from heaven might wash away the foulness of his sins, which were as many as the drops falling from the clouds." These are singular records of men who, in their day of power and pride, headed many a foray from the lines of Perekop, and made Moscow, Warsaw, Buda, and Vienna tremble.

187

CHAP. VII.

THE RUSSIAN BATTLE FOR THE BLACK SEA.

EARLY ATTEMPTS AGAINST THE CRIMEA.

MAZEPPA. PETER THE GREAT. CHARLES XII. AND THE ZAPOROGIANS. DEVLET GHERAI. PEACE OF THE PRUTH. RUSSIAN PRETENSIONS TO THE KABARDAHS. FIRST INVASION OF THE CRIMEA. CAPTURE OF PEREKOP. SUBSEQUENT INROADS. MARSHALS MUNICH AND LACY. OTHER FOREIGN OFFICERS EMPLOYED. -WAR

OF

UKRAINE. -DEATH OF THE KHAN.

CATHERINE TO VOLTAIRE.

TION AT ARABAT. -PEACE OF KAINARDJI.

AFTER losing sight of a southern sea-board for nearly six centuries, Russia formally attempted to recover command on the Pontic littoral in the early days of Peter the Great; but while his ambitious sister conducted the government, with Galitzin for her minister. At the height of their power, the Tatars had wrung from the Russians the annual tribute of 80,000 rubles, with the humiliating condition, expressed in a treaty, that the czar should hold the stirrup of their khan, and feed his horse with oats out of his own cap, if ever they chanced to meet.

This relative position was destined to be completely changed; but the struggle was long, and its early events did not promise success to the northern power. The demand of tribute, which had not been paid for some years, led to hostilities in 1687, when Galitzin took charge of a great expedition against the Crimea, or, as the historian expresses it, "made war upon the Precops," the lines of Perekop being commonly substituted for the peninsula. The army assembled in the Ukraine. But the summer being fiercely hot, and the drought long, the whole country was so burnt up that the troops could not proceed for want of forage and water. As some one must be blamed for the failure, it was unceremoniously thrown upon Samoilovitch, the attaman or hetman of the Don Cossacks. This most puissant chief, the ordinary style of address, was seized at midnight, tried by court-martial in the morning, called the son of a and sent off to Siberia, where he perished miserably, along with his son ; while generals, colonels, majors and privates, were not a little astonished at having medals with chains, medals without chains, half ducats, and copecks of gold, awarded to them for signal services.

The attempt was renewed in the following year. Galitzin this time advanced as far as Perekop, but

retired after some skirmishing and fruitless negotiation. The tribute, the whole tribute, and nothing but the tribute, 240,000 rubles, the arrears of three years, would satisfy the khan. The party making the demand could not enforce compliance, and the party resisting it failed to procure its renunciation. Mazeppa was engaged in both these expeditions, appearing on the last occasion as the new attaman of the Don Cossacks. This famous man, the hero of wild, romantic, and mysterious adventures, who passed through the world "like a gust of moaning wind in the desert," has been immortalised by poetry, and often represented on the stage. Originally a page of the Polish court, he was tied helplessly to the back of an untamed Ukranian horse, upon being caught in an intrigue, a punishment inflicted by an outraged husband. The steed being turned loose, after undergoing some preparatory torment, galloped off with his burden into the steppes, traversed torrents, rivers, and ravines, finally falling dead from exhaustion in a small town of the eastern Ukraine. Upon the rider recovering from the effects of his strange flight, his superior talents procured for him the chieftainship. They also attracted the notice of Peter, who, upon grasping the government, sent Galitzin to live on

three-pence a day "under the pole," or in the northern province of Archangel, and patronised the

attaman.

Never did stricken deer pant more eagerly for the water-brooks, than did Peter for the lordship of an open sea. When urged to undertake an expedition against Persia, he replied, "It is not land that I want, but sea.” Master already of the greater part of the Don, he determined to possess himself of its mouth by the capture of Azof, a fortified town garrisoned by the Turks. Vessels of war built at Voronetz, on an affluent, were sent down the river, while a force under General Patrick Gordon, a Scotchman, marched along the stream. The czar accompanied the expedition as a volunteer. The first attempt was a signal failure. The second, in 1696, was crowned with success. Mazeppa, with his Cossacks, signalised himself in the capture. Regarding his prize as a key to the sovereignty of the Crimea and the Black Sea, the harbour was improved, the fortifications were strengthened, and the fleet increased. A few years later, in 1706, Taganrog was founded on the northern shore of the sea of Azof, as an outport for the produce of southern Russia, a place destined to witness the last moments of the Emperor Alexander. Peter's sojourn