The terem offered the strangest contrasts. There acted they the Malade Imaginaire, and the audience was composed of the heterogeneous assembly of popes, monks, nuns, and old pensioners that formed the courts of the ancient czarinas. In this shifting crowd there were some useful instruments of intrigue. The old pensioners, while telling their rosaries, served as emissaries between the palace and the town, carried messages and presents to the turbulent streltsi[1] and arranged matters between the czarian ladies and the soldiers. Sinister rumors were skilfully disseminated through Moscow: Feodor, the eldest son of Alexis, had died, the victim of conspirators; the same lot was doubtless reserved for Ivan. What was to become of the poor czarevni, of the blood of kings? At last it was publicly announced that a brother of Natalia Narychkine had seized the crown and seated himself on the throne, and that Ivan had been strangled. Love and pity for the son of Alexis, and the indignation excited by the news of the usurpation, immediately caused the people of Moscow to revolt, and the ringleaders cleverly directed the movement. The tocsin sounded from four hundred churches of the "holy city"; the regiments of the streltsi took up arms and marched, followed by an immense crowd, to the Kremlin, with drums beating, matches lighted, and dragging cannon behind them. Natalia Narychkine had only to show herself on the "Red Staircase," accompanied by her son Peter, and Ivan who was reported dead. Their mere appearance sufficed to contradict all the calumnies. The streltsi hesitated, seeing they had been deceived. A clever harangue of Matveef, who had formerly commanded them, and the exhortations of the patriarch, shook them further. The revolt was almost appeased; the Miloslavskis had missed their aim, for they had not yet succeeded in putting to death the people of whom they were jealous.

[Footnote 1: The streltsi were an ancient Muscovite guard composed of citizens rendering hereditary military service in the different cities and fortified posts. At this time many of them were ripe for revolt.]

Suddenly Prince Michael Dolgorouki, chief of the prikaz of the streltsi, began to insult the rioters in the most violent language. This ill-timed harangue awoke their fury; they seized Dolgorouki, and flung him from the top of the Red Staircase onto their pikes. They stabbed Matveef, under the eyes of the Czarina; then they sacked the palace, murdering all who fell into their hands. Athanasius Narychkine, a brother of Natalia, was thrown from a window onto the points of their lances. The following day the emeute recommenced; they tore from the arms of the Czarina her father Cyril and her brother Ivan; the latter was tortured and sent into a monastery. Historians show us Sophia interceded for the victims on her knees, but an understanding between the rebels and the Czarevna did exist; the streltsi obeyed orders.

The following days were consecrated to the purifying of the palace and the administration, and the seventh day of the revolt they sent their commandant, the prince-boyar, Khovanski, to declare that they would have two czars—Ivan at the head, and Peter as coadjutor; and if this were refused, they would again rebel. The boyars of the douma deliberated on this proposal, and the greater number of the boyars were opposed to it. In Russia the absolute power had never been shared, but the orators of the terem cited many examples both from sacred and profane history: Pharaoh and Joseph, Arcadius and Honorius, Basil II and Constantine VIII; and the best of all the arguments were the pikes of the streltsi (1682).

Sophia had triumphed: she reigned in the name of her two brothers, Ivan and Peter. She made a point of showing herself in public, at processions, solemn services, and dedications of churches. At the Ouspienski Sobor, while her brothers occupied the place of the czar, she filled that of the czarina; only she raised the curtains and boldly allowed herself to be incensed by the patriarch. When the raskolniks challenged the heads of the orthodox church to discussion, she wished to preside and hold the meeting in the open air, at the Lobnoe Miesto on the Red Place. There was, however, so much opposition that she was forced to call the assembly in the Palace of Facets, and sat behind the throne of her two brothers, present though invisible. The double-seated throne used on those occasions is still preserved at Moscow; there is an opening in the back, hidden by a veil of silk, and behind this sat Sophia. This singular piece of furniture is the symbol of a government previously unknown to Russia, composed of two visible czars and one invisible sovereign.

The streltsi, however, felt their prejudices against female sovereignty awaken. They shrank from the contempt heaped by the Czarevna upon the ancient manners. Sophia had already become in their eyes a "scandalous person" (pozornoe litzo). Another cause of misunderstanding was the support she gave to the state church, as reformed by Nicon, while the streltsi and the greater part of the people held to the "old faith." She had arrested certain "old believers," who at the discussion in the Palace of Facets had challenged the patriarchs and orthodox prelates, and she had caused the ringleader to be executed. Khovanski, chief of the streltsi, whether from sympathy with the raskol or whether he wished to please his subordinates, affected to share their discontent. The court no longer felt itself safe at Moscow. Sophia took refuge with the Czarina and the two young princes in the fortified monastery of Troitsa, and summoned around her the gentlemen-at-arms. Khovanski was invited to attend, was arrested on the way, and put to death with his son. The streltsi attempted a new rising, but, with the usual fickleness of a popular militia, suddenly passed from the extreme of insolence to the extreme of humility. They marched to Troitsa, this time in the guise of suppliants, with cords round their necks, carrying axes and blocks for the death they expected. The patriarch consented to intercede for them, and Sophia contented herself with the sacrifice of the ringleaders.

Sophia, having got rid of her accomplices, governed by aid of her two favorites—Chaklovity, the new commandant of the streltsi, whom she had drawn from obscurity, and who was completely devoted to her, and Prince Vasili Galitsyne. Galitsyne has become the hero of a historic school which opposes his genius to that of Peter the Great, in the same way as in France Henry, Duke of Guise, has been exalted at the expense of Henry IV. He was the special favorite, the intimate friend, of Sophia, the director of her foreign policy, and her right hand in military affairs. Sophia and Galitsyne labored to organize a holy league between Russia, Poland, Venice, and Austria against the Turks and Tartars. They also tried to gain the countenance of the Catholic powers of the West; and in 1687 Jacob Dolgorouki and Jacob Mychetski disembarked at Dunkirk as envoys to the court of Louis XIV. They were not received very favorably: the King of France was not at all inclined to make war against the Turks; he was, on the other hand, the ally of Mahomet IV, who was about to besiege Vienna while Louis blockaded Luxemburg. The whole plan of the campaign was, however, thrown out by the intervention of Russia and John Sobieski in favor of Austria. The Russian ambassadors received orders to reembark at Havre, without going farther south.

The government of the Czarevna still persisted in its warlike projects. In return for an active cooperation against the Ottomans, Poland had consented to ratify the conditions of the Treaty of Androussovo, and to sign a perpetual peace (1686). A hundred thousand Muscovites, under the command of Prince Galitsyne, and fifty thousand Little Russian Cossacks, under the orders of the hetman Samoilovitch, marched against the Crimea (1687). The army suffered greatly in the southern steppes, as the Tartars had fired the grassy plains. Galitsyne was forced to return without having encountered the enemy. Samoilovitch was accused of treason, deprived of his command, and sent to Siberia; and Mazeppa, who owed to Samoilovitch his appointment as secretary-at-war, and whose denunciations had chiefly contributed to his downfall, was appointed his successor.

In the spring of 1689 the Muscovite and Ukranian armies, commanded by Galitsyne and Mazeppa, again set out for the Crimea. The second expedition was hardly more fortunate than the first: they got as far as Perekop, and were then obliged to retreat without even having taken the fortress. This double defeat did not hinder Sophia from preparing for her favorite a triumphal entry into Moscow. In vain Peter forbade her to leave the palace; she braved his displeasure and headed the procession, accompanied by the clergy and the images and followed by the army of the Crimea, admitted the generals to kiss her hand and distributed glasses of brandy among the officers. Peter left Moscow in anger, and retired to the village of Preobrajenskoe. The foreign policy of the Czarevna was marked by another display of weakness. By the Treaty of Nertchinsk she restored to the Chinese empire the fertile regions of the Amur, which had been conquered by a handful of Cossacks, and razed the fortress of Albazine, where those adventurers had braved all the forces of the East. On all sides Russia seemed to retreat before the barbarians.

Meanwhile Peter was growing. His precocious faculties, his quick intelligence, and his strong will awakened alike the hopes of his partisans and the fears of his enemies. As a child he only loved drums, swords, and muskets. He learned history by means of colored prints brought from Germany. Zotof, his master, whom he afterward made "the archpope of fools," taught him to read. Among the heroes held up to him as examples we are not surprised to find Ivan the Terrible, whose character and position offer so much analogy to his own. "When the Czarevitch was tired of reading," says M. Zabieline, "Zotof took the book from his hand and, to amuse him, would himself read the great deeds of his father, Alexis Mikhailovitch, and those of the Czar, Ivan Vasilievitch, their campaigns, their distant expeditions, their battles and sieges: how they endured fatigues and privations better than any common soldier; what benefits they had conferred on the empire, and how they extended the frontiers of Russia."

Peter also learned Latin, German, and Dutch. He read much and widely, and learned a great deal, though without method. Like Ivan the Terrible, he was a self-taught man. He afterward complained of not having been instructed according to rule. This was perhaps a good thing. His education, like that of Ivan IV, was neglected, but at least he was not subjected to the enervating influence of the terem—he was not cast in that dull mould which turned out so many idiots in the royal family. He "roamed at large, and wandered in the streets with his comrades." The streets of Moscow at that period were, according to M. Zabieline, the worst school of profligacy and debauchery that can be imagined; but they were, on the whole, less bad for Peter than the palace. He met there something besides mere jesters: he encountered new elements which had as yet no place in the terem, but contained the germ of the regeneration of Russia. He came across Russians who, if unscrupulous, were also unprejudiced, and who could aid him in his bold reform of the ancient society. He there became acquainted with Swiss, English, and German adventurers—with Lefort, with Gordon, and with Timmermann, who initiated him into European civilization.

His court was composed of Leo Narychkine, of Boris Galitsyne, who had undertaken never to flatter him; of Andrew Matveef, who had marked taste for everything European; and of Dolgorouki, at whose house he first saw an astrolabe. He played at soldiers with his young friends and his grooms, and formed them into the "battalion of playmates," who manoeuvred after the European fashion, and became the kernel of the future regular army. He learned the elements of geometry and fortification, and constructed small citadels, which he took or defended with his young warriors in those fierce battles which sometimes counted their wounded or dead, and in which the Czar of Russia was not always spared. An English boat stranded on the shore of Yaousa caused him to send for Franz Timmermann, who taught him to manage a sailing-boat, even with a contrary wind. He who formerly, like a true boyar of Moscow, had such a horror of the water that he could not make up his mind to cross a bridge, became a determined sailor: he guided his boat first on the Yaousa, then on the lake of Pereiaslavl. Brandt, the Dutchman, built him a whole flotilla; and already, in spite of the terrors of his mother, Natalia, Peter dreamed of the sea.

"The child is amusing himself," the courtiers of Sophia affected to observe; but these amusements disquieted her. Each day added to the years of Peter seemed to bring her nearer to the cloister. In vain she proudly called herself "autocrat"; she saw her stepmother, her rival, lifting up her head. Galitsyne confined himself to regretting that they had not known better how to profit by the revolution of 1682, but Chaklovity, who knew he must fall with his mistress, said aloud, "It would be wiser to put the Czarina to death than to be put to death by her." Sophia could only save herself by seizing the throne—but who would help her to take it? The streltsi? But the result of their last rising had chilled them considerably. Sophia herself, while trying to bind this formidable force, had broken it, and the streltsi had not forgotten their chiefs beheaded at Troitsa. Now what did the emissaries of Sophia propose to them? Again to attack the palace; to put Leo Narychkine and other partisans of Peter to death; to arrest his mother, and to expel the patriarch. They trusted that Peter and Natalia would perish in the tumult. The streltsi remained indifferent when Sophia, affecting to think her life threatened, fled to the Dievitchi monastery, and sent them letters of entreaty. "If thy days are in peril," tranquilly replied the streltsi, "there must be an inquiry." Chaklovity could hardly collect four hundred of them at the Kremlin.

The struggle began between Moscow and Preobrajenskoe, the village with the prophetical name (the "Transfiguration" or "Regeneration"). Two streltsi warned Peter of the plots of his sister, and for the second time he sought an asylum at Troitsa. It was then seen who was the true czar; all men hastened to range themselves around him: his mother, his armed squires, the "battalion of playmates," the foreign officers, and even the streltsi of the regiment of Soukharef. The patriarch also took the side of the Czar, and brought him moral support, as the foreign soldiers had brought him material force. The partisans of Sophia were cold and irresolute; the streltsi themselves demanded that her favorite Chaklovity should be surrendered to the Czar. She had to implore the mediation of the patriarch. Chaklovity was first put to the torture and made to confess his plot against the Czar, and then decapitated. Medviedef was at first only condemned to the knout and banishment for heresy, but he acknowledged he had intended to take the place of the patriarch and to marry Sophia; he was dishonored by being imprisoned with two sorcerers, condemned to be burned alive in a cage, and was afterward beheaded. Galitsyne was deprived of his property, and exiled to Poustozersk. Sophia remained in the Dievitchi Monastyr, subjected to a hard captivity. Though Ivan continued to reign conjointly with his brother, yet Peter, who was then only seventeen, governed alone, surrounded by his mother, the Narychkines, and the Dolgoroukis (1689). Sophia had freed herself from the seclusion of the terem, as Peter had emancipated himself from the seclusion of the palace to roam the streets and navigate rivers. Both had behaved scandalously, according to the ideas of the time—the one haranguing soldiers, presiding over councils, walking with her veil raised; the other using the axe like a carpenter, rowing like a Cossack, brawling with foreign adventurers, and fighting with his grooms in mimic battles. But to the one her emancipation was only a means of obtaining power; to the other the emancipation of Russia, like the emancipation of himself, was the end. He wished the nation to shake off the old trammels from which he had freed himself. Sophia remained a Byzantine, Peter aspired to be a European. In the conflict between the Czarevna and the Czar, progress was not on the side of the Dievitchi Monastyr.

The first use the Czar made of his liberty was to hasten to Archangel. There, deaf to the advice and prayers of his mother, who was astounded at this unexpected taste for salt water, he gazed on that sea which no czar had ever looked on. He ate with the merchants and the officers of foreign navies; he breathed the air which had come from the West. He established a dockyard, built boats, dared the angry waves of this unknown ocean, and almost perished in a storm, which did not prevent the "skipper Peter Alexeievitch" from again putting to sea, and bringing the Dutch vessels back to the Holy Cape. Unhappily, the White Sea, by which, since the time of Ivan IV, the English had entered Russia, is frost-bound in winter. In order to open permanent communications with the West, with civilized countries, it was necessary for Peter to establish himself on the Baltic or the Black Sea. Now the first belonged to the Swedes, and the second to the Turks, as the Caspian did to the Persians. Who was first to be attacked? The treaties concluded with Poland and Austria, as well as policy and religion, urged the Czar against the Turks, and Constantinople has always been the point of attraction for orthodox Russia.

Peter shared the sentiments of his people, and had the enthusiasm of a crusader against the infidel. Notwithstanding his ardent wish to travel in the West, he took the resolution not to appear in foreign lands till he could appear as a victor. Twice had Galitsyne failed against the Crimea; Peter determined to attack the barbarians by the Don, and besiege Azov. The army was commanded by three generals, Golovine, Gordon, and Lefort, who were to act with the "bombardier of the Preobrajenski regiment, Peter Alexeievitch." This regiment, as well as three others which had sprung from the "amusements" of Preobrajenskoe—the Semenovski, the Botousitski, and the regiment of Lefort—were the heart of the expedition. It failed because the Czar had no fleet with which to invest Azov by sea, because the new army and its chiefs wanted experience, and because Jansen, the German engineer, ill-treated by Peter, passed over to the enemy. After two assaults the siege was raised. This check appeared the more grave because the Czar himself was with the army, because the first attempt to turn from the "amusements" of Preobrajenskoe to serious warfare had failed, and because this failure would furnish arms against innovations, against the Germans and the heretics, against the new tactics. It might even compromise, in the eyes of the people, the work of regeneration (1695).

Although Peter had followed the example of Galitsyne, and entered Moscow in triumph, he felt he needed revenge. He sent for good officers from foreign countries. Artillerymen arrived from Holland and Austria, engineers from Prussia, and Admiral Lima from Venice. Peter hurried on the creation of a fleet with feverish impatience. He built of green wood twenty-two galleys, a hundred rafts, and seventeen hundred boats or barks. All the small ports of the Don were metamorphosed into dock-yards; twenty-six thousand workmen were assembled there from all parts of the empire. It was like the camp of Boulogne. No misfortune—neither the desertion of the laborers, the burnings of the dock-yards, nor even his own illness—could lessen his activity. Peter was able to write that, "following the advice God gave to Adam, he earned his bread by the sweat of his brow." At last the "marine caravan," the Russian armada, descended the Don. From the slopes of Azov he wrote to his sister Natalia[1]: "In obedience to thy counsels, I do not go to meet the shells and balls; it is they who approach me, but tolerably courteously."

[Footnote 1: His mother died in 1694, his brother Ivan in 1696.]

Azov was blockaded by sea and land, and a breach was opened by the engineers. Preparations were being made for a general assault, when the place capitulated. The joy in Russia was great, and the streltsi's jealousy of the success of foreign tactics gave place to their enthusiasm as Christians for this victory over Islamism, which recalled those of Kazan and Astrakhan. The effect produced on Europe was considerable. At Warsaw the people shouted, "Long live the Czar!" The army entered Moscow under triumphal arches, on which were represented Hercules trampling a pacha and two Turks under foot, and Mars throwing to the earth a mirza and two Tartars. Admiral Lefort and Schein the generalissimo took part in the cortege, seated on magnificent sledges; while Peter, promoted to the rank of captain, followed on foot. Jansen, destined to the gibbet, marched among the prisoners (1696).

Peter wished to profit by this great success to found the naval power of Russia. By the decision of the douma three thousand families were established at Azov, besides four hundred Kalmucks, and a garrison of Moscow streltsi. The patriarch, the prelates, and the monasteries taxed themselves for the construction of one vessel to every eight thousand serfs. The nobles, the officials, and the merchants were seized with the fever of this holy war, and brought their contributions toward the infant navy. It was proposed to unite the Don and the Volga by means of a canal. A new appeal was made to the artisans and sailors of Europe. Fifty young nobles of the court were sent to Venice, England, and the Low Countries to learn seamanship and shipbuilding. But it was necessary that the Czar himself should be able to judge of the science of his subjects; he must counteract Russian indolence and prejudice by the force of a great example; and Peter, after having begun his career in the navy at the rank of "skipper," and in the army at that of bombardier, was to become a carpenter of Saardam. He allowed himself, as a reward for his success at Azov, the much-longed-for journey to the West.

In 1697 Admiral Lefort and Generals Golovine and Vosnitsyne prepared to depart for the countries of the West, under the title of "the great ambassadors of the Czar." Their suite was composed of two hundred seventy persons—young nobles, soldiers, interpreters, merchants, jesters, and buffoons. In the cortege was a young man who went by the name of Peter Mikhailof. This incognito would render the position of the Czar easier, whether in his own personal studies or in delicate negotiations. On the journey to Riga Peter allowed himself to be insulted by the governor, but laid up the recollection for future use. At Koenigsburg the Prussian, Colonel Sternfeld, delivered to "M. Peter Mikhailof" "a formal brevet of master of artillery." The great ambassadors and their travelling companion were cordially received by the courts of Courland, Hanover, and Brandenburg.

Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, afterward Queen of Prussia, has left us some curious notes about the Czar, then twenty-seven years of age. He astonished her by the vivacity of his mind and the promptitude and point of his answers, not less than by the grossness of his manners, his bad habits at table, his wild timidity, like that of a badly brought-up child, his grimaces, and a frightful twitching which at times convulsed his whole face. Peter had then a beautiful brown skin, with great piercing eyes, but his features already bore traces of toil and debauchery. "He must have very good and very bad points," said the young Electress; and in this he represented contemporary Russia. "If he had received a better education," adds the Princess, "he would have been an accomplished man." The suite of the Czar were not less surprising than their master; the Muscovites danced with the court ladies, and took the stiffening of their corsets for their bones. "The bones of these Germans are devilish hard!" said the Czar.

Leaving the great embassy on the road Peter travelled quickly and reached Saardam. The very day of his arrival he took a lodging at a blacksmith's, procured himself a complete costume like those worn by Dutch workmen, and began to wield the axe. He bargained for a boat, bought it, and drank the traditional pint of beer with its owner. He visited cutleries, ropewalks, and other manufactories, and everywhere tried his hand at the work: in a paper manufactory he made some paper. However, in spite of the tradition, he only remained eight days at Saardam. At Amsterdam his eccentricities were no less astonishing. He neither took any rest himself nor allowed others to do so; he exhausted all his ciceroni, always repeating, "I must see it." He inspected the most celebrated anatomical collections; engaged artists, workmen, officers, and engineers; and bought models of ships and collections of naval laws and treaties. He entered familiarly the houses of private individuals, gained the good-will of the Dutch by his bonhomie, penetrated into the recesses of the shops and stalls, and remained lost in admiration over a dentist.

But, amid all these distractions, he never lost sight of his aim. "We labor," he wrote to the patriarch Adrian, "in order thoroughly to master the art of the sea; so that, having once learned it, we may return to Russia and conquer the enemies of Christ, and free by his grace the Christians who are oppressed. This is what I shall long for to my last breath." He was vexed at making so little progress in shipbuilding, but in Holland everyone had to learn by personal experience. A naval captain told him that in England instruction was based on principles, and these he could learn in four months; so Peter crossed the sea, and spent three months in London and the neighboring towns. There he took into his service goldsmiths and gold-beaters, architects and bombardiers. He then returned to Holland, and, his ship being attacked by a violent tempest, he reassured those who trembled for his safety by the remark, "Did you ever hear of a czar of Russia who was drowned in the North Sea?"

Though much occupied with his technical studies, he had not neglected policy; he had conversed with William III, but did not visit France in this tour, for "Louis XIV," says St. Simon, "had procured the postponement of his visit"; the fact being that his alliance with the Emperor and his wars with the Turks were looked on with disfavor at Versailles. He went to Vienna to study the military art, and dissuaded Leopold from making peace with the Sultan. Peter wished to conquer Kertch in order to secure the Straits of Ienikale. He was preparing to go to Venice, when vexatious intelligence reached him from Moscow.

The first reforms of Peter, his first attempts against the national prejudices and customs, had raised him up a crowd of enemies. Old Russia did not allow herself quietly to be set aside by the bold innovator. There was in the interior a sullen and resolute resistance, which sometimes gave birth to bloody scenes. The revolt of the streltsi, the insurrection of Astrakhan, the rebellion of the Cossacks, and later the trial of his son and first wife are only episodes of the great struggle. Already the priests were teaching that Antichrist was born. Now it had been prophesied that Antichrist should be born of an adulteress, and Peter was the son of the second wife of Alexis, therefore his mother Natalia was the "false virgin," the adulterous woman of the prophecies. The increasingly heavy taxes that weighed on the people were another sign that the time had come. Others, disgusted by the taste shown by the Czar for German clothes and foreign languages and adventures, affirmed that he was not the son of Alexis, but of Lefort the Genevan, or that his father was a German surgeon. They were scandalized to see the Czar, like another Gregory Otrepief, expose himself to blows in his military "amusements." The lower orders were indignant at the abolition of the long beards and national costume, and the raskolniks[1] at the authorization of "the sacrilegious smell of tobacco."

[Footnote 1: Dissenters from the orthodox church of Russia (Greek Church).—ED.]

The journey to the west completed the general dissatisfaction. Had anyone ever before seen a czar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in the kingdoms of foreigners? Who knew what adventures might befall him among the niemtsi and the bousourmanes? for the Russian people hardly knew how to distinguish between the Turks and the Germans, and were wholly ignorant of France and England. Under an unknown sky, at the extremity of the world, on the shores of the "ocean sea," what dangers might he not encounter? Then a singular legend was invented about the travels of the Czar. It was said that he went to Stockholm disguised as a merchant, and that the Queen had recognized him and had tried in vain to capture him. According to another version, she had plunged him in a dungeon, and delivered him over to his enemies, who wished to put him in a cask lined with nails and throw him into the sea. He had only been saved by a streletz who had taken his place. Some asserted that Peter was still kept there; and in 1705 the streltsi and raskolniks of Astrakhan still gave out that it was a false czar who had come back to Moscow—the true czar was a prisoner at Stockholm, attached to a stake.

In the midst of this universal disturbance, caused by the absence of Peter, there were certain symptoms peculiarly disquieting. The Muscovite army grew more and more hostile to the new order of things. In 1694 Peter had discovered a fresh conspiracy, having for its object the deliverance of Sophia; and at the very moment of his departure from Russia he had to put down a plot of streltsi and Cossacks headed by Colonel Tsykler. Those of the streltsi who had been sent to form the garrison of Azov pined for their wives, their children, and the trades they had left in Moscow. When in the absence of the Czar they were sent from Azov to the frontiers of Poland, they again began to murmur. "What a fate is ours! It is the boyars who do all the mischief; for three years they have kept us from our homes."

Two hundred deserted and returned to Moscow; but the douma, fearing their presence in the already troubled capital, expelled them by force. They brought back to their regiments a letter of Sophia. "You suffer," she wrote; "later it will become worse. March on Moscow. What is it you wait for? There is no news of the Czar." It was repeated through the army that the Czar had died in foreign lands, and that the boyars wished to put his son Alexis to death. It was necessary to march on Moscow and exterminate the nobles.

The military sedition was complicated by the religious fanaticism of the raskolniks and the demagogic passions of the popular army. Four regiments revolted and deserted. Generals Schein and Gordon, with their regular troops, hastened after them, came up with them on the banks of the Iskra, and tried to persuade them to return to their duty. The streltsi replied by a petition setting forth all their grievances: "Many of them had died during the expedition to Azov, suggested by Lefort, a German, a heretic; they had endured fatiguing marches over burning plains, their only food being bad meat; their strength had been exhausted by severe tasks, and they had been banished to distant garrisons. Moscow was now a prey to all sorts of horrors. Foreigners had introduced the custom of shaving the beard and smoking tobacco. It was said that these niemtsi meant to seize the town. On this rumor, the streltsi had arrived, and also because Romodanovski wished to disperse and put them to the sword without anyone knowing why." A few cannon-shots were sufficient to scatter the rebels. A large number were arrested; torture, the gibbet, and the dungeon awaited the captives.

When Peter hastened home from Vienna he decided that his generals and his douma had been too lenient. He had old grievances against the streltsi; they had been the army of Sophia, in opposition to the army of the Czar; he remembered the invasion of the Kremlin, the massacre of his mother's family, her terrors in Troitsa, and the conspiracies which all but delayed his journey to the west. At the very time that he was travelling in Europe for the benefit of his people, these incorrigible mutineers had forced him to renounce his dearest projects and had stopped him on the road to Venice. He resolved to take advantage of the opportunity by crushing his enemies en masse, and by making the Old Russia feel the weight of a terror that would recall the days of Ivan IV. The long beards had been the standard of revolt—they should fall. On August 26th he ordered all the gentlemen of his court to shave themselves, and himself applied the razor to his great lords. The same day the Red Place was covered with gibbets. The patriarch Adrian tried in vain to appease the anger of the Czar by presenting to him the wonder-working image of the Mother of God. "Why hast thou brought out the holy icon?" exclaimed the Czar. "Retire and restore it to its place. Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as thyself, but know also that it is my duty to protect the people and punish the rebels."

On October 30th there arrived at the Red Place the first instalment of two hundred thirty prisoners: they came in carts, with lighted torches in their hands, nearly all already broken by torture, and followed by their wives and children, who ran behind chanting a funeral wail. Their sentence was read, and they were slain, the Czar ordering several officers to help the executioner. John George Korb, the Austrian agent, who as an eye-witness has left us an authentic account of the executions, heard that five rebel heads had been sent into the dust by blows from an axe wielded by the noblest hand in Russia. The terrible carpenter of Saardam worked and obliged his boyars to work at this horrible employment. Seven other days were employed in this way; a thousand victims were put to death. Some were broken on the wheel, and others died by various modes of torture. The removal of the corpses was forbidden: for five months Moscow had before its eyes the spectacle of the dead bodies hanging from the battlements of the Kremlin and the other ramparts; and for five months the streltsi suspended to the bars of Sophia's prison presented her the petition by which they had entreated her to reign. Two of her confidants were buried alive; she herself, with Eudoxia Lapoukhine, Peter's wife, who had been repudiated for her obstinate attachment to the ancient customs, had their heads shaved and were confined in monasteries. After the revolt of the inhabitants of Astrakhan, who put their waywode to death, the old militia was completely abolished, and the way left clear for the formation of new troops.



%TYRANNY OF ANDROS IN NEW ENGLAND%

THE "BLOODLESS REVOLUTION"

A.D. 1689

CHARLES W. ELLIOT

When the spirit of the English Revolution of 1688 crossed the Atlantic and stirred the New England colonists to throw off the Stuart tyranny represented by Andros, a long step was taken in the development of early American self-government. The Charter Oak tradition, whether or not resting on actual occurrences, correctly typifies the temper of that self-government as it has ever manifested itself in the crises of patriotic development in this country. And the ending of theocratic government, as here recorded of Massachusetts, foreshadowed the further growth of democracy in America.

Sir William Andros, an Englishman, was colonial governor of New York from 1674 to 1681, and of New England, including New York, from 1686 to 1689. His rule "was on the model dear to the heart of his royal master—a harsh despotism, but neither strong nor wise; it was wretched misgovernment and stupid, blundering oppression." What poor success Andros had in his attempt to force such a rule upon people of the English race who had already accustomed themselves to a large measure of independence and self-government Elliott's account briefly but fully shows.

While colonies are poor they are neglected by the parent state; when they are able to pay taxes then she is quite ready to "govern them"; she is willing to appoint various dependents to important offices, and to allow the colonies to pay liberal salaries; she likes also to tax them to the amount of the surplus production which is transferred to the managers in the mother-country. Surprising as this is, it is what many call "government," and is common everywhere. England has been no exception to this, and her practice in New England was of this character till, in the year 1776, the back of the people was so galled that it threw its rider with violence.

At various times attempts had been made to destroy the Massachusetts charter. At the restoration of Charles II, in 1660, the enemies of the Puritans roused themselves. All who scented the breath of liberty in those Western gales—all who had been disappointed of fond hopes in those infant states—all who had felt in New England, too, the iron hand of ecclesiastical tyranny, who chafed in the religious manacles which there, as everywhere else, were imposed upon the minority—all united against them; and in 1664 commissioners were sent over with extraordinary powers. The colony withstood them to the best of its ability; but at last, in 1676, a quo warranto was issued, and judgment was obtained in England against the Massachusetts charter.

In 1683 the quo warranto was brought over by Edward Randolph, who had been appointed collector of the port of Boston in 1681, but had not been allowed to act. He was the "messenger of death" to the hopes of the colony. The deputies refused to appear in England and plead, and judgment was entered up against them at last, in 1685, and the charter was abrogated. Charles died, and the bitter and bigoted James II came to the throne in 1684. The colonists then had rumors that Colonel Kirke, the fiercest hater of the Nonconformists in England, was coming over as governor, which filled them with dread. The colony now seemed to be at the mercy of the churchmen, or, worse than that, of the papists, for such was James. Mr. Rawson, secretary of the colony, about this time wrote, "Our condition is awful."

Mr. Joseph Dudley was appointed governor and acted for a short time, but was succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros, who arrived December 19, 1686, with a commission from James II, to take upon himself the absolute government of all New England. Andros was supposed to be a bigoted papist, and he certainly carried matters with a high hand; the poisoned chalice of religious despotism, which these Pilgrims had commended to the lips of Roger Williams, the Browns, Mrs. Hutchinson, Gorton, Clarke, and the Quakers, was now offered to their own lips, and the draught was bitter.

First, the press was muzzled; then marriage was no longer free. The minister Moody (1684) was imprisoned six months in New Hampshire for refusing to administer the communion to Cranfield and others, according to the manner and form set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. The Congregational ministers were as mere laymen, and danger menaced public worship and the meeting-houses. But this last extremity was saved them by the necessity which James was under of securing the triumph of his church in Protestant England, the first step toward which was the proclamation of religious toleration. This, of course, secured the colonists, and the pilgrims were saved that fearful misery of being driven out from their own cherished altars. Andros carried things with as high a hand in Massachusetts as his master did in England; absolute subjection they both insisted on. Besides the denial of political and religious rights, the practice of arbitrary taxation was asserted by Andros, and all titles to lands were questioned; in the brutal phrase of the time, it was declared that "the calf died in the cow's belly"; that is, having no rights as a state, they had none as individuals; so fees, fines, and expenditures impoverished the people and enriched the officials. All seemed lost in Massachusetts.

Andros went down to Hartford, in Connecticut, with his suite, and with sixty troops took possession of the government there and demanded the charter. Through the day (October 31, 1687) the authorities remonstrated and postponed. When they met Andros again in the evening the people collected, much excited. There seemed no relief. Their palladium, their charter, was demanded, and before them stood Andros, with soldiers and drawn swords, to compel his demand. There was then no hope, and the roll of parchment—the charter, with the great royal seal upon it—was brought forth and laid upon the table, in the midst of the excited people. Suddenly, without warning, all lights were extinguished! There were darkness and silence, followed by wonder, movement, and confusion. What meant this very unparliamentary conduct, or was it a gust of wind which had startled all? Lights were soon obtained, and then—

"Where is the charter?" was the question that went round the assembly.

"What means this?" cried Andros, in anger.

But no man knew where the charter had disappeared to; neither threats nor persuasion brought it to light. What could Andros do? Clearly nothing, for the authorities had done all that could be asked; they had produced the charter in the presence of Andros, and now it had disappeared from his presence. He had come upon a fool's errand, and some sharp Yankee (Captain Wadsworth) had outwitted him. Where was the charter? Safely hidden in the heart of the great oak, at Hartford, on the grounds of Samuel Wyllys. There it remained beyond the reach of tyranny.

The tree known as the "Charter Oak" stood for over a century and a half from that day. The Indians had always prayed that the tree might be spared; they have our thanks.

Andros wrote on the last page of their records, Finis, and disappeared—but that was not the end of Connecticut.

It was a dark time for liberty in New England, and a dark day for liberty in Old England; for there James II and his unscrupulous ministers were corruptly, grossly, and illegally trampling down the rights of manhood. Andros was doing it in New England, and he found in Dudley, Stoughton, Clark, and others, sons of New England, ready feet. In 1688 Randolph writes, "We are as arbitrary as the great Turk"; which seems to have been true. The hearts of the best men in both countries sank within them, and they cried in their discouragement, "O Lord! how long!"

Thus matters stood when, during the spring of 1688-1689, faint rumors of the landing of William, Prince of Orange, in England, came from Virginia. Could this be true? It brought Andros up to Boston (April), where he gave orders to have the soldiers ready against surprise.

Liberty is the most ardent wish of a brave and noble people, and is too often betrayed by confidence in cultivated and designing and timid men. Liberty was the wish of the people of New England; and for the want of brave men then and since then they suffered.

When, on April 4th, John Winslow brought from Virginia the rumor of the English Revolution and the landing of the Prince of Orange, it went through their blood like the electric current, and thrilled from the city along the byways into every home. Men got on their horses and rode onward to the next house to carry the tidings that the popish King was down and William was up, and that there was hope; through town and country the questions were eagerly asked: "Shall we get our old charter? Shall we regain our rights?" "What is there for us to do?" cried the people.

Andros put out a proclamation that all persons should be in readiness to resist the forces of the Prince of Orange should they come. But the old magistrates and leaders silently prayed for his success; the people, less cautious and more determined, said to one another: "Let us do something. Why not act?" and this went from mouth to mouth till their hatred of Andros, and the remembrance to his dastardly oppressions, blazed into a consuming fire.

"On April 18, 1689," wrote an onlooker, "I knew not anything of what was intended until it was begun, yet being at the north end of the town, where I saw boys running along the streets with clubs in their hands encouraging one another to fight, I began to mistrust what was intended, and hasting toward the Town Dock I soon saw men running for their arms; but before I got to the Red Lion I was told that Captain George and the master of the frigate were seized and secured in Mr. Colman's house at the North End; and when I came to the Town Dock I understood that Bullivant and some others were laid hold of, and then immediately the drums began to beat, and the people hastened and ran, some with and some for arms," etc.

So it was begun, no one knew by whom; but men remembered yet their old liberties and were ready to risk something to regain them; they remembered, too, their present tyrants and longed to punish them. But in all this, men of property took no part—they are always timid. It was the "mob" that acted.

Governor Andros was at the fort with some soldiers, and sent for the clergymen to come to him, who declined. The people and train-bands rallied together at the Town House, where old Governor Bradstreet and some other principal men met to consult as to what should be done. The King's frigate in the harbor ran up her flags, and the lieutenant swore he would die before she should be taken, and he opened her ports and ran out her guns; but Captain George (prisoner in Boston) sent him word not to fire a shot, for the people would tear him in pieces if he did. In the afternoon the soldiers and people marched to the fort, took possession of a battery, turned its guns upon the fort and demanded its surrender. They did not wait for its surrender, but stormed in through the portholes, and Captain John Nelson, a Boston merchant, cried out to Andros, "I demand your surrender." Andros was surprised at the anger of an outraged people, and knew not what to do, but at last gave up the fort, and was lodged prisoner in Mr. Usher's house.

The next day he was forced to give up the castle in the harbor, and the guns of the battery from the shore were brought to bear upon the frigate. But the captain prayed that she might not be forced to surrender, because all the officers and crew would lose their wages; so she was dismantled for present security. All through the day people came pouring in from the country, well armed and hot with rage against Andros and his confederates; and the cooler men trembled lest some unnecessary violence might be done; so Captain Fisher, of Dedham, led Andros by the collar of the coat back to the fort for safety.

On the 20th Bradstreet and other leading men met, and formed a kind of provisional council. They carefully abstained from resuming their old charter, partly from fear and partly from doubt, and called upon the towns to send up deputies. When these met, on May 22, 1689, forty out of fifty-four were for "resuming," but a majority of the council opposed it, and time was spent in disputes; but at last the old Governor and magistrates accepted the control of affairs, though they would not consent to resume the charter. Thus the moment for action passed, and the colony lost that chance for reestablishing its old rights.

Rhode Island and Connecticut resumed their charters, which had never been legally vacated. Mr. Threat was obliged to take again the office of governor of Connecticut, when the amazing reports of the revolution and seizure of the Governor in Massachusetts reached them. They issued loyal addresses to William and Mary, in which they said: "Great was that day when the Lord who sitteth upon the floods did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliverance of the English dominions from popery and slavery."

Andros escaped, but was apprehended at Rhode Island, and sent back to Boston, and in February, 1689, with Dudley and some others, he was sent away to England.

Increase Mather, the agent of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with the aid of friends in England, endeavored to gain the restoration of the old charter from King William, but was unsuccessful; a new one was granted (1691), which contained many of the old privileges; but the King would not grant them the power of appointing their own governor; that power was reserved; and appeals from the colony courts to England were allowed. The Governor and the King both had a veto upon all colonial legislation. By it all religions except the Roman Catholic were declared free, and Plymouth was annexed to Massachusetts.

Thus two important elements of a free government were lost to Massachusetts; and powers which had been exercised over fifty years were, for nigh a hundred years, taken away. In Connecticut and Rhode Island they continued to elect their own rulers and to exercise all the powers of government. The new charter was brought over by Sir William Phipps, the new governor appointed by the King, who arrived on May 14, 1692.

Thus ended the rule of the theocracy in Massachusetts, and from this time forward the ministers and church-members possessed no more power than the rest of the people.



%MASSACRE OF LACHINE%

A.D. 1689

FRANCOIS XAVIER GARNEAU

Just after Count Frontenac's first administration of Canada (1672-1682), when the colony of New France was under the rule of De la Barre and his successor, the Marquis de Denonville, Montreal and its immediate vicinity suffered from the most terrible and bloody of all the Indian massacres of the colonial days. The hatred of the Five Nations for the French, stimulated by the British colonists of New York, under its governor, Colonel Dongan, was due to French forays on the Seneca tribes, and to the capture and forwarding to the royal galleys in France of many of the betrayed Iroquois chiefs. At this period the English on the seaboard began to extend their trade into the interior of the continent and to divert commerce from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson. This gave rise to keen rivalries between the two European races, and led the English to take sides with the Iroquois in their enmity to the French. The latter, at Governor Denonville's instigation, sought to settle accounts summarily with the Iroquois, believing that the tribes of the Five Nations could never be conciliated, and that it was well to extirpate them at once. Soon the Governor put his fell purpose into effect. With a force of two thousand men, in a fleet of canoes, he entered the Seneca country by the Genesee River, and for ten days ravaged the Iroquois homes and put many of them cruelly to death. Returning by the Niagara River he erected and garrisoned a fort at its mouth and then withdrew to Quebec. A terrible revenge was taken on the French colonists for these infamous acts, as the following article by M. Garneau shows.

The situation of the colonists of New France during the critical era of M. Denonville's administration was certainly anything but enviable. They literally "dwelt in the midst of alarms," yet their steady courage in facing perils, and their endurance of privations when unavoidable, were worthy of admiration. A lively idea of what they had to resist or to suffer may be found by reading the more particular parts of the Governor's despatches to Paris. For instance, in one of these he wrote in reference to the raids of the Iroquois: "The savages are just so many animals of prey, scattered through a vast forest, whence they are ever ready to issue, to raven and kill in the adjoining countries. After their ravages, to go in pursuit of them is a constant but almost bootless task. They have no settled place whither they can be traced with any certainty; they must be watched everywhere, and long waited for, with fire-arms ready primed. Many of their lurking-places could be reached only by blood-hounds or by other savages as our trackers, but those in our service are few, and the native allies we have are seldom trustworthy; they fear the enemy more than they love us, and they dread, on their own selfish account, to drive the Iroquois to extremity. It has been resolved, in the present strait, to erect a fort in every seigniory, as a place of shelter for helpless people and live-stock, at times when the open country is overrun with ravagers. As matters now stand, the arable grounds lie wide apart, and are so begirt with bush that every thicket around serves as a point for attack by a savage foe; insomuch that an army, broken up into scattered posts, would be needful to protect the cultivators of our cleared lands."[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter to M. Seignelai, August 10, 1688.]

Nevertheless, at one time hopes were entertained that more peaceful times were coming. In effect, negotiations with the Five Nations were recommenced; and the winter of 1687-1688 was passed in goings to and fro between the colonial authorities and the leaders of the Iroquois, with whom several conferences were holden. A correspondence, too, was maintained by the Governor with Colonel Dongan at New York; the latter intimating in one of his letters that he had formed a league of all the Iroquois tribes, and put arms in their hands, to enable them to defend British colonial territory against all comers.

The Iroquois confederation itself sent a deputation to Canada, which was escorted as far as Lake St. Francois by twelve hundred warriors—a significant demonstration enough. The envoys, after having put forward their pretensions with much stateliness and yet more address, said that, nevertheless, their people did not mean to press for all the advantages they had the right and the power to demand. They intimated that they were perfectly aware of the comparative weakness of the colony; that the Iroquois could at any time burn the houses of the inhabitants, pillage their stores, waste their crops, and afterward easily raze the forts. The Governor-general, in reply to these—not quite unfounded—boastings and arrogant assumptions, said that Colonel Dongan claimed the Iroquois as English subjects, and admonished the deputies that, if such were the case, then they must act according to his orders, which would necessarily be pacific, France and England not now being at war; whereupon the deputies responded, as others had done before, that the confederation formed an independent power; that it had always resisted French as well as English supremacy over its subjects; and that the coalesced Iroquois would be neutral, or friends or else enemies to one or both, at discretion; "for we have never been conquered by either of you," they said; adding that, as they held their country immediately from God, they acknowledge no other master.

It did not appear, however, that there was a perfect accordance among the envoys on all points, for the deputies from Onnontaguez, the Onneyouths, and Goyogouins agreed to a truce on conditions proposed by M. Denonville; namely, that all the native allies of the French should be comprehended in the treaty. They undertook that deputies [others than some of those present?] should be sent from the Agniers and Tsonnouthouan cantons, who were then to take part in concluding a treaty; that all hostilities should cease on every side, and that the French should be allowed to revictual, undisturbed, the fort of Cataracoui. The truce having been agreed to on those bases, five of the Iroquois remained (one for each canton), as hostages for its terms being observed faithfully. Notwithstanding this precaution, several roving bands of Iroquois, not advertised, possibly, of what was pending, continued to kill our people, burn their dwellings, and slaughter live-stock in different parts of the colony; for example, at St. Francois, at Sorel, at Contrecoeur, and at St. Ours. These outrages, however, it must be owned, did not long continue, and roving corps of savages, either singly or by concert, drew off from the invaded country and allowed its harassed people a short breathing-time at least.

The native allies of the French, on the other hand, respected the truce little more than the Iroquois. The Abenaquis invaded the Agniers canton, and even penetrated to the English settlements, scalping several persons. The Iroquois of the Sault and of La Montagne did the like; but the Hurons of Michilimackinac, supposed to be those most averse to the war, did all they could, and most successfully, too, to prevent a peace being signed.

While the negotiations were in progress, the "Machiavel of the wilderness," as Raynal designates a Huron chief, bearing the native name of Kondiarak, but better known as Le Rat in the colonial annals, arrived at Frontenac (Kingston), with a chosen band of his tribe, and became a means of complicating yet more the difficulties of the crisis. He was the most enterprising, brave, and best-informed chief in all North America; and, as such, was one courted by the Governor in hopes of his becoming a valuable auxiliary to the French, although at first one of their most formidable enemies. He now came prepared to battle in their favor, and eager to signalize himself in the service of his new masters. The time, however, as we may well suppose, was not opportune, and he was informed that a treaty with the Iroquois being far advanced, and their deputies on the way to Montreal to conclude it, he would give umbrage to the Governor-general of Canada should he persevere in the hostilities he had been already carrying on.

The Rat was taken aback on hearing this to him unwelcome news, but took care to hide his surprise and uttered no complaint. Yet was he mortally offended that the French should have gone so far in the matter without the concert of their native allies, and he at once resolved to punish them, in his own case, for such a marked slight. He set out secretly with his braves, laid an ambuscade near Famine Cove for the approaching deputation of Iroquois, murdered several and made the others his prisoners. Having done so, he secretly gloried in the act, afterward saying that he had "killed the peace." Yet in dealing with the captives he put another and a deceptive face on the matter; for, on courteously questioning them as to the object of their journey, being told that they were peaceful envoys, he affected great wonder, seeing that it was Denonville himself who had sent him on purpose to waylay them!

To give seeming corroboration to his astounding assertions, he set the survivors at liberty, retaining one only to replace one of his men who was killed by the Iroquois in resisting the Hurons' attack. Leaving the deputies to follow what course they thought fit, he hastened with his men to Michilimackinac, where he presented his prisoner to M. Durantaye, who, not as yet officially informed, perhaps, that a truce existed with the Iroquois, consigned him to death, though he gave Durantaye assurance of who he really was; but when the victim appealed to the Rat for confirmation of his being an accredited envoy, that unscrupulous personage told him he must be out of his mind to imagine such a thing! This human sacrifice offered up, the Rat called upon an aged Iroquois, then and long previously a Huron captive, to return to his compatriots and inform them from him that while the French were making a show of peace-seeking, they were, underhand, killing and making prisoners of their native antagonists.

This artifice, a manifestation of the diabolic nature of its author, had too much of the success intended by it, for, although the Governor managed to disculpate himself in the eyes of the more candid-minded Iroquois leaders, yet there were great numbers of the people who could not be disabused, as is usual in such cases, even among civilized races. Nevertheless the enlightened few, who really were tired of the war, agreed to send a second deputation to Canada; but when it was about to set out, a special messenger arrived, sent by Andros, successor of Dongan, enjoining the chiefs of the Iroquois confederation not to treat with the French without the participation of his master, and announcing at the same time that the King of Great Britain had taken the Iroquois nations under his protection. Concurrently with this step, Andros wrote to Denonville that the Iroquois territory was a dependency holden of the British, and that he would not permit its people to treat upon those conditions already proposed by Dongan.

This transaction took place in 1688; but before that year concluded, Andros' "royal master" was himself superseded, and living an exile in France.[1] Whether instructions sent from England previously warranted the polity pursued by Andros or not, his injunctions had the effect of instantly stopping the negotiations with the Iroquois, and prompting them to recommence their vengeful hostilities. War between France and Britain being proclaimed next year, the American colonists of the latter adopted the Iroquois as their especial allies, in the ensuing contests with the people of New France.

[Footnote 1: In 1688 Andros was appointed Governor of New York and New England. The appointment of this tyrant, and the annexation of the colony to the neighboring ones, were measures particularly odious to the people.—ED.]

Andros, meanwhile, who adopted the policy of his predecessor so far as regarded the aborigines if in no other respect, not only fomented the deadly enmity of the Iroquois for the Canadians, but tried to detach the Abenaquis from their alliance with the French, but without effect in their case; for this people honored the countrymen of the missionaries who had made the Gospel known to them, and their nation became a living barrier to New France on that side, which no force sent from New England could surmount; insomuch that the Abenaquis, some time afterward, having crossed the borders of the English possessions, and harassed the remoter colonists, the latter were fain to apply to the Iroquois to enable them to hold their own.

The declaration of Andros, and the armings of the Iroquois, now let loose on many parts of Canada, gave rise to a project as politic, perhaps, as it was daring, and such as communities when in extremity have adopted with good effect; namely, to divert invasion by directly attacking the enemies' neighboring territories. The Chevalier de Callieres, with whom the idea originated, after having suggested to Denonville a plan for making a conquest of the province of New York, set out for France, to bring it under the consideration of the home government, believing that it was the only means left to save Canada to the mother-country.

It was high time, indeed, that the destinies of Canada were confided to other directors than the late and present ones, left as the colony had been, since the departure of M. de Frontenac, in the hands of superannuated or incapable chiefs. Any longer persistency in the policy of its two most recent governors might have irreparably compromised the future existence of the colony. But worse evils were in store for the latter days of the Denonville administration; a period which, take it altogether, was one of the most calamitous which our forefathers passed through.

At the time we have now reached in this history an unexpected as well as unwonted calm pervaded the country, yet the Governor had been positively informed that a desolating inroad by the collective Iroquois had been arranged, and that its advent was imminent; but as no precursive signs of it appeared anywhere to the general eyes, it was hoped that the storm, said to be ready to burst, might yet be evaded. None being able to account for the seeming inaction of the Iroquois, the Governor applied to the Jesuits for their opinion on the subject. The latter expressed their belief that those who had brought intelligence of the evil intention of the confederacy had been misinformed as to facts, or else exaggerated sinister probabilities. The prevailing calm was therefore dangerous as well as deceitful, for it tended to slacken preparations which ought to have been made to lessen the apprehensions of coming events which threw no shadow before.

The winter and the spring of the year 1688-1689 had been passed in an unusually tranquil manner, and the summer was pretty well advanced when the storm, long pent up, suddenly fell on the beautiful island of Montreal, the garden of Canada. During the night of August 5th, amid a storm of hail and rain, fourteen hundred Iroquois traversed Lake St. Louis, and disembarked silently on the upper strand of that island. Before daybreak next morning the invaders had taken their station at Lachine in platoons around every considerable house within a radius of several leagues. The inmates were buried in sleep—soon to be the dreamless sleep that knows no waking, for too many of them.

The Iroquois wait only for the signal from their leaders to fall on. It is given. In short space the doors and the windows of the dwellings are driven in; the sleepers dragged from their beds; men, women, children all struggling in the hands of their butchers. Such houses as the savages cannot force their way into, they fire; and as the flames reach the persons of those within, intolerable pain drives them forth to meet death beyond the threshold, from beings who know no pity. The more fiendish murderers even forced parents to throw their children into the flames. Two hundred persons were burned alive; others died under prolonged tortures. Many were reserved to perish similarly, at a future time. The fair island upon which the sun shone brightly erewhile, was lighted up by fires of woe; houses, plantations, and crops were reduced to ashes, while the ground reeked with blood up to a line a short league apart from Montreal city. The ravagers crossed to the opposite shore, the desolation behind them being complete, and forthwith the parish of Le Chenaie was wasted by fire and many of its people massacred.

The colonists for many leagues around the devoted region seem to have been actually paralyzed by the brain-blow thus dealt their compatriots by the relentless savages, as no one seems to have moved a step to arrest their course; for they were left in undisturbed possession of the country during several weeks. On hearing of the invasion, Denonville lost his self-possession altogether. When numbers of the colonists, recovering from their stupor, came up armed desiring to be led against the murderers of their countrymen, he sent them back or forbade them to stir! Several opportunities presented themselves for disposing of parties of the barbarians, when reckless from drink after their orgies, or when roving about in scattered parties feeble in number; but the Governor-general's positive orders to refrain from attacking them withheld the uplifted hand from striking.

In face of a prohibition so authoritative, the soldiers and the inhabitants alike could only look on and wait till the savages should find it convenient to retire. Some small skirmishing, indeed, there was at a few distant points between the people and their invaders. Thus a party of men, partly French and partly natives, led by Larobeyre, an ex-lieutenant, on the way to reenforce Fort Roland, where Chevalier de Vaudreuil commanded, were set upon and all killed or dispersed. More than half of the prisoners taken were burned by their conquerors. Larobeyre, being wounded and not able to fire, was led captive by the Iroquois to their country, and roasted at a slow fire in presence of the assembled tribe of his captors. Meantime the resistance to the barbarians being little or none in the regions they overran, they slew most of the inhabitants they met in their passage; while their course was marked, wherever they went, by lines of flame.

Their bands moved rapidly from one devoted tract to another; yet wherever they had to face concerted resistance—which in some cases, at least, put a fitting obstacle in the way of their intended ravagings—they turned aside and sought an easier prey elsewhere. In brief, during ten entire weeks or more, did they wreak their wrath, almost unchecked, upon the fairest region of Canada, and did not retire thence till about mid-October.

The Governor-General having sent a party of observation to assure himself of the enemy having decamped, this detachment observed a canoe on the Lake of the Two Mountains, bearing twenty-two of the retiring Iroquois. The Canadians, who were of about the same number, embarked in two boats and, nearing the savages, coolly received their fire; but in returning the discharge, each singled out his man, when eighteen of the Iroquois were at once laid low.

However difficult it may have been to put the people of a partially cleared country, surrounded with forests, on their guard against such an irruption as the foregoing, it is difficult to account for their total unpreparedness without imputing serious blame to Denonville and his subalterns in office. That he exercised no proper influence, in the first place, was evident, and the small use he made of the means he had at his disposal when the crisis arrived was really something to marvel at. He was plainly unequal to the occasion, and his incapacity in every particular made it quite impossible for his presence, as chief of the colony, to be endured any longer. There is little doubt that had he not been soon recalled by royal order, the colonists themselves would have set him aside. The latter season of his inglorious administration took the lugubrious name "the Year of the Massacre."[1]

[Footnote 1: The Five Nations, being at war with the French, made a sudden descent on Montreal, burned and sacked the town, killed one hundred of the inhabitants, carrying away a number of prisoners whom they burned alive, and then returned to their own country with the loss of only a few of their number. Had the English followed up the success of their allies, all Canada might have been easily conquered.—ED.]

The man appointed through a happy inspiration to supersede M. de Denonville had now reached the Lower Canadian waters. He was no other than the Count de Frontenac. It appears that the King, willing to cover, with a handsome pretext, the recall of Denonville, in a letter dated May 31st, advertised him that, war having been rekindled in Europe, his military talents would be of the greatest use in home service. By this time De Frontenac was called to give counsel regarding the projects of the Chevalier de Callieres, and assist in preparing the way for their realization if considered feasible. Meanwhile he undertook to resume his duties as governor-general of New France; but a series of events delayed his arrival in Canada till the autumn of 1689.

He landed at Quebec on October 18th, at 8 P.M., accompanied by De Callieres, amid the heartiest demonstrations of popular welcome. The public functionaries and armed citizens in waiting, with torch-bearers, escorted him through the city, which was spontaneously illuminated, to his quarters. His return was hailed by all, but by none more than the Jesuits, who had, in fact for years before, labored to obtain his recall. The nobles, the merchants, the business class, gave him so hearty a reception as to convince him that real talent such as his must in the end rise superior to all the conjoined efforts of faction, public prejudices, and the evil passions of inferior minds.

War was declared against Britain in the month of June. M. de Frontenac, on resuming the reins of government, had to contend both against the Anglo-American colonies and the Five Nations. His energy and skill, however, overcame all obstacles; the war was most glorious for the Canadians, so few in number compared with their adversaries; and far from succumbing to their enemies, they carried the war into the adversaries' camp and struck at the heart of their most remote possessions.



%SIEGE OF LONDONDERRY AND BATTLE OF THE BOYNE%

A.D. 1689-1690

TOBIAS G. SMOLLETT

Londonderry, capital of the county of the same name in Ireland, is a city of historic celebrity by reason of the successful defence there made (April-August, 1689) by the Irish Protestants against the besieging forces of James II. The battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690) is of less importance in a military sense than for the reason that it virtually ended the war which James II carried into Ireland in his unsuccessful attempt to regain his throne from William and Mary. On account of this result, and still more by reason of the hereditary antagonisms which have so long survived it, this battle still retains a peculiar fame in history.

In Ireland, where the Roman Catholics were numerous, there was strong opposition to the government of William and Mary. The fugitive James II had supporters who controlled the Irish army. Some resistance was made by the English and Scotch colonists in Ireland, but little head was made against the Catholic party, which supported James, until William entered the country with his forces.

In the following narrative Smollett speaks of an "intended massacre" of the Protestants at Londonderry. The people of that city were of Anglo-Saxon blood. Although belonging to various Protestant churches, they were united in their hostility to the Irish and to the Catholic faith. They were alarmed at the close of 1688 by rumors of a plan for their own extirpation by the papists. News of the approach of the Earl of Antrim with a regiment, under orders from the Lord Deputy, filled the city with consternation. What followed there is graphically told in the words of the historian. A better account of a military action than that which Smollett gives of the Battle of the Boyne it would be hard to find.

On the first alarm of an intended massacre, the Protestants of Londonderry had shut their gates against the regiment commanded by the Earl of Antrim, and resolved to defend themselves against the Lord Deputy; they transmitted this resolution to the Government of England, together with an account of the danger they incurred by such a vigorous measure, and implored immediate assistance; they were accordingly supplied with some arms and ammunition, but did not receive any considerable reenforcement till the middle of April, when two regiments arrived at Loughfoyl under the command of Cunningham and Richards.

By this time King James had taken Coleraine, invested Kilmore, and was almost in sight of Londonderry. George Walker, rector of Donaghmore, who had raised a regiment for the defence of the Protestants, conveyed this intelligence to Lundy, the governor; this officer directed him to join Colonel Crafton, and take post at the Longcausey, which he maintained a whole night against the advanced guard of the enemy, until, being overpowered by numbers, he retreated to Londonderry and exhorted the governor to take the field, as the army of King James was not yet completely formed. Lundy assembling a council of war, at which Cunningham and Richards assisted, they agreed that as the place was not tenable, it would be imprudent to land the two regiments; and that the principal officers should withdraw themselves from Londonderry, the inhabitants of which would obtain the more favorable capitulation in consequence of their retreat; an officer was immediately despatched to King James with proposals of a negotiation; and Lieutenant-general Hamilton agreed that the army should halt at the distance of four miles from the town.

Notwithstanding this preliminary, James advanced at the head of his troops, but met with such a warm reception from the besieged that he was fain to retire to St. John's Town in some disorder. The inhabitants and soldiers in garrison at Londonderry were so incensed at the members of the council of war who had resolved to abandon the place that they threatened immediate vengeance. Cunningham and Richards retired to their ships, and Lundy locked himself in his chamber. In vain did Walker and Major Baker exhort him to maintain his government; such was his cowardice or treachery that he absolutely refused to be concerned in the defence of the place, and he was suffered to escape in disguise, with a load of matches on his back; but he was afterward apprehended in Scotland, from whence he was sent to London to answer for his perfidy or misconduct.

After his retreat the townsmen chose Mr. Walker and Major Baker for their governors with joint authority; but this office they would not undertake until it had been offered to Colonel Cunningham, as the officer next in command to Lundy; he rejected the proposal, and with Richards returned to England, where they were immediately cashiered. The two new governors, thus abandoned to their fate, began to prepare for a vigorous defence: indeed their courage seems to have transcended the bounds of discretion, for the place was very ill-fortified; their cannon, which did not exceed twenty pieces, were wretchedly mounted; they had not one engineer to direct their operations; they had a very small number of horse; the garrison consisted of people unacquainted with military discipline; they were destitute of provisions; they were besieged by a king, in person, at the head of a formidable army, directed by good officers, and supplied with all the necessary implements for a siege or battle.

The town was invested on April 20th; the batteries were soon opened, and several attacks were made with great impetuosity, but the besiegers were always repulsed with considerable loss; the townsmen gained divers advantages in repeated sallies, and would have held their enemies in the utmost contempt had they not been afflicted with a contagious distemper, as well as reduced to extremity by want of provisions; they were even tantalized in their distress, for they had the mortification to see some ships, which had arrived with supplies from England, prevented from sailing up the river by the batteries the enemy had raised on both sides, and a boom with which they had blocked up the channel.

At length a reenforcement arrived in the Lough, under the command of General Kirke, who had deserted his master, and been employed in the service of King William. He found means to convey intelligence to Walker that he had troops and provisions on board for their relief, but found it impracticable to sail up the river. He promised, however, that he would land a body of forces at the Inch, and endeavor to make a diversion in their favor, when joined by the troops at Inniskillen, which amounted to five thousand men, including two thousand cavalry. He said he expected six thousand men from England, where they were embarked before he set sail; he exhorted them to persevere in their courage and loyalty, and assured them that he would come to their relief at all hazards. The assurances enabled them to bear their miseries a little longer, though their numbers daily diminished. Major Baker dying, his place was filled by Colonel Michelburn, who now acted as colleague to Mr. Walker.

King James having returned to Dublin to be present at the Parliament, the command of his army devolved to the French general, Rosene,[1] who was exasperated by such an obstinate opposition by a handful of half-starved militia. He threatened to raze the town to its foundations and destroy the inhabitants without distinction of age or sex unless they would immediately submit themselves to their lawful sovereign. The governors treated his menaces with contempt, and published an order that no person, on pain of death, should talk of surrendering. They had now consumed the last remains of their provisions, and supported life by eating the flesh of horses, dogs, cats, rats, mice, and tallow, starch, and salted hides; and even this loathsome food began to fail. Rosene, finding them deaf to all his proposals, threatened to wreak his vengeance on all the Protestants of that county and drive them under the walls of Londonderry, where they should be suffered to perish by famine. The Bishop of Meath being informed of this design, complained to King James of the barbarous intention, entreating his majesty to prevent its being put into execution; that Prince assured him that he had already ordered Rosene to desist from such proceedings; nevertheless, the Frenchman executed his threats with the utmost rigor.

[Footnote 1: James was assisted in his attempt by a small body of French troops, England having entered the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.—ED.]

Parties of dragoons were detached on this cruel service. After having stripped all the Protestants for thirty miles round, they drove these unhappy people before them like cattle, without even sparing the enfeebled old men, nurses with infants at their breasts, and tender children. About four thousand of these miserable objects were driven under the walls of Londonderry. This expedient, far from answering the purpose of Rosene, produced a quite contrary effect. The besieged were so exasperated at this act of inhumanity that they resolved to perish rather than submit to such a barbarian. They erected a gibbet in sight of the enemy, and sent a message to the French general importing that they would hang all the prisoners they had taken during the siege unless the Protestants whom they had driven under the walls should be immediately dismissed. This threat produced a negotiation, in consequence of which the Protestants were released after they had been detained three days without tasting food. Some hundreds died of famine or fatigue; and those who lived to return to their own habitations found them plundered and sacked by the papists, so that the greater number perished for want, or were murdered by straggling parties of the enemy. Yet these very people had for the most part obtained protection from King James, to which no respect was paid by his general.

The garrison of Londonderry was now reduced from seven thousand to five thousand seven hundred men, and these were driven to such extremity of distress that they began to talk of killing the popish inhabitants and feeding on their bodies. Kirke, who had hitherto lain inactive, ordered two ships laden with provisions to sail up the river, under convoy of the Dartmouth (frigate); one of these, called the Mountjoy, broke the enemy's boom, and all the three—after having sustained a very hot fire from both sides of the river—arrived in safety at the town, to the inexpressible joy of the inhabitants.

The army of James was so dispirited by the success of this enterprise that they abandoned the siege in the night, and retired with precipitation, after having lost about nine thousand men before the place. Kirke no sooner took possession of the town than Walker was prevailed upon to embark for England, with an address of thanks from the inhabitants to their majesties for the seasonable relief they had received.

King James trusted so much to the disputes in the English Parliament that he did not believe his son-in-law would be able to quit that kingdom, and William had been six days in Ireland before he received intimation of his arrival. This was no sooner known than he left Dublin under the guard of the militia, commanded by Luttrel, and, with a reenforcement of six thousand infantry which he had lately received from France, joined the rest of his forces, which now almost equalled William's army in number, exclusive of about fifteen thousand men who remained in different garrisons. He occupied a very advantageous post on the bank of the Boyne, and, contrary to the advice of his general officers, resolved to stand battle. They proposed to strengthen their garrisons, and retire to the Shannon, to wait the effect of the operations at sea.

Louis had promised to equip a powerful armament against the English fleet, and send over a great number of small frigates to destroy William's transports, as soon as their convoy should be returned to England; the execution of this scheme was not at all difficult, and must have proved fatal to the English army, for their stores and ammunition were still on board; the ships sailed along the coast as the troops advanced in their march; and there was not one secure harbor into which they could retire on any emergency. James, however, was bent on hazarding an engagement, and expressed uncommon confidence and alacrity. Besides the river, which was deep, his front was secured by a morass and a rising ground; so that the English army could not attack him without manifest disadvantage.

King William marched up to the opposite bank of the river, and as he reconnoitred their situation was exposed to the fire of some field-pieces, which the enemy purposely planted against his person. They killed a man and two horses close by him, and the second bullet rebounding from the earth, grazed on his right shoulder, so as to carry off part of his clothes and skin and produce a considerable contusion. This accident, which he bore without the least emotion, created some confusion among his attendants, which, the enemy perceiving, concluded he was killed, and shouted aloud in token of their joy; the whole camp resounded with acclamation, and several squadrons of their horse were drawn down toward the river as if they intended to pass it immediately and attack the English army. The report was instantly communicated from place to place until it reached Dublin; from thence it was conveyed to Paris, where, contrary to the custom of the French court, the people were encouraged to celebrate the event with bonfires and illuminations.

William rode along the line to show himself to the army after this narrow escape. At night he called a council of war, and declared his resolution to attack the enemy in the morning. Schomberg[1] at first opposed his design, but, finding the King determined, he advised that a strong detachment of horse and foot should that night pass the Boyne at Slane bridge and take post between the enemy and the pass at Duleck, that the action might be the more decisive; this counsel being rejected, the King determined that early in the morning Lieutenant-general Douglas with the right wing of the infantry, and young Schomberg with the horse, should pass at Slane bridge, while the main body of the foot should force their passage at Old bridge, and the left at certain fords between the enemy's camp and Drogheda. The Duke, perceiving that his advice was not relished by the Dutch generals, retired to his tent, where, the order of battle being brought to him, he received it with an air of discontent, saying it was the first that had ever been sent to him in that manner. The proper dispositions being made, William rode quite through the army by torchlight, and then retired to his tent after having given orders to his soldiers to distinguish themselves from the enemy by wearing green boughs in their hats during the action.

[Footnote 1: The Duke of Schomberg, who commanded for William, had accompanied him to England in 1688. The Duke is further spoken of below. "Young Schomberg" was his son.—ED.]

At six o'clock in the morning, General Douglas, with young Schomberg, the Earl of Portland, and Auverquerque, marched to Slane bridge, and passed the river with very little opposition. When they reached the farther bank they perceived the enemy drawn up in two lines, to a considerable number of horse and foot, with a morass in their front, so that Douglas was obliged to wait for reinforcements. This being arrived, the infantry was led on to the charge through the morass, while Count Schomberg rode round it with his cavalry, to attack the enemy in flank. The Irish, instead of waiting the assault, faced about, and retreated toward Duleck with some precipitation; yet not so fast but that Schomberg fell in among their rear, and did considerable execution. King James, however, soon reenforced his left wing from the centre; and the Count was in his turn obliged to send for assistance.

At this juncture King William's main body, consisting of the Dutch guards, the French regiments,[1] and some battalions of English, passed the river, which was waist-high, under a general discharge of artillery. King James had imprudently removed his cannon from the other side; but he had posted a strong body of musketeers along the bank, behind hedges, houses, and some works raised for the occasion; these poured in a close fire on the English troops before they reached the shore; but it produced very little effect. Then the Irish gave way, and some battalions landed without further opposition; yet before they could form, they were charged with great impetuosity by a squadron of the enemy's horse, and a considerable body of their cavalry and foot, commanded by General Hamilton, advanced from behind some little hillocks to attack those that were landed as well as to prevent the rest from reaching the shore; his infantry turned their backs and fled immediately; but the horse charged with incredible fury, both on the bank and in the river, so as to put the unformed regiments in confusion.

[Footnote 1: French Protestants or Huguenots.—ED.]

Then the Duke of Schomberg passed the river in person, put himself at the head of the French Protestants, and pointing to the enemy, "Gentlemen," said he, "those are your persecutors." With these words he advanced to the attack, where he himself sustained a violent onset from a party of the Irish horse, which had broken through one of the regiments and were now on their return. They were mistaken for English, and allowed to gallop up to the Duke, who received two severe wounds in the head; but the French troops, now sensible of their mistake, rashly threw in their fire on the Irish while they were engaged with the Duke, and, instead of saving, shot him dead on the spot.

The death of this general had wellnigh proved fatal to the English army, which was immediately involved in tumult and disorder; while the infantry of King James rallied and returned to their posts with a face of resolution. They were just ready to fall on the centre when King William, having passed with the left wing, composed of the Danish, Dutch, and Inniskillen horse, advanced to attack them on the right: they were struck with such a panic at his appearance that they made a sudden halt, and then facing about retreated to the village of Dunmore. There they made such a vigorous stand that the Dutch and Danish horse, though headed by the King in person, recoiled; even the Inniskillens gave way, and the whole wing would have been routed had not a detachment of dragoons, belonging to the regiment of Cunningham and Levison, dismounted and lined the hedges on each side of the ditch through which the fugitives were driven; there they did such execution on the pursuers as soon checked their ardor. The horse, which were broken, had now time to rally, and, returning to the charge, drove the enemy before them in their turn.

In this action General Hamilton, who had been the life and soul of the Irish during the whole engagement, was wounded and taken, an incident which discouraged them to such a degree that they made no further efforts to retrieve the advantage they had lost. He was immediately brought to the King, who asked him if he thought the Irish would make any further resistance, and he replied, "On my honor I believe they will, for they have still a good body of horse entire." William, eying him with a look of disdain, repeated, "Your honor, your honor!" but took no other notice of his having acted contrary to his engagement, when he was permitted to go to Ireland on promise of persuading Tyrconnel to submit to the new government. The Irish now abandoned the field with precipitation; but the French and Swiss troops, that acted as their auxiliaries under De Lauzun, retreated in good order, after having maintained the battle for some time with intrepidity and perseverance.

As King William did not think proper to pursue the enemy, the carnage was not great; the Irish lost a thousand five hundred men and the English about one-third of that number; though the victory was dearly purchased, considering the death of the gallant Duke of Schomberg, who fell, in the eighty-second year of his age, after having rivalled the best generals of that time in military reputation. He was the descendant of a noble family, in the Palatinate, and his mother was an Englishwoman, daughter of Lord Dudley. Being obliged to leave his country on account of the troubles by which it was agitated, he commenced a soldier of fortune, and served successively in the armies of Holland, England, France, Portugal, and Brandenburg; he attained to the dignity of mareschal in France, grandee in Portugal, generalissimo in Prussia, and duke in England. He professed the Protestant religion; was courteous and humble in his deportment; cool, penetrating, resolute, and sagacious, nor was his probity inferior to his courage.