The acknowledgment, accompanied by such flattering testimonials of respect, was deemed satisfactory.  The tzar had demanded the death of the offender.  Every Englishman must read with pride the declaration of Queen Anne in reference to this demand.

“There are,” said she, “insuperable difficulties with respect to the ancient and fundamental laws of the government of our people, which we fear do not permit so severe and rigorous a sentence to be given, as your imperial majesty first seemed to expect in this case.  And we persuade ourselves that your imperial majesty, who are a prince famous for clemency and exact justice, will not require us, who are the guardian and protector of the laws, to inflict a punishment on our subjects which the law does not empower us to do.”

The whole of Livonia speedily fell into the hands of the tzar and was reannexed to Russia.  Pestilence, which usually follows in the train of war, now rose from the putridity of battle fields, and sweeping, like the angel of death, over the war-scathed and starving inhabitants of Livonia, penetrated Sweden.  Whole provinces were depopulated, and in Stockholm alone thirty thousand perished.  The war of the Spanish Succession was now raging, and every nation in Europe was engaged in the work of destruction and butchery.  Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, the German empire, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, were all in arms, and hundreds of millions of men were directly or indirectly employed in the work of mutual destruction.  The fugitive king, Charles XII., was endeavoring to enlist the energies of the Ottoman Porte in his behalf, and the Grand Seignor had promised to throw his armies also, two hundred thousand strong, into the arena of flame and blood, and to march for the conquest of Russia.

Peter, conscious of the danger of an attack from Turkey, raised an army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, when he was informed that the Turks, with a combined army of two hundred and ten thousand troops, were ravaging the province of Azof.  Urging his troops impetuously onward, he crossed the Pruth and entered Jassi, the capital of Moldavia.  The grand vizier, with an army three times more numerous, crossed the Danube and advanced to meet him.  For three days the contending hosts poured their shot into each other’s bosoms.  The tzar, outnumbered and surrounded, though enabled to hold his position behind his intrenchments, saw clearly that famine would soon compel him to surrender.  His position was desperate.

Catharine had accompanied her husband on this expedition, and, at her earnest solicitation, the tzar sent proposals of peace to the grand vizier, accompanied with a valuable present of money and jewels.  The Turk, dreading the energies which despair might develop in so powerful a foe, was willing to come into an accommodation, and entered into a treaty, which, though greatly to the advantage of the Ottoman Porte, rescued the tzar from the greatest peril in which he had ever been placed.  The grand vizier good-naturedly sent several wagons of provisions to the camp of his humbled foes, and the Russians returned to their homes, having lost twenty thousand men.