COXe’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.

73 6

tary, with whom he was intimately acquainted abroad, that Alexey was beheaded inprifon. As Prince Cantemir was in high favour with Peter, the intelligence of his con-fidential fecretary mud carry great weight. This fa£t appears fo well attefted, that manyGerman hiflorians have adopted it without referve, and in feveral genealogical tables ofthe imuerial family, Alexey is inferted as beheaded. A paflage, however, in Bruce’sMemoirs, feems at firft fight to invalidate this concurrent evidence, and to prove thathe was poifoned.

“ The trial t was begun on the 25th of June, and continued to the 6th of July, whenthis fupreme court, with unanimous confent, palled fentence of death upon the Prince,hut left the manner of it to His Majefty’s determination : the Prince was brought beforethe court, his fentence was read to him, and he was reconveyed to the fortrefs. Onthe next day, His Majefty, attended by all the fenators and bilhops, with feveral othersof high rank, went to the fort, and entered the apartments where the Tzarovitch waskept prifoner. Some little time thereafter, Marlhal Weyde came out, and ordered meto go to Mr. Bear ’s the druggift, whofe Ihop was hard-by, and tell him to make the po-tion ftrong which he had befpoke, as the Prince was then very ill: when I deliveredthis meflage to Mr. Bear , he turned quite pale, and fell a lhaking and trembling, andappeared in the utmoft confufion ; which furprized me fo much, that I alked him whatwas the matter with him, but he was unable to return me any anfwer: in the mean timethe Marlhal himfelf came in, much in the fame condition with the druggift, faying, heought to have been more expeditious, as the Prince was very ill of an apoplectic fit;upon this the druggift delivered him a filver cup with a cover, which the Marlhal him-felf carried into the Prince’s apartment, ftaggering all the way as he went like onedrunk. About half an hour after, the Tzar , with all his attendants withdrew, withvery difmal countenances; and when they went, the Marlhal ordered me to attend atthe Prince’s apartment, and in cafe of any alteration, to inform him immediately thereof.There were at that time two phyficians and two furgeons in waiting, with whom, andthe officer on guard, I dined on what had been drefled for the Prince’s dinner. Thephyficians were called in immediately after to attend the Prince, who was ftrugglingout of one convulfion into another, and after great agonies, expired at five o’clock inthe afternoon. I went directly to inform the Marlhal, and he went that moment to ac-quaint His Majefty, who ordered the corpfe to be embowelled, after which it was laidin a coffin, covered with black velvet, and pall of rich gold tiflue fpread over it; it wasthen carried out of the fort to the church of the Holy Trinity , where the corpfe lay inftate till the 11th in the evening, when it was carried back to the fort, and depositedin the royal burying vault, next the coffin of the Princefs his late confort, on whichoccalion the Tzar and Tzarina, and the chief of the nobility, followed in proceffion.Various were the reports that were fpread concerning his death ; it u'as given out pub-licly, that on hearing his fentence of death pronounced, the dread thereof threw himinto an apoplectic fit, of which he died : very few believed he died a natural deaths but itwas dangerous for people to ('peak as they thought. The minifters of the Emperor , and theHates of Holland, were forbid the court for fpeaking their minds too freely on thisoccafion, and upon complaint againft them, were both recalled.”

From this account it appears that the Prince was ftill alive when Peter, with thenobles and bilhops, remained in the fortrefs ; and that he died in the interval betweentheir departure and the afternoon; but ife by no means follows, even from this ftate ofthe cafe, that the Tzarovitch was poifoned. For can we fuppofe that Peter would order

* Bruce’s Memoirs, p. 185—187.

a dofe