Kings must instruct their subjects, parents their children, how to obtain knowledge. The time has come for our nation to be instructed in various branches, for God has in His mercy and kindness uplifted through Russia a Slavic kingdom to glory, power and majesty, such as for splendour has never existed before among us. We observe with other nations that as soon as a kingdom rises to higher importance, the sciences and arts at once begin to flourish among them. We, too, must learn, for under the honoured rule of the Righteous Tsar and Great King Alexis Mikháylovich we have an opportunity to wipe off the mould of our ancient barbarism, to acquire various sciences, to adopt a better organisation of society, and to reach a higher well-being. ON FOREIGNERS We are not possessed of an innate vivacity, nor praiseworthy national characteristics, nor sincerity of heart. For people who have such pride do not allow foreigners to command them, except by force, whereas our nation of its own free will invites foreigners to come to its country. Not one people under the sun has since the beginning of the world been so abused and disgraced by foreigners as we Slavs have been by the Germans. Our whole Slavic nation has been subject to this kind of treatment; everywhere we have upon our shoulders Germans, Jews, Scotchmen, Gypsies, Armenians, Greeks and merchants of other nationalities, who suck our blood. In Russia you will see nowhere any wealth, except in the Tsar’s treasury; everywhere there is dire, bare poverty. Grigóri Kotoshíkhin. (1630-1667.) Grigóri Kotoshíkhin was a clerk, and later a scribe (_podyáchi_) in the Department of Legations, a kind of Foreign Office. He had been frequently employed as an ambassador in connection with various treaties between Russia and Sweden and Poland. While at Moscow, he had been guilty of some dishonesty to his own country by giving certain secrets of State to the Swedish ambassador; but that was an offence not uncommon at Moscow, where patriotism was seldom of a disinterested character. In 1664 he was sent out with the Russian army that was then operating against Poland. Shortly after, its two generals, Cherkásski and Prozoróvski, were recalled, and Dolgorúki was sent in their place. The latter tried to get Kotoshíkhin’s aid in denouncing his two predecessors for traitorous actions, but Kotoshíkhin refused. Fearing the wrath of Dolgorúki, he fled, first to Poland, and then, through Prussia and Lubeck, to Sweden. He settled in Stockholm, where he was employed in a semi-official capacity in the Foreign Office. In a fit of intoxication he killed his host, who was the official Russian translator of Sweden, and for this crime he was beheaded.