patriarch, at Constantinople. Sometimes this government is bestowed on a dragoman, that is to say, the interpreter to the divan. These provinces are seldom under the government of the same Waiwod, the Porte choosing to divide them, in order to be more sure of retaining them in subjection. Demetrius Cantemir was at this time Waiwod of Moldavia. This prince was said to be descended from Tamerlane, because Tamerlane's true name was Timur, and Timur was a Tartarian khan; and so, from the name Tamurkan, say they, came the family of Cantemir.