time after this occurrence, that we heard of the
defeat of the Czar by the Grand Vizier upon the Pruth. The Czar, annoyed
by the protection the Porte had accorded to the King of Sweden (in
retirement at Bender), made an appeal to arms, and fell into the same
error as that which had occasioned the defeat of the King of Sweden by
him. The Turks drew him to the Pruth across deserts supplied with
nothing; if he did not risk all, by a very unequal battle, he must
perish. The Czar was at the head of sixty thousand men: he lost more
than thirty thousand on the Pruth, the rest were dying of hunger and
misery; and he, without any resources, could scarcely avoid surrendering
himself and his forces to the Turks. In this pressing extremity, a
common woman whom he had taken away from her husband, a drummer in the
army, and whom he had publicly espoused after having repudiated and
confined his own wife in a convent,--proposed that he should try by
bribery to induce the Grand Vizier to allow him and the wreck of his
forces to retreat The Czar approved of the proposition, without hoping
for success from it. He sent to the Grand Vizier and ordered him to be
spoken to in secret. The Vizier was dazzled by the gold, the precious
stones, and several valuable things that were offered to him. He
accepted and received them; and signed a treaty by which the Czar was
permitted to retire, with all who accompanied him, into his own states by
the shortest road, the Turks to furnish him with provisions, with which
he was entirely unprovided. The Czar, on his side, agreed to give up
Azof as soon as he returned; destroy all the forts and burn all the
vessels that he had upon the Black Sea; allow the King of Sweden to
return by Pomerania; and to pay the Turks and their Prince all the
expenses of the war.

The Grand Vizier found such an opposition in the Divan to this treaty,
and such boldness in the minister of the King of Sweden, who accompanied
him, in exciting against him all the chiefs of the army, that it was
within an ace of being broken; and the Czar, with every one left to him,
of being made prisoner. The latter was in no condition to make even the
least resistance. The Grand Vizier had only to will it, in order to
execute it on the spot. In addition to the glory of leading captive to
Constantinople the Czar, his Court, and his troops, there would have been
his ransom, which must have cost not a little. But if he had been thus
strip