coxe’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.

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marched with drums beating and colours flying to the Kremlin, tolled the great bell,furrounded the palace, and demafided the aflaflins of Ivan. Although the Tzarina im-mediately produced both Ivan and Peter; yet the infurgents were not appealed, butvehemently required the execution of the Narilkins. Their fury was ftill further aug-mented by a rumour induftrioufly circulated, that Ivan Narifkin, the brother of theTzarina, had feized the diadem and royal robes. In the mid ft of this tumult, one ofthe officers ventured to harangue the foldiers; he allured them, that Ivan Alexiavitchwas in perfect fafety; that all their grievances fhould be redrefled, and exhorted themto difperfe. This harangue feemed to make a fenfible impreffion, and the tumult wasfubfiding; when Prince Dolgorucki imprudently threatened them with the fevereftpunilhment for their mutiny and rebellion : inflamed by this ill-timed menace, theyfeized the Prince, hurled him into the air, received him upon their pikes, and hewedhis body to pieces. This affaflination was the prelude to a more general maflacre, whichcontinued during three days without intermiffion. Not only the two brothers of theTzarina, and a few others molt obnoxious to the infurgents, fell victims to their fury,but feveral perfons, by no means unpopular, were facrificed amidft the general confu-fion, and Mofcow underwent a general pillage.

To clofe this horrid fcene, the principal nobles aflembled on the 18th of May, and,by a compromife between the two parties, Ivan and Peter were declared joint Sovereigns;but as Ivan was incapable of governing, and Peter in his minority, the adminiftration ofaffairs was veiled in the hands of Sophia. Hence conclufions were drawn unfavourableto that Princefs: {he was a-ccufed of having maintained a fecret intelligence with theringleaders of Strelitz, of exciting them by falfe reports to revolt, of ordering moneyand fpirituous liquors to be diftributed among the foldiers, and even of delivering thema lift * of forty nobles whom fhe had profcribed. All her addons are malignantly in-terpreted : when Ivan Narifkin was led to execution, fhe publicly accompanied theTzarina and Patriarch, to intercede for his life, placed the image of the Virgin Mary inhis hands to flop the fury of the Strelitz, and endeavoured, though in vain, to footh hisaflaflins f. They who judge unfavourably of her condud, fay, that this compaffion wasonly feigned; and that fhe fecretly inftigated his affaflination, though fhe outwardlyaffeded to intercede Upon this fuppofition, the whole condud of Sophia implies fucha deep-laid fcheme of hypoericy, artifice, and revenge, as feems rather adapted to a po-litician growm grey in iniquity, and long pradifed in the arts of fedition, than to a Prin-cefs like Sophia, only in the. twenty-fifth year of her age.

But the caufes which led to this revolution, may be traced from feveral events in the reignof Alexey Michaelovitch, long before Sophia had the leaft influence in political affairs, andparticularly from the domeftic feuds in the imperial family. It appears ajfo that the firibinfurredion of the Strelitz was cafual; occafioned by the arrears of pay, and the unpopu-larity of the colonels, and cannot, with the leaft degree of probability, be imputed to theintrigues of Sophia ; therefore fhe can only be accufed, even by the molt malignant in-terpretation of her condud, of availing herfelf of that mutiny to procure the eledion ofIvan. But there is furely a wide difference between aliening the injuftice of his exclu-fion from the throne; or, under the mafic of moderation and candour, inflaming to

* ‘‘ Enfin, f ophie,” fays Voltaire , “ fait remettre entre leurs mains line lifte de quarante fefgneurs qu’elleappelle leurs enemis, et ceux de l’litat et qu’ils dcivent rriaffacrer.” I cannot give credit to this lift of fortynobles, which Voltaire compares “ aux profcriptions de Sylla et des triumvirs de Rome.” Whoever will',attentively perufe the account of the enfuing maflacre in Gordon, or even in Voltaire , will find that, thefury of the Strelitz, except agaiufl the Narilkins, was more directed by chance, than by defign.

f Gordon, p. 81. I Sumorokof.

madnefs