156 
PETER THE GREAT. 
By H. L. JOSELAND, M.d. 4th March, 1902. 
After a few remarks as to the history of Russia up to the end 
of the Sixteenth Century, the Lecturer described the circum- 
stances attending the second marriage of the Tsar Alexis, father 
of Peter the Great, and the birth of Peter in 1672. 
By his first marriage Alexis had two sons—Feodor, who died 
childless at the age of twenty, and Ivan, who was “one part an 
idiot and three parts blind.” 
Though Peter was at the age of ten declared Tsar, the 
arrangement was short lived. ‘The Tsarevna Sophia incited the 
Streltsy, a body of some 20,000 armed men, resembling the 
Pretorian Guard of the Roman Emperors, to take up arms in 
support of Ivan. After a massacre, lasting three days. in which 
acts of the greatest barbarity were perpetrated, Ivan was 
associated with Peter on the throne and was proclaimed chief 
Tsar. 
The next few years were spent by Peter at Préobrajenskoié, 
and were devoted to games and boat-sailing, with apparently no 
thought of more important matters. Even after an effort of 
Peter’s supporters had made him sole Tsar in 1689, another six 
years passed before he gave up his firework displays and military 
games for more serious occupations. At length an unsuccessful 
expedition to Azof roused the young ''sar, a fleet was built with 
the help of foreign workmen, and in the following year Azof was 
captured. 
In this campaign Peter had discovered how much he had to 
learn. He now resolved on his celebrated journey to the West, 
and an embassy of 250 people was formed, of which he was 
ostensibly only one of the members, under the name of Peter 
Mihailof. 
The Embassy set out and by slow stages reached Holland. ° 
Peter first went to Zaandam and spent a week there, sailing 
about and making love to a servant girl at the inn. Then he 
joined the embassy at Amsterdam, gained access to the great 
shipbuilding yards of the East Indian Company, and was known 
as Master Peter or Carpenter Peter. 
Not content with working as a shipwright, he studied architec- 
ture, mechanics, fortification, printing, and even dentistry, which 
art he practised on his suite. 
