R U S 
sionalJy officiated as the executioner; lie was, however, 
capable of sentiments of justice and humanity, when brought 
to cool reflexion. His talents were certainly considerable; 
and although he did not always take the best road to instruc¬ 
tion, his personal acquisitions were various and respectable. 
If he is estimated by what h e performed, (the true measure 
of an absolute sovereign), very few princes in any age can 
be compared to him. Russia, at his accession, did not 
possess a single ship of war, and he left it with 40 ships of 
the line and 400 galleys. It was excluded from the Baltic, 
and he founded a maritime capital on a branch of that sea. 
He converted a seditious and half-disciplined militia into a 
regular army capable of meeting the best troops in Europe. 
He introduced a police into the great towns, which rendered 
them secure and comfortable abodes. He planned, and in 
part executed, a grand system of internal navigation, by 
which a junction is formed between the remotest parts of 
that extensive country and the seas surrounding it. He was 
the creator of a great number of institutions for the pro¬ 
motion of learning and the useful arts and sciences; among 
which, may be enumerated colleges at the principal cities 
for the languages and mathematics, an academy of marine 
and navigation, a college of medicine, with anatomical lec¬ 
tures and a botanical garden, an astronomical observatory, 
an imperial library and printing-offices, and the academy of 
sciences at Petersburg}], which he instituted, though death 
prevented him from putting it in activity. He reformed the 
architecture of his country, and introduced many improve¬ 
ments in the commerce of private life. He did not, indeed, 
civilize a nation, which long after retained many traces of 
barbarism, but he roused it from its torpor, gave it the 
means of future improvement, and was the principal author 
of that political importance which it has since attained. 
Peter was succeeded, A. D. 1725, by his consort Catha¬ 
rine, in whose favour he had, some years before his death, 
altered the order of succession. As the character of this 
princess, and the transactions of her short reign, have been 
fully detailed under her life, we shall here only notice, in 
the most cursory manner, the events that took place. 
From the commencement of her reign, Catharine con¬ 
ducted herself with the greatest benignity and gentleness, 
and thus secured the love and veneration of her subjects, 
which she had acquired during the life of the emperor. She 
reduced the annual capitation tax; ordered the numerous 
gibbets which Peter had erected in various parts of the coun¬ 
try to be cut down, and had the bodies of those who had 
fallen victims to his tyranny, decently interred. She re¬ 
called the greater part of those whom Peter had exiled to 
Siberia; paid the troops their arrears; restored to the Kozaks 
those privileges and immunities of which they had been 
deprived during the late reign; and she continued in office 
most of the servants of Peter, both civil and military. She 
concluded a treaty with the German emperor, by which it 
was stipulated, that in case of attack from an enemy, either 
party should assist the other with a force of 30,000 men, 
and should each guarantee the possessions of the other. In 
her reign, the boundaries of the empire were extended by 
the submission of a Georgian prince, and the voluntary 
homage of the Kubinskian Tartars. She died on the 17th 
of May, 1727, having reigned about two years. She had 
settled the crown on Peter, the son of the tzarovitch Alexei, 
who succeeded by the title of Peter II. 
Peter was only twelve years of age when he succeeded to 
the Imperial throne, and his reign was short and uninter¬ 
esting. He was guided chiefly by Prince Menzikoff, whose 
daughter Catharine he had decreed him to marry. This am¬ 
bitious man who, from the mean condition of a pie-boy, had 
risen to the firs! offices of the state, and had, during the 
late reign, principally conducted the administration of the 
government, was now, however, drawing towards the end of 
his career. The number of his enemies had greatly in¬ 
creased, and their attempts to work his downfall now suc¬ 
ceeded. A young nobleman of the family of tire Dolgorukis, 
who was one of Peter’s chief companions, was excited by 
life relations, and the other enemies of Menzikoft’, to instil 
Vol. XXII. No. 1616. 
s I A. 473 
into the mind of the young prince, sentiments hostile to that 
minister. In this commission he succeeded so well, that 
Menzikoff and his whole family, not excepting the young 
empress, were banished to Siberia, and the Dolgorukis took 
into their hands the management of affairs. Peter died of 
the small-pox, in January, 1730. 
Notwithstanding the absolute power with which Peter I. 
and the empress Catharine had settled by will the succession 
to the throne, the Russian senate and nobility, upon the 
death of Peter II., ventured to set aside the order of sucession 
which those sovereigns had established. The male issue of 
Peter was now extinct; and the duke of Holstein, son to 
Peter’s eldest daughter, was by the destination of the late 
empress, entitled to the crown ; but the Russians, for poli¬ 
tical reasons, filled the throne with Anne, duchess of Cour- 
land, second daughter to Ivan, Peter’s eldest brother; though 
her eldest sister, the duchess of Mecklenburg, was alive. Her 
reign was extremely prosperous; and though she accepted 
the crown under limitations that some thought derogatory to 
her dignity, yet she broke them all, asserted the prerogative 
of her ancestors, and punished the aspiring Dolgoruki family, 
who had imposed upon her limitations, with a view, as it is 
said, that they themselves might govern. She raised her 
favourite Biron to the duchy of Courland ; and was obliged 
to give way to many severe executions on his account. Few 
transactions of any importance took place during the reign 
of Anne. She followed the example of her great predecessor 
Peter, by interfering in the affairs of Poland, where she had 
sufficient interest to establish on the throne Augustus III. 
This interference had nearly involved her in a war with 
France, and she had already sent considerable armies to the 
banks of the Rhine, for the purpose of acting against that 
power, when the conclusion of a treaty of peace rendered 
them unnecessary. She entered into a treaty with the shah 
of Persia, by which she agreed to give up all title to the ter¬ 
ritories that had been seized by Peter I. on the shores of the 
Caspian, in consideration of certain privileges to be granted 
to the Russian merchants. 
In 1735, a rupture took place between Russia and Turkey, 
occasioned partly by the mutual jealousies that had subsisted 
between these powers, ever since the treaty on the Pruth, and 
partly by the depredations of the Tartars of the Crimea, then 
under the dominion of the Porte. A Russian army entered 
the Crimea, ravaged part of the country, and killed a con¬ 
siderable number of Tartars; but having ventured too far, 
without a sufficient supply of provisions, was obliged to 
retreat, after sustaining a loss of nearly 10,000 men. This 
ill success did not discourage the court of St. Petersburgh ; 
and in the following year another armament was sent into 
the Ukraine, under the command of Marshal Munich, while 
an army under Lascy proceeded against Azof. Both these 
generals met with considerable success; the Tartars were 
defeated, and the fort of Azof once more submitted to the 
Russian arms. A third campaign took place in 1737, and 
the Russians were now assisted by a body of Austrian troops. 
Munich laid siege to Otchakof, which soon surrendered, 
while Lascy desolated the Crimea. 
No material advantages were, however, gained on either 
side; and disputes arose between the Austrian and Russian 
generals. At length in 1739, Marshal Munich having crossed 
the Bog at the head of a considerable army, defeated the 
Turks in a pitched battle near Stavutshan, made himself 
master of Yassy, the capital of Moldavia, and before the end 
of the campaign reduced the whole of that province under 
his subjection. These successes of the Russian arms induced 
the Porte to propose terms of accommodation ; and in the 
latter end of 1739, a treaty was concluded, by which Russia 
again gave up Azof and Moldavia, and to compensate the 
loss of above 100,000 men, and vast sums of money, gained 
nothing but permission to build a fortress on the Don. 
Upon the death of Anne, which took place in 1740, Ivan, 
the son of her niece the princess of Mecklenburg, was, by her 
will, entitled to the succession ; but being no more than two 
years old, Biron was appointed to be administrator of the 
empire during his minority. This nomination was disagree- 
6 E able 
