Volume 1

Modern history or, the present state of all nations. Describing their respective situations, persons, habits, and buildings, manners, laws and customs ... plants, animals, and minerals / by Mr. Salmon ; illustrated with cuts and maps ... by Herman Moll.

  • Salmon, Thomas, 1679-1767.
Date:
1744-1746
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern history or, the present state of all nations. Describing their respective situations, persons, habits, and buildings, manners, laws and customs ... plants, animals, and minerals / by Mr. Salmon ; illustrated with cuts and maps ... by Herman Moll. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    642/808 (page 628)
    Jail Empe- peror. 628 C H A P. whom the crown defcended to his fon Feodor, X. or Theodore Alexiowitz, anno 1675, who —'dying in the year 1082, without iffue, left the D0HftE°n. crown to his two brothers, John by the fame John,and rnother, and Peter his hall-brother. Though Peter the fome affure us that Feodor appointed the Czar Peter, his half-brother, only to fucceed him •, being fenfible of the incapacity of John to govern, but that the Princefs Sophia,of the whole blood to F e o d o r and J o h n, by her intrigues, procured John to be declared joint Emperor with Peter, who was then very young. She had an intention alfo, as the Czar Peter after¬ wards fyggefted, to have ufurped the throne her- felf •, having corrupted the Strelitzes, or Ruffian guards, confiding of twenty or thirty thoufand men, and drawn them over to her party. The Prime Minifter, Prince Gallitzin, was alfo charged by Czar Peter to be in the plot. But however that matter really was. Czar Peter, on pretence that there was a confpiracy againft his life, retired to,the ftrong monaftery, or rather fortrefs- of Troitza, about a day’s journey from Mofcow: hither he fummoned the nobility in the year 1689, declaring that he had very narrowly efcaped the hands of the confpirators. He fum¬ moned alfo the guards, or Strelitzes to Troitza, who obeyed his fummons •, and having by the mod exquifite tortures made fome few of them confefs that there was a plot to have murdered him, his wife, his mother, and all their near re¬ lations ; and that the Prime Minider Gallit¬ zin, and his fider Sophia, were in the confpi¬ racy, the people were fo wrought upon by this real or pretended horrid plot, that Czar Peter found no difficulty in difpofingof thofe who were not in his intereft, as he faw fit. Accordingly he fhut up his fider S o p h i a in a monadery ; and the Prime Minider Gallitzin, a moil deferving datefman, who laid the foundation of all the late improvements in Ruffia, he baniffied with his family into Siberia. Several of the Stre¬ litzes, who were to have had an hand in the in¬ tended affaffination, as was given out, he tortured and put to death ; and this he feemed under a ne- ceffity of doing, to keep up the credit of the plot. But furely the Prime Mihifter would not have efcaped with fo mild a puniffiment as baniffi- ment, if he had actually been in a confpiracy to affaffinate the Czar : nor is it eafy to believe that the Princefs Sophia, the Prime Minider, and the whole body of the Strelitzes fhould have fur- rendered themfelves into the power of the Czar, without driking a droke, if they had been engaged in fo black a confpiracy as they were charged with. But here the reader may reafonably expedt fome farther account of the life and actions of this Emperor, (as great a Prince in’many relpedts as ever appeared in the world, by what means fo- ever he obtained the empire) a fummary whereof follows. The late Czar Peter was fon of the Czar Alexis Michaelowitz, (who died the eighth of February 1676,) and of N a t ol i a Kiri- ’ h o w n a Nariskin his fecond wife, who died the fourth of February 1694. He married the Lady Ottokesa Fede rown a, the daughter of Boyar Feodor Abramawitz Lapuchin, from whom he was feparated in 1692, and after¬ wards took to his embraces the Lady Kath arina Alexiowna, but did not declare himfelf mar¬ ried to her, until the year 1711, though he had cohabited with her many years before. He had by An ab- ftraft of the late Czar’s life and acti¬ ons. the firft venter, the Prince Alexis Petrowitz, C H A P. born the 18th of February 1690, who dipd the_' ^ feventh of July 1718, N. S. having been folemn- ly condemned to death by his father, in a great council, confiding of the clergy, nobility, and great officers, civil and military •, whofe opinions being demanded by the Czar, unanimoufiy de¬ clared the Czarowitz guilty of the crimes laid to his charge •, the principal whereof were, that he had been in a confpiracy to depofe his father, and fled into foreign countries, to avoid the pu¬ niffiment he deferved. But the Prince died a natural death before the fentence was executed upon him •, and it is the opinion of molt men, that the Czar never intended it fhould have been executed. The Czarowitz married the Princefs Charlotte Christiana Sophia, daughter of Lewis Rodolphus, Duke of Brunfwick Wolfenbuttle, and After of the prefent Emprefs of Germany. She died the firft of November 1715, leaving iffue the Princefs Natalia, bom the 14th of July, 1714, and the Czarowitz, Prince Peter Alexowitz, born the 23d of October, 1715. The iffue which the late Czar had by his fecond Emprefs, the prefent Czarina, are the Princefs Mary, born the 20th of March, 1713, and married to the Duke of Holftein the 5th of December, 1724. The Princefs Anna Margaretta, born the 19th of September, 1714, Prince Peter, born the 8th of Novem¬ ber, 1715, whom the late Czar had declared his heir; but he died at Peterffiurg the fixth of May, 1719. PrincePAUL, born at Weffel, Jan. 13th 1717, who died the fame day •, and the Princefs Natalia, born the 31ft of Auguft, 1718. The late Czar Peter reigned jointly with his brother John until the year 1696 ; when the Czar John died, leaving iffue three Princefies whom he had by the Lady Proscovia Fede- rowna Solticow, his confort, viz. the Prin¬ cefs Katharine, married to Charles Leo¬ pold Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin the 19th of April, 1716. The Princefs Anne, married to Frederick William Duke of Courland, the 13th of November, 1710, who left her a widow the year following •, and the Princefs Proscovia, who yet remains unmarried. Czar Peter finding the Turks engaged in war with the Emperor of Germany, the Poles, and Venetians, in the year 1695, raifed an army of eighty or ninety thoufand men, and laid liege to Afoph on the Black fea j but the Turks throwing frelh fupplies of men and ammunition into the town from time to time, he was forced to raife the fiege after he had lain four months before the place. Next year, the Czar having recruited his army, and prepared a fleet of fmall veffels and galleys, to prevent the Turks throwing relief into the town, as they had done the preceding year, he fat down before this important place again, Afoph and took it, allowing the garifon no better con- taken by ditions, than to march out with their arms. And the Ruf- in this fiege, it is faid, the Czar firft obferved what vaft advantage a fleet might be to him in his intended defignsof enlarging his empire •, and foon after fet out to travel, in order to inftrudt himfelf and his fubjedts in the art of navigation, fhip-building, &c. as above related. While he was at Vienna, in his return home from England and Holland in the year 1698, receiving repeated advices of a confpiracy to declare the throne of Ruffia vacant, on account of his abfence, he haftened to Mofcow, where he found the rebels had