[78] The Memoirs of Peter the Great, by the pretended boyard Iwan
Nestesuranoy, printed at Amsterdam, in 1730, say, that the king of
Sweden, before he passed the Boristhenes, sent a general officer with
proposals of peace to the czar. The four volumes of these Memoirs are
either a collection of untruths and absurdities, or compilations from
common newspapers.
[79] This fact is likewise found in a letter, printed before the
Anecdotes of Russia, p. 23.
[80] La Motraye, in the relation of his travels, quotes a letter from
Charles XII. to the grand vizier; but this letter is false, as are most
of the relations of that mercenary writer; and Norberg himself
acknowledges that the king of Sweden never could be prevailed on to
write to the grand vizier.
[81] The czar, says the preface to lord Whitworth's account of Russia,
who had been absolute enough to civilize savages, had no idea, could
conceive none, of the privileges of a nation civilized in the only
rational manner by laws and liberties. He demanded immediate and severe
punishment of the offenders: he demanded it of a princess, whom he
thought interested, to assert the sacredness of the persons of monarchs,
even in their representatives; and he demanded it with threats of
wreaking his vengeance on all English merchants and subjects established
in his dominions. In this light the menaces were formidable; otherwise,
happily, the rights of the whole people were more sacred here than the
persons of foreign ministers. The czar's memorials urged the queen with
the satisfaction which she herself had extorted, when only the boat and
servants of the earl of Manchester had been insulted at Venice. That
state had broken through the fundamental laws, to content the queen of
Great Britain. How noble a picture of government, when a monarch, that
can force another nation to infringe its constitution, dare not violate
his own? One may imagine with what difficulty our secretaries of state
must have laboured through all the ambages of phrase in English, French,
German, and Russ, to explain to Muscovite ears and Muscovite
understandings, the meaning of indictments, pleadings, precedents,
juries, and verdicts; and how impatiently Peter must have listened to
promises of a hearing next term? With what astonishment must he have
beheld a great queen, engaging to endeavour to prevail on her parliament
to pass an act to prevent any such outrage for the future? What honour
does it not reflect on the memory of that princess to own to an
arbitrary emperor, that even to appease him she dare not put the meanest
of her subjects to death uncondemned by law!--There are, says she, in
one of her dispatches to him, insuperable difficulties, with respect to
the ancient and fundamental laws of the government of our people; which
we fear do not permit so severe and rigorous a sentence to be given, as
your imperial majesty at first seemed to expect in this case; and we