tavus, by which Russia resigned her claims on the province of Ingria, now S. Petersburg, to the Swedes. This concession was partly recompensed by the advantages that the Russians gained in Poland, where by the treaty of Lithuania after a truce of thirteen years, they recovered Smolensko, Severia, Tchernigoff, and Kiof, which had all been ancient appanages of the Russian empire, but which had been annexed to Poland in the war of 1610.

As the aspect of affairs still looked threatening, for the Turks were preparing an expedition to Poland, which by the treaty of Lithuania, Russia was bound to assist, the Czar refused to allow the Don Cossacks to disband after the conclusion of peace, according to their usual custom, and they consequently mutinied, upon which several were punished with death. Among these an officer named Stenko Radzin was condemned to be hanged by General Dolgoruki, who had been commissioned to inquire into the mutiny; and the brother of the criminal incited their countrymen to revenge this insult on their privileges, which forbade the execution of a Cossack officer unless he had been judged guilty by his men. They eagerly listened to his proposals, and animated by the hope of plunder, many joined his standard.

The Czar Alexis had formed a scheme for establishing a fleet on the Caspian, to protect the trade of his subjects with India and Persia, and he had caused several vessels to be built by a Dutchman, after the European model, in the river Moskva, and sent them down the Volga to Astrakhan. It was the first act of the rebels to seize this fleet on its passage, and after burning the ships, and murdering many of the crew, to persuade, or force the rest to join in their service.

With the squadron Radzin embarked on the Caspian Sea, and cruised along its shores, frequently landing to pillage the mercantile establishments, and seizing an immense booty. At the mouth of the Yaik, or river Ural, he was met by an officer of the Czar, sent by the voivode of Astrakhan to offer him and his comrades a free pardon on condition that they would discontinue their robberies. Radzin replied that he was no robber, but a conqueror; that he made war, or concluded peace at his own pleasure, and would allow none to fail in bestowing on him the respect due to an independent monarch. And to prove his words he hanged the officer, and drowned the men of his escort. A numerous body of Strelitzes was then sent against him, but the rebels quickly defeated them, seized the town of Yaiskoi, and massacred the garrison,

and the inhabitants. For three years they swept the shores of the Volga, spreading terror and destruction through the neighbouring provinces, at one time even approaching to within a short distance of Moscow, and defeating several Muscovite armies, which had been despatched from the capital, to suppress the formidable revolt. But in a bold descent they had the temerity to make upon Persia, Radzin lost a considerable number of his adherents; in that condition he was surrounded by the troops of the governor of Astrakhan, and offered to surrender, if the lives and liberties of himself and his whole band were secured. The governor, who was invested with full authority, promised all he required in the name of his sovereign, apparently supposing that the Czar would scarcely think it necessary to keep his word, when he had the rebel safely within his grasp; but Alexis honourably confirmed the engagement made in his name, and accepting Radzin's oath of allegiance, allowed him to return with his followers to their homes on the Don.

But the rebellion soon broke out as violently and extensively as before, and this time assumed a still more threatening aspect; for Radzin issued a proclamation declaring that he was only the enemy of the nobility, and that it was his object to release the peasants from slavery. He also spread the report that the Patriarch Nikon, who had been deposed, and imprisoned by Alexis, but who was reverenced, and affectionately remembered by a large portion of the Russian people, was with him, and that the Czar's eldest son, (who had expired in Moscow, January 1670,) was not really dead, but had placed himself under Radzin's protection, and was ready to assist them with his sword. He even asserted that the Czar himself had requested him to come to Moscow, and free him from the nobles and evil councillors by whom he was unhappily surrounded. The proclamation was dispersed far and wide among the half barbarous tribes who dwelt on the shores of the Don, and Radzin shortly found himself at the head of a rabble army, amounting to 200,000 men.

With this force his ambition aspired to the hope of forming the country of the Cossacks, and the provinces on the Caspian, into one vast independent kingdom, and proclaiming himself king in Astrakhan. From Nijni Novogorod to Kazan the peasants rose to a man, murdered their lords, frequently with horrible tortures, and joined the standard of the insurgents; the soldiers who were sent to oppose them slew their officers and went over to Radzin, and the city of Astrakhan betrayed its

governor, and admitted the rebels through the gates. But their leader was unequal to the great undertaking he proposed, and as his armies were totally undisciplined, disorders soon rose in their ranks. In the autumn of 1670, a division was totally destroyed by a corps of the Russians, near the Volga, 12,000 insurgents were subsequently captured, and gibbeted on the high roads, as a warning to the multitudes who still hung on the rear of the Imperialists; Astrakhan was recaptured, and invested with a strong guard of Russian troops, and Radzin was taken prisoner in the beginning of the following year, and suffered death in Moscow.

It is related that when carried before Alexis, he replied boldly and haughtily to the Czar's threats and reproaches, and the only anxiety he showed, was with regard to the mode of his execution. A shocking species of torture was then still in use in Muscovy, though only practised on great criminals and traitors. It was called the punishment of the ten thousand pieces, into which it was intended that the victim should be severed before he expired. It had been introduced into Russia by the Tartars, and to this day is sometimes seen in China; but Radzin had heard that it had been inflicted the previous year on an obscure robber and assassin, who had pillaged churches, and monasteries, and when he considered that this fate might be reserved for him, he who had shown himself so merciless to his prisoners, was himself filled with horror. "I am no robber of monks," he pleaded, “I have made peace with the Czar, therefore I had a right to make war upon him. Is there not a man amongst you brave enough to split my head with his sword?" The Strelitz guards to whom these words were addressed coldly refused to comply, but Radzin appeared greatly relieved when he heard himself condemned to be beheaded, for anything seemed better to him than the punishment he had been led to expect. Yet his courage forsook him on the scaffold, and he was decapitated when in a fainting state.

Basil Galitzin was enrolled as an officer in the army sent to act against the insurgents, and he subsequently held a high command in the Russian forces that were despatched to assist Poland against the Turks.

This war originated in the sudden invasion of the Polish territories by the troops of the Sultan Mahomet IV., and Russia, in compliance with the treaty of Lithuania, armed herself to aid in their defence. The Sultan also demanded that the Muscovites should evacuate the

Cossack province of the Ukraine, and in his letter to Alexis on the subject, he gave the Czar merely the title of Highness, while he signed himself, "Most Glorious Majesty, King of the World." The Czar replied that "he was above submitting to a Mahometan dog, and that his sabre was as keen as the Grand Seignior's sword," and he sent ambassadors to the Pope, and to all the principal sovereigns of Europe, excepting France, to propose a general league against the Porte, which was refused. He nevertheless resolved to support the cause of his ally; in 1673 the war commenced between Russia and Turkey, and a large body of Russian troops were concentrated on the borders of Moldavia, commanded by Prince Romodanofsky, with Galitzin for his lieutenant. Alexis died in 1676, before the hostilities were brought to a conclusion, but he had previously rewarded Galitzin for his valuable services, raising him to the rank of a prince, and appointing him hetman of the Cossacks. He also named him in his will among those lords whom he had selected to take the chief direction in the affairs of state during the life of his successor, on account of the feeble health of his son. The reign of Theodore III. was chiefly passed in quarrels between his mother's relations, the Miloslafkis, and those of the family of his stepmother, the Czarina Natalia Narishkin, who had been selected from among sixty ladies by Alexis for his second wife on account of her great beauty. Galitzin warmly espoused the cause of the former faction, and succeeded in promoting the disgrace and banishment of those boyards who were most active in supporting the claims of the opposite party to any influence or participation in the government. In 1676 peace was concluded with the Sultan, who agreed to relinquish all pretensions to the territory of the Dnieper Cossacks.

At the suggestion of Galitzin, the Czar Theodore effected several important reforms in the organization of the army, and also in the manner in which the government officials had hitherto held rank. Nothing could exceed the care with which the Russian boyards kept the books of their pedigrees, and noted down every post of importance that had been held by their ancestors, and it was contrary to their customs and prejudices for a son to accept an office in the state inferior to that which had been held by his father, or to serve under another boyard whose hereditary rank happened to be lower than his own. Accordingly officers were appointed to certain grades in the army, not with regard to their length of service, or heroical deeds, but

he whose pedigree was longest, or who could boast the most noble descent took the command of the entire force, however incapable he might be. The same rule was followed from the general to the lowest subaltern; so that an ensign was frequently grey-headed and covered with wounds, when his colonel was still a youth who had never seen a campaign; and it also prevailed among civilians. An especial court had been instituted in Moscow for the purpose of keeping exact copies of the boyards' pedigrees, and settling the innumerable disputes which constantly occurred; but Galitzin advised his master to abolish for ever this distinction of ranks, and place each nobleman on an equality with others of his degree, without regard to their titles or origin, and also to allow military officers to be placed according to their term of service.

A ukase was therefore issued, commanding all the noble families to deliver up their pedigrees to the Imperial council, that several errors which had crept into the government copies might be corrected by comparing them with the original. This decree having been obeyed, Galitzin convoked a meeting of the superior clergy and councillors, and informed them of the reform he proposed to make, and this was followed by another assembly in which the chief nobility took part. In the midst of this conclave the Patriarch stood up, and delivered an address upon the subject which they were met to discuss. He concluded it by saying, "These prerogatives are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render the most important enterprises useless, in the same manner that the tares stifle the ears of corn,—they have introduced even into the heart of families dissension, confusion, and hatred, but the Patriarch comprehends the grand design of his Czar."

Galitzin then came forward and proclaimed the abolition of all hereditary pretensions to military rank or offices. "To extinguish even the recollection of them," said he, "let all the papers relative to those titles be instantly consumed," and as a fire had been prepared in the council chamber, the service-rolls were immediately cast into the flames. Owing to this arbitrary destruction of all the family histories of the Russian nobility, great obscurity in many instances hangs over their ancient deeds; and as the state chroniclers often only inform us of the personal exploits of the Czars, we frequently read in the history of Russia of important expeditions and discoveries without knowing anything about the generals who conducted them, and sometimes scarcely their names.