
157 
And in the midst of his wonderful activity, he kept himself 
constantly informed of what was going on at home. He set 
about collecting a staff to help him in the changes he was 
meditating—a skilled Norwegian boatswain, several naval 
captains, 23 commanders, 35 lieutenants, 72 pilots, 50 physicians, 
845 sailors and four cooks. And with them he despatched to 
Moscow 260 cases filled with guns, pistols, cannon, sail-cloth, 
compasses, saws and tools of all kinds. One case contains eight 
blocks of marble, another a stuffed crocodile ! 
Hearing that shipbuilding was carried on in a more scientific 
manner in England, Peter crossed the Channel and settled in 
London, seeing everything there was to be seen, and working 
hard as an apprentice in the shipbuilding yards at Deptford. 
After eighteen months he started homewards. On his retarn, 
his first act was to take terrible vengeance on the Streltsy, for a 
mutiny that had occurred during his absence. Torture chambers 
were set up, and the knouts, the rods, and the gridirons, on 
which the prisoners were grilled, worked day and night. Finally 
the executions began. The first batch of victims numbered 
two hundred. Five were beheaded on the road by Peter himself, 
his friends being compelled to follow his example. ‘The rest 
were placed in rows of fifty along a tree-trunk that served as a 
block. Day after day the scene was repeated, till the Streltsy 
had disappeared. . ‘ 
Turning his attention to foreign affairs, Peter found the 
Russians cut off altogether from the Baltic, and proposed, with 
the help of Poland, to regain the conquests of Gustavus Adolphus. 
But his movements were too dilatory, and an attempt on Narva 
only led to the decisive defeat of his army of 40.000 men by 
8,000 Swedes, under their young King, Charles XII. As, how- 
ever, Charles turned aside to Poland, the Tsar was able, in spite 
of this disaster, to make substantial progress in Livonia. 
It was at this time that Peter conceived the idea of founding a 
new township on one of the islets at the mouth of the Neva. 
“The whole place was a marsh—the Finnish word ‘ Neva,’ 
means ‘mud;’ the sole inhabitants of the neighbouring forest 
were packs of wolves. In 1714, during a wintry night, two 
sentries, posted before the cannon foundry, were devoured. 
Communication with the town was both difficult and dangerous. 
Campredon, when he went from Moscow to: St. Petersburg, in 
1723, spent 1,200 roubles. He lost part of his luggage, eight 
of his horses were drowned, and after having travelled for four 
weeks he reached his destination very ill."* 

* Waliszewski. ‘: Peter the Great,’’ pp. 409, 410, 
