8 VITUS BERING. 



Peter retained his high regard for Danish-Norse ship- 

 building during his whole life, and it was on this 

 account that Danes and Norwegians were enabled to 

 exert so great an influence in St. Petersburg. This is 

 the reason, too, that Danish-Norse * seamen were received 

 so kindly in Eussia even long after the death of the great 

 Czar. 



Next to Peter, Norwegians and Danes had the greatest 

 share in the founding of the Russian fleet, and among 

 them the place of honor belongs to the Norseman Corne- 

 lius Cruys, who in 1697 was assistant master of ordnance 

 in the Dutch navy, where he was held in high regard as a 

 ship-builder, a cartographer, and as a man well versed in 

 everything pertaining to the equipment of a fleet. Peter 

 made him his vice-admiral, and assigned to him the tech- 

 nical control of the fleet, the building of new vessels, 

 their equipment, and, above all, the task of supplying 

 them with West European officers. 



Weber assigns Cruys a place in the first rank among 

 those foreigners to whom Russia owes much of her devel- 

 opment, and remarks that it was he, ^^the incomparable 

 master of ordnance, who put the Russian fleet upon its 

 keel and upon the sea.^' He belonged to the fashionable 

 circles of St. Petersburg, owned a large and beautiful 

 palace on the Neva, where now tower the Winter Palace 

 and the Hermitage, and was one of the few among the 

 wealthy that enjoyed the privilege of entertaining the 

 Czar on festive occasions. He became vice-president of 

 the council of the Admiralty, was promoted, after the 

 peace of Nystad, to the position of admiral of the Blue 



* Norway and Denmark were at this time united.— Tr. 



