y and despotic manner. His decrees
requiring the nobles to contribute such large sums for the building of
his fleet occasioned a great deal of dissatisfaction and complaint.
And very soon he resorted to some other measures, which increased the
general discontent exceedingly.

He appointed a considerable number of the younger nobility, and the
sons of other persons of wealth and distinction, to travel in the
western countries of Europe while the fleet was preparing, giving them
special instructions in respect to the objects of interest which they
should severally examine and study. The purpose of this measure was to
advance the general standard of intelligence in Russia by affording to
these young men the advantages of foreign travel, and enlarging their
ideas in respect to the future progress of their own country in the
arts and appliances of civilized life. The general idea of the emperor
in this was excellent, and the effect of the measure would have been
excellent too if it had been carried out in a more gentle and moderate
way. But the fathers of the young men were incensed at having their
sons ordered thus peremptorily out of the country, whether they liked
to go or not, and however inconvenient it might be for the fathers to
provide the large amounts of money which were required for such
journeys. It is said that one young man was so angry at being thus
sent away that he determined that his country should not derive any
benefit from the measure, so far as his case was concerned, and
accordingly, when he arrived at Venice, which was the place where he
was sent, he shut himself up in his house, and remained there all the
time, in order that he might not see or learn any thing to make use of
on his return.

This seems almost incredible. Indeed, the story has more the air of a
witticism, invented to express the sullen humor with which many of the
young men went away, than the sober statement of a fact. Still, it is
not impossible that such a thing may have actually occurred; for the
veneration of the old Russian families for their own country, and the
contempt with which they had been accustomed for many generations to
look upon foreigners, and upon every thing connected with foreign
manners and customs, were such as might lead in extreme cases, to
almost any degree of fanaticism in resisting the emperor's measures.
At any rate, in a short time there was quite a powerful party formed in
opposition to the fore