o

THE RUSSIAN FLEET

place, opening a passage into the Palus Mœotis, firstled the Tsar to entertain a thought of establishinga naval force. But having never seen any ships ofwar and of consequence [being] no judge, by a pre-possession natural to the Buss, conceiving thebuilders of his galleys capable of all things borderingon their profession, he ordered them to build himships of war. The method taken by this Prince todefray the expense, greatly enhanced through wantof knowledge to make a proper estimate, was a kindof tax in nature of a benevolence, imposed on hisBoyars and great men ; 1 or in case of misdemeanourinflicted [as] a mulct.

Besides these preparations on the river Don ;much about the same period of time, the Tsardetermining to have a fleet on the Volga, travelledin person to view the course and extent of thisfamous river, but when [he] got as far as Sviaska,15 miles above Kazan, the arrival of some extra-ordinary news obliged him to return to Moscow.However, before his travels in 1697, he gavedirections to some Hollands masters for the buildingof near 100 vessels of burthen, chiefly designed for

1 This method of meeting the cost of a naval establishmentseems, as suggested by Professor Alexander Bruckner, to havebeen copied from the institutions of ancient Athens. Certainclasses of the population were divided into ‘ companies' forfinancial purposes, like the Athenian vavKpaplai; and on thesecompanies were laid the burdensome public duties, like theXeiTovpyLcu, of building and equipping ships of war. An approxi-mate estimate of the property or number of peasants belonging tothe best-situated ecclesiastical and lay proprietors was made, onwhich it was calculated that 48 vessels could be provided. Therewere 17 ecclesiastical and 18 lay companies. By ukase any onewho should withdraw from the performance of the public dutyassigned to him was threatened with confiscation of property.(Peter der Grosse, by Dr. Alexander Bruckner, Professor an derUniversitat Dorpat: Berlin, 1879; p. 342). The plan was abolishedlater (see p. 5). It is just possible that Peter’s ‘ companies ’ weresuggested by the Swedish institution mentioned in Appendix A.