his approach; and had he boldly marched upon the capital, the probability is that it must have succumbed, and the imperial power would have been completely overthrown. He established a court, adopted the insignia of the empire, conferred patents of nobility, and issued gold, silver, and copper coins, bearing his image, and the inscription: "Peter the Third, Emperor of all the Russias." But as the adventurer became powerful, he cast off the mask, and dissipated the confidence of his followers by his debauchery and contempt for religious observances. His natural ferocity, no longer under curb, was exercised upon his opponents, whom he mercilessly massacred without respect to sex or age. Catherine and her advisers, no longer able to treat this rebellion as the marauding expedition of a gang of robbers, were compelled to make the most strenuous efforts to meet the impostor's forces. An army of veterans, chiefly recalled from the Turkish campaign (then being prosecuted), and numbering forty-five thousand men, aided by a formidable train of artillery, took the field under the command of an experienced general. Proclamations were issued, offering a pardon to all who returned to their allegiance, and proffering a reward of one hundred thousand silver roubles for the person of Pugatchef, alive or dead. The pretender, in return, circulated manifestoes, in which he abolished servitude, freed unconditionally all the serfs, and created them proprietors of the soil which they tilled. This was an attack upon the empire's weakest point; and had the insurgent leader been as prudent as he was daring, he might easily have overturned the existing government.