jected. This building was afterward preserved a
long time with great care, as a precious relic and souvenir of the
foundation of the city.

The Czar had sent out orders to the governments of the different
provinces of the empire requiring each of them to send his quota of
artificers and laborers to assist in building the city. This they could
easily do, for in those days all the laboring classes of the people were
little better than slaves, and were almost entirely at the disposal of
the nobles, their masters. In the same manner he sent out agents to all
the chief cities in western Europe, with orders to advertise there for
carpenters, masons, engineers, ship-builders, and persons of all the
other trades likely to be useful in the work of building the city. These
men were to be promised good wages and kind treatment, and were to be at
liberty at any time to return to their respective homes.

The agents also, at the same time, invited the merchants of the countries
that they visited to send vessels to the new port, laden with food for
the people that were to be assembled there, and implements for work, and
other merchandise suitable for the wants of such a community. The
merchants were promised good prices for their goods, and full liberty to
come and go at their pleasure.

The Czar also sent orders to a great many leading boyars or nobles,
requiring them to come and build houses for themselves in the new town.
They were to bring with them a sufficient number of their serfs and
retainers to do all the rough work which would be required, and money to
pay the foreign mechanics for the skilled labor. The boyars were not at
all pleased with this summons. They already possessed their town houses
in Moscow, with gardens and pleasure-grounds in the environs. The site
for the new city was very far to the northward, in a comparatively cold
and inhospitable climate; and they knew very well that, even if Peter
should succeed, in the end, in establishing his new city, several years
must elapse before they could live there in comfort. Still, they did not
dare to do otherwise than to obey the emperor's summons.

In consequence of all these arrangements and preparations, immense
numbers of people came in to the site of the new city in the course of
the following spring and summer. The numbers were swelled by the
addition of the populations of many towns and villages along the coast
that had been ravaged or destroyed by the