COXe’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.

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reported to have fhed tears upon the news of victories gained by her troops, from therefle&ion that they were not obtained without great bloodfhed. But although nocriminal was executed in public, yet the ilate prifons were filled with wretched fuf-ferers, many of whom, unheard of and unknown, perifhed in damp and unwholefomedungeons: .the hate inquifition, or fecret committee, appointed to judge perfons fuf-pedted of high treafon, had conflant occupation during her reign ; many upon theflighted; furmifes were tortured in fecret; many underwent the knoot, and expiredunder the infliction. But the tranfaftion which refle&s the higheft difgrace on herreign, was the public punifhment of two ladies of fafhion, countefles Beftuchef andLapookin : each received fifty ftrokes of the knoot in the open fquare of Peterfburgh;their tongues were cut out, and they were banifhed into Siberia . One of thefe ladies,Madame Lapookin, efteemed the handfomefl woman in Ruffia, was accufed of hold-ing fecret correfpondence with the French ambaflador ; but her real crime was havingcommented too freely on the Emprefs’s amours. Even the mere relation of fuch anafFeding fcene, as that of a woman of great beauty and high rank publicly fcourgedby the common executioner, mull excite the ftrongeft emotions of horror, and forbidus to venerate the memory of a princefs, who, with fuch little regard to her own fex,could iifue thofe barbarous commands. But let us lament the inconfiftency ofhuman nature ; and in confidering the charader of Elizabeth, let us not deny that herheart, perhaps naturally benevolent, was occafionally corrupted by power, and fteeledwith fufpicion ; that although mercy might predominate whenever it did not interferewith her paffions and prejudices, yet fhe by no means deferves the appellation of hu-mane, the mofl noble * attribute of a fovereign, when it interpofes to temper thefeverity of juftice. Elizabeth died in 1761, in the twenty-firft year of her reign, andin the fifty-third of her age : Ihe expired in December, the fame month in which fhewas born, and in which fhe acceded to the throne.

In the fortrefs is a fmall arfenal, which among other military (lores, contains fomecannon, call in the middle of the fixteenth century, under the reign of Ivan Vaffi-lievitch II. I had occafion to mention in a former chapter, that the art of calling can-non was introduced into Ruffia under Ivan Vaffilievitch I. by Ariflotle of Bologna.Ivan II. did not fail to imitate the example of his grandfather in procuring, by meansof foreign artifts, the beft artillery ; and to this judicious policy both monarchs werechiefly indebted for their fucceffes in war, and for the conqueft of feveral provinces,,which they annexed to their hereditary dominions.

In a feparate building of the fortrefs is the mint. The gold and filver are fent fromthe mines of Siberia , and the metals are refined in this laboratory. We furveyed thewhole procefs from the firft melting of the ore to the coining. Among the filver weobferved a large quantity of Dutch dollars, which were melting to be recoined in.roubles. Peter I. wanting filver for the new coinage, ifiued a decree, that all thecufloms fhould be paid in Dutch dollars : at prefent half the duties are flill difchargedin that money by all foreign merchants, excepting the Englifh, who are exempted bytreaty. But as the gold and filver obtained from the mines of Siberia , with the ad-dition of the dollars, are by no means fufficient for the circulation, a confiderablequantity of both metals is annually imported. The coinage, in its prefent debafed

* I was informed from undoubted authority, that it was impoffible to obtain Elizabeth’s confent forthe execution of a felon who bad even committed the moil horrid fpecies of premeditated murder, andthat the mailer of the police ufed fecretly to order the executioner to knoot to death thofe delinquentswho were found guilty of the moil atrocious crimes. It is a pity, fhe did not referve her humanity,which in this inilance was cruelty to her people, for more refpedtable objedls.

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