rcial relations. From this state of insignificance, Peter, the
first Emperor of Russia, raised his country, by introducing into it the
arts of peace, by establishing a well-organized and disciplined army in
the place of a lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy,
where scarce a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural
result of these changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and
European frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his
countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great; and it is
well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the
difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which
included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp
of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive
such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will
not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and
boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished
taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be
the reformer of others was unable to control the violence of his own
passions.

The Czar Alexis, Peter's father, was actuated by somewhat of the spirit
which so distinguished the son. He endeavored to introduce the European
discipline into his armies; he had it much at heart to turn the
attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he added the fine
provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal dominions. At the
death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years old. His eldest
brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore died after a reign of
five years, and named Peter his successor, passing over the second
brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. Their ambitious sister, Sophia,
stirred the strelitzi, or native militia, to revolt in favor of Ivan,
and Peter and his mother had to take refuge in the Troitski convent.
This retreat being discovered, they were driven for protection to the
church altar itself, where the religion or superstition of the wild
soldiery saved the intended victims. We pass in silence over the
remaining intrigues and insurrections which troubled the young czar's
minority. It was not until the close of the year 1689, in the eighteenth
year of his age, that he finally shook off the trammels of his ambitious
sister, and assumed in reality, as well as in name, the direction of the
state