t66 inemoirs of brigadier Resen. jipril xr» 



accident, which one would think must have more or 

 lefs affected any other man's health and naval career. 

 A handspake, whirled round in the capstan by the ac- 

 cidental slipping of an anchor, struck him so violent 

 a blow on the lower belly, as to force down a part of 

 its contents through either groin, and these two rup- 

 tures he carried about him to the day of his deaths 

 with little seeming inconvenience, (after the first ef- 

 fect of the accident,) a period of sixty-five years, as 

 he was after, as before, one of the most active and 

 healthy meu-of his age. He was left by Peter, as an 

 intellj^nt, trusty officer, on the Caspian sea, where 

 he seems to have been forgotten for a long period, on 

 the unexpected death of his master. He was called, 

 however, at last to Peterlburgh, but we hear no more 

 of him till his apparition at the statue, after having 

 been twenty-five years on tlie yellow flag. 



From that period the commodore became once more 

 a member of society, frequenting the court in great 

 holidays, and was often invited to stay dinner, even 

 when none other of the same rank could sit down to table, 

 according to the etiquette ; but none was observed at 

 the court of Catharine with the companion of Peter 

 the Great, nor at that of his imperial highnefs the 

 grand duke, his lord high admiral ; but the old tar 

 had his mind so strongly imprefsed with a long train 

 of the strict military subordination, observed in the 

 Paifsian naval and land service, that he found him- 

 self in the stocks, when obliged to remain sittings 

 from respect to his great age, whilst his imperial 

 highneJs himself, v.'ith the field-marfhals, admirals, 

 generals, %3c. were all standing, as isralways ^Jiecase, 



