If he made this confession of his own accord, it shews that he must have been ignorant of the mild advice the body of clergy, whom he thus accuses, had lately given his father; and it is a still stronger proof, how great a change the czar had wrought in the manners of the clergy of his time, who, from a state of the most deplorable ignorance, were in so short a time become capable of drawing up a writing, which for its wisdom and eloquence might have been owned, without a blush, by the most illustrious fathers of the church. It is in this last confession that the czarowitz made that declaration on which we have already commented, viz. that he endeavoured to secure to himself the succession by any means whatever, except such as were just. One would imagine, by this last confession, that the prince was apprehensive he had not rendered himself sufficiently criminal in the eyes of his judges, by his former self-accusations, and that, by giving himself the character of a dissembler and a bad man, and supposing how he might have acted had he been the master, he was carefully studying how to justify the fatal sentence which was about to be pronounced against him, and which was done on the 5th of July. This sentence will be found, at length, at the end of this volume; therefore, we shall only observe in this place that it begins, like the opinion of the clergy, by declaring, that 'it belongs not to subjects to take cognizance of such an affair, which depends solely on the absolute will of the sovereign, whose authority is derived from God alone;' and then, after having set forth the several articles of the charge brought against the prince, the judges express themselves thus: 'What shall we think of a rebellious design, almost unparalleled in history, joined to that of a horrid parricide against him, who was his father in a double capacity?' Probably these words have been wrong translated from the trial printed by order of the czar; for certainly there have been instances in history of much greater rebellions; and no part of the proceedings against the czarowitz discover any design in him of killing his father. Perhaps, by the word parricide, is understood the deposition made by the prince, that one day he declared at confession, that he had wished for the death of his father. But, how can a private declaration of a secret thought, under the seal of confession, be a double parricide? Be this as it may, the czarowitz was unanimously condemned to die, but no mention was made in the sentence of the manner in which he was to suffer. Of one hundred and forty-four judges, there was not one who thought of a lesser punishment than death. Whereas, an English tract, which made a great noise at that time, observes, that if such a cause had been brought before an English parliament, there would not have been one judge out of one hundred and forty-four, that would have inflicted even a penalty.