The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars. James Grant
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of Malta, to visit her. This vile person, who found the poor princess in a mean lodging, told her that he "had come to pay homage to her beauty and misfortunes, and to deplore the destitution in which he found her." He then offered her money, adding that he "was commissioned by Alexis Orloff to promise her the throne her mother had filled, and at the same time his sincere love, if she would honour him with her hand." After some hesitation she was overcome by the apparent sincerity and brilliance of the proposal, which seemed the more splendid by her destitute condition, and accepted the offer of Orloff. He visited her repeatedly; a feigned marriage was performed by two Russian officers, disguised as Catholic priests; villainy completed the imposture: for a time—two or three months—he placed her in a magnificent palace at Pisa, and then brought her to Leghorn. It was at this crisis that Admiral Greig entered the port, and his wife[9] is mentioned as being among the first to visit the young princess, who was far from suspecting the terrible snare laid for her—a snare of which the English consul is said to have been cognizant. Deluded by the caresses and feigned love of Orloff, she begged to be "shown the large and beautiful ships of the Russian fleet," which was ordered to prepare for her reception.
On her arriving at the beach, she was placed by Orloff in a handsome boat, screened by a silken awning; the second barge conveyed the vice-admiral and other British officers, who for many years after were all unconscious of the villainy of Orloff. Music, huzzas, and salutes of artillery welcomed the unhappy daughter of the Empress Elizabeth on board the nearest ship; and the moment she stood upon its deck, she was handcuffed with heavy irons, and thrust into one of the lowest cabins. She threw herself at the feet of Orloff, and implored pity as his wife; but was answered by laughter and mockery, while the anchor was weighed, and the ship sailed for St. Petersburg, where she was shut up in a fortress on the Neva, and was never heard of again!
Rumour adds a darker tinge to this tale of Russian cruelty, by asserting that, two years afterwards, when the waters of the Neva rose ten feet by an inundation, they filled the horrid vault in which she was confined, and drowned her. Her body was then flung into the stream, and swept by its current into the Gulf of Finland.
But to return. As the wind continued fair, Greig bore away for Paros, a beautiful isle of the central Cyclades, which was the rendezvous of the fleet under Spiritoff, and where a great many small vessels of an entirely new construction, were prepared for the purpose of embarking and landing troops.
Here the Russians had seized and sold a number of Venetian ships, consequently the senate ordered all their vessels of war to be prepared to resist the new armament of Greig, and in March rigged two ships of 84 guns each, and two more of 75: these ultimately came to blows with the Turks, and defeated them off the Isle of Candia.
On the 10th of March, tidings having come to Paros that the Turkish fleet were about to surprise the Russian garrison at Sciros, a 50-gun ship and four frigates were despatched to oppose the attempt, but signally failed—for they were all burned or taken but one. The general head-quarters of the Czarina's forces were at the Isle of Paros; and there, during the spring of 1774, the Admirals Spiritoff and Greig anchored their armaments at Port Naussa, on the northern shore—one of the finest harbours in the Archipelago, and in the channel between Paros and the bold and lofty coast of Naxos. Their regular troops occupied Marmora and Zimbido, while their Albanian allies were at Bachia. Greig and Spiritoff made every effort to refit the old ships, and prepare them for hostilities in summer, and when their cruisers joined them from Patmos and Tasso; but before anything of importance was achieved, the Empress concluded a peace with the Turks—a peace, says Frederick the Great, "resplendent with glory, by the success which her arms had met with against her enemies during the war;" and by this peace, the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardgi, Catherine stipulated that the Crimea, which had hitherto been under the subjection of the Turks, should be, in all time coming, an independent sovereignty under its own khans, thus lessening the power of the Porte.
Admiral Greig now returned to Russia with the fleet, and for many years devoted himself entirely to the improvement of the Russian marine, and the development of the naval resources of the Empire—remodelling its code of discipline, relaxing its barbarity, civilizing and educating its officers and men, by training the marine cadets on board of two frigates or floating academies, and thus justly earning for himself the honourable and endearing sobriquet of the Father of the Russian Navy. For these and other valuable services the grateful Empress bestowed upon him the government of Cronstadt, and a commission as High Admiral of all the Russias, at the same time decorating him with the Orders of St. Andrew, St. George of the second class, St. Vladimir, which she instituted on the 22nd September, 1782 (her twentieth coronation day), and St. Anne of Holstein, which is always the gift of the Grand Duke. His great assistant was Mr. Gordon, director-general of the ship-building, who at one time had building, under his own immediate care, two ships of 100 guns each, three of 90 guns each, six of 70 guns each, and ten of 40 guns each—all of which, for their skilful construction, strength, swiftness, and beauty of mould, had never been equalled by any previous effort of Russian naval architecture.
The admiral's pay was now 7000 roubles per annum.
In accordance with the custom of the Russian nobility, who add the Christian name of their father to their own, with the termination owitch, which signifies the son of, we find the Scottish admiral signing and designating himself "Samuel Carlovitch Greig." He was ever treated with the greatest consideration and honour by the Empress, who, in the year 1776, paid him the compliment of a visit—then esteemed an unparalleled act of condescension for the crowned head of Russia, who, among many absurd and hyperbolical titles, had (and perhaps still retains) the blasphemous one of "Chamberlain to Almighty God."
On the 18th of July the Empress, attended by all the great officers of her state and household, went in a magnificent barge from Oranienbaum to Admiral Greig's ship, the yards of which he had manned. As soon as he had handed her on board, the Imperial standard was hoisted, and the whole fleet fired a salute, which was responded to by nine hundred pieces of cannon in Cronstadt. Dinner was set in Greig's cabin for the Empress and a hundred guests, who were the principal officers of her marine and other departments. The whole fleet then weighed anchor, and Catherine, accompanied by the infamous Orloff, Field-Marshal Count Galitzin, and Count Bruce, the adjutant on duty, was rowed in her barge along the line amid another salute of cannon. Before returning to Oranienbaum she placed on Greig's breast the golden and eight-pointed star of St. Alexander Newski, with the red ribbon, which is worn over the left shoulder.
During the peace, Greig was unremitting in his efforts to draw British officers into the service, and the number who offered their swords and valour to the Czarina soon conduced, by their skill and talent, to render her navy for the first time respectable and formidable in Europe.[10]
Thus it was that, in 1799, in Lord Duncan's line of battle, August 24th, at the Texel, we find among the Russian ships of war, the Ratisvan, commanded by Captain Greig; and in September, under the same gallant admiral, the Scottish captains Scott, Dunn, Boyle, Maclagan, Ogilvie, and Rose, commanding the Russian ships Alexander Newski, 74; Neptune, 54; Rafaill, 44; Revel, 44; Minerva, 38; and St. Nicholas, 38, embarking the Russian troops at Revel; and thus it was, that when Russia, fifteen years before, projected a new war against the Turks, in consequence of their interference with the affairs of the independent Crimea, the Empress found her fleet to consist of upwards of ninety sail at Cronstadt, Revel, and in the Sea of Asoph.
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