In order to give Peter a favorable opportunity to see the fleet at

Spithead, the King of England commissioned the admiral in command of

the navy to accompany him to Portsmouth, and to put the fleet to sea,

with the view of exhibiting a mock naval engagement in the Channel.

Nothing could exceed the pleasure which this spectacle afforded to the

Czar. He expressed his admiration of it in the most glowing terms, and

said that he verily believed that an admiral of the English fleet was a

happier man than the Czar of Muscovy.

At length, when the time arrived for Peter to set out on his return to

his own dominions, the King of England made him a present of a

beautiful yacht, which had been built for his own use in his voyages

between England and Holland. The name of the yacht was the Royal

Transport. It was an armed vessel, carrying twenty-four guns, and was

well-built, and richly finished and furnished in every respect. The

Czar set sail from England in this yacht, taking with him the

companions that he had brought with him into England, and also a

considerable number of the persons whom he had engaged to enter into

his service in Russia. Some of these persons were to be employed in

the building of ships, and others in the construction of a canal to

connect the River Don with the River Wolga. The Don flows into the

Black and the Wolga into the Caspian Sea, and the object of the canal

was to allow Peter's vessels to pass from one sea into the other at

pleasure. As soon as the canal should be opened, ships could be built

on either river for use in either sea.

The persons who had been engaged for these various purposes were

promised, of course, very large rewards to induce them to leave their

country. Many of them afterward had occasion bitterly to regret their

having entered the service of such a master. They complained that,

after their arrival in Russia, Peter treated them in a very unjust and

arbitrary manner. They were held as prisoners more than as salaried

workmen, being very closely watched and guarded to prevent their making

their escape and going back to their own country before finishing what

Peter wished them to do. Then, a large portion of their pay was kept

back, on the plea that it was necessary for the emperor to have

security in his own hands for their fidelity in the performance of

their work, and for their remaining at their posts until their work was

done. There was one gentleman in particular, a Scotch mathematician

and engineer, who had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, that

complained of the treatment which he received in a full and formal

protest, which he addressed to Peter in writing, and which is still on

record. He makes out a very strong case in respect to the injustice

with which he was treated.

But, however disappointed these gentlemen may have been in the end,

they left England in the emperor's beautiful yacht, much elated with

the honor they had received in being selected by such a potentate for

the execution of important trusts in a distant land, and with high

anticipations of the fame and fortune which they expected to acquire

before the time should arrive for them to return to their own country.

From England the yacht sailed to Holland, where Peter disembarked, in

order to join the embassy and accompany them in their visits to some

other courts in Central Europe before returning home.

He first went to Vienna. He still nominally preserved his incognito;

but the Emperor Leopold, who was at that time the Emperor of Germany,

gave him a very peculiar sort of reception. He came out to the door of

his antechamber to meet Peter at the head of a certain back staircase

communicating with the apartment, which was intended for his own

private use. Peter was accompanied by General Le Fort, the chief

embassador, at this interview, and he was conducted up the staircase by

two grand officers of the Austrian court--the grand chamberlain and the

grand equerry. After the two potentates had been introduced to each

other, the emperor, who had taken off his hat to bow to the Czar, put