£36 RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



Iceys of the city were delivered up to Soubow by the commandant, a 

 venerable oid man, a hundred and twenty years of age, who had be- 

 fore surrendered Derbent to Peter I, at the beginning of the last cen- 

 tury. Aga Mahmed was advancing to the relief of Derbent, when 

 he learned that the place was already in the power of the Russians. 

 Soubow drew out his army, and gave him battle ; but victory declared 

 in favour of the Persians, who forced the Russians to retire into Der- 

 bent ; in consequence of which defeat, a strong body of Russian 

 troops were ordered to reinforce the army of Soubow. 



These martial preparations, and plans of ambition, were, however? 

 interrupted by her death. On the morning of the 9th of November, 

 1796, she appeared very cheerful, and took her coffee as usual. Soon 

 after she retired into the closet, where continuing unusually long, her 

 attendants became alarmed, and at length opened the door, when they 

 found her on the floor in a state of insensibility, with her feet against 

 the door. Doctor Rogerson, her first physician, was immediately 

 called, who bled her twice. At first she appeared rather to revive, 

 but was unable to utter a word, and expired at ten o'clock at night. 



Catharine II, in her youth had been handsome, and preserved in the 

 close of life a graceful and majestic air. She was of a middle stature., 

 well proportioned, and, as she carried her head very erect, appeared 

 taller than she really was. Her forehead was open, her nose aqueline, 

 her mouth well made, and her chin somewhat long, though not so as 

 to have a disagreeable effect., her countenance did not want for ex- 

 pression ; but she was too well practised in the courtly habits of dis- 

 simulation to suffer/it to express what she wished to conceal. 



With respect to her political character, she was undoubtedly a great 

 sovereign. From the commencement of her reign she laboured, and 

 with the greatest success, to increase the power and political conse- 

 quence of her country. She encouraged learning and the arts, and 

 made every exertion to extend, encourage, and enlarge the commerce 

 of her subjects. She effected many and important regulations in the 

 interior police, and particularly in the courts of justice. She abolish- 

 ed the torture, and adopted an excellent plan for the reformation of 

 prisons. The new code of laws, for which she gave instructionsj 

 will contribute still more to mitigate the rigour of despotism. In. 

 the execution, indeed, of her plans for the aggrandisement of her 

 emph-e, she appears to have acknowledged no right but power, no 

 law but interest. Of her private life, her panegyrists, if prudent, will 

 speak put little. They will dwell lightly on the means by which she 

 mounted the throne. The only palliation of that conduct, which the 

 most friendly ingenuity can suggest, will be derived from the frequent 

 and bloody usurpations which, since the death of Peter the Great, 

 had almost become the habit of the Russian court. But there are 

 some acts, at the recital of which we should shudder, even if the- 

 scene were laid in Morocco. The mysterious fate of prince Ivan, in 

 1763, cannot be obliterated from history ; the blood spilt in the long- 

 conceived scheme of expelling the Turks from Europe, and re-esta- 

 blishing the eastern empire in the person of a second Constantine, 

 will not be expiated, in the estimation of humanity, by the gigantic 

 magnificence of the project. Above all, the fate of Poland, the dis- 

 sensions and civil wars industriously fomented in that unhappy king- 

 dom, for a period of thirty years : the horrible massacres which at- 

 tended its final subjugation^ and the impious mockery of returning 



