The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia - Voltaire

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islands, and returned without having discovered the passage.

      In 1741, Bering cruised all over this sea, in company with De Lisle de la Croyere, the astronomer, of the same family of L'Isle, which has produced such excellent geographers: another captain likewise went upon the same discovery. They both made the coast of America, to the northward of California. Thus the north-east passage, so long sought after, was at length discovered, but there were no refreshments to be met with in those barren coasts. Their fresh water failed them, and part of the crew perished with the scurvy. They saw the northern bank of California for above a hundred miles, and saw some leathern canoes, with just such a sort of people in them as the Canadians. All their endeavours however proved fruitless: Bering ended his life in an island, to which he gave his name. The other captain, happening to be closer in with the Californian coast, sent ten of his people on shore, who never returned. The captain, after waiting for them in vain, found himself obliged to return back to Kamtshatka, and De Lisle died as he was going on shore. Such are the disasters that have generally attended every new attempt upon the northern seas. But what advantages may yet arise from these powerful and dangerous discoveries, time alone can prove.

      We have now described all the different provinces that compose the Russian dominions, from Finland to the sea of Japan. The largest parts of this empire have been all united at different times, as has been the case in all other kingdoms in the world. The Scythians, Huns, Massagetes, Slavians, Cimbrians, Getes, and Sarmatians, are now subjects of the czar. The Russians, properly so called, are the ancient Roxolani or Slavi.

      Upon reflection, we shall find that most states were formed in the same manner. The French are an assemblage of Goths, of Danes called Normands, of northern Germans, called Burgundians; of Franks, Allmans, and some Romans, mixed with the ancient Celtæ. In Rome and Italy there are several families descended from the people of the North, but none that we know of from the ancient Romans. The supreme pontiff is frequently the offspring of a Lombard, a Goth, a Teuton, or a Cimbrian. The Spaniards are a race of Arabs, Carthaginians, Jews, Tyrians, Visigoths, and Vandals, incorporated with the ancient inhabitants of the country. When nations are thus intermixed, it is a long time before they are civilized, or even before their language is formed. Some, indeed, receive these sooner, others later. Polity and the liberal arts are so difficult to establish, and the new raised structure is so often destroyed by revolutions, that we may wonder all nations are not so barbarous as Tartars.

      CHAP. II

      Continuation of the description of Russia, population, finances, armies, customs, religion: state of Russia before Peter the Great.

      The more civilized a country is, the better it is peopled. Thus China and India are more populous than any other empires, because, after a multitude of revolutions, which changed the face of sublunary affairs, these two nations made the earliest establishments in civil society: the antiquity of their government, which has subsisted upwards of four thousand years, supposes, as we have already observed, many essays and efforts in preceding ages. The Russians came very late; but the arts having been introduced amongst them in their full perfection, it has happened, that they have made more progress in fifty years, than any other nation had done before them in five hundred. The country is far from being populous, in proportion to its extent; but, such as it is, it has as great a number of inhabitants as any other state in Christendom. From the capitation lists, and the register of merchants, artificers, and male peasants, I might safely assert, that Russia, at present, contains at least twenty-four millions of male inhabitants: of these twenty-four millions, the greatest part are villains or bondmen, as in Poland, several provinces of Germany, and formerly throughout all Europe. The estate of a gentleman in Russia and Poland is computed, not by his increase in money, but by the number of his slaves.

      The following is a list, taken in 1747, of all the males who paid the capitation or poll-tax: —

      Here we have a round number of six millions six hundred forty-six thousand three hundred and ninety male persons, who pay the poll-tax. In this number are included boys and old men, but girls and women are not reckoned, nor boys born between the making of one register of the lands and another. Now, if we only reckon triple the number of heads subject to be taxed, including women and girls, we shall find near twenty millions of souls.

      To this number we may add the military list, which amounts to three hundred and fifty thousand men: besides, neither the nobility nor clergy, who are computed at two hundred thousand, are subject to this capitation.

      Foreigners, of whatever country or profession, are likewise exempt: as also the inhabitants of the conquered countries, namely, Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Carelia, and a part of Finland, the Ukraine, and the Don Cossacks, the Calmucks, and other Tartars, Samojedes, the Laplanders, the Ostiaks, and all the idolatrous people of Siberia, a country of greater extent than China.

      By the same calculation, it is impossible that the total of the inhabitants of Russia should amount to less than twenty-four millions. At this rate, there are eight persons to every square mile. The English ambassador, whom I have mentioned before, allows only five; but he certainly was not furnished with such faithful memoirs as those with which I have been favoured.

      Russia therefore is exactly five times less populous than Spain, but contains near four times the number of inhabitants: it is almost as populous as France or Germany; but, if we consider its vast extent, the number of souls is thirty times less.

      There is one important remark to be made in regard to this enumeration, namely, that out of six million six hundred and forty thousand people liable to the poll-tax, there are about nine hundred thousand that belong to the Russian clergy, without reckoning either the ecclesiastics of the conquered countries, of the Ukraine, or of Siberia.

      Therefore, out of seven persons liable to the poll-tax, the clergy have one; but, nevertheless, they are far from possessing the seventh part of the whole revenues of the state, as is the case in many other kingdoms, where they have at least a seventh of all estates; for their peasants pay a capitation to the sovereign; and the other taxes of the crown of Russia, in which the clergy have no share, are very considerable.

      This valuation is very different from that of all other writers, on the affairs of Russia; so that foreign ministers, who have transmitted memoirs of this state to their courts, have been greatly mistaken. The archives of the empire are the only things to be consulted.

      It is very probable, that Russia has been better peopled than it is at present; before the small-pox, that came from the extremities of Arabia, and the great-pox that came from America, had spread over these climates, where they have now taken root. The world owes these two dreadful scourges, which have depopulated it more than all its wars, the one to Mahomet, and the other to Christopher Columbus. The plague, which is a native of Africa, seldom approached the countries of the North: besides, the people of those countries, from Sarmatia to the Tartars, who dwell beyond the great wall, having overspread the world by their irruptions, this ancient nursery of the human species must have been surprisingly diminished.

      In this vast extent of country, there are said to be about seventy-four thousand monks, and five thousand nuns, notwithstanding the care taken by Peter the Great to reduce their number; a care worthy the legislator of an empire where the human race is so remarkably deficient. These thirteen thousand persons, thus immured and lost to the state, have, as the reader may have observed, seventy-two thousand bondmen to till their lands, which is evidently too great a number: there cannot be a stronger proof how difficult it is to eradicate abuses of a long standing.

      I find, by a list of the revenues of the empire in 1735, that reckoning the tribute paid by the Tartars, with all taxes and duties in money, the sum total amounted to thirteen millions of rubles, which makes sixty-five millions of French livres, exclusive of tributes in kind. This moderate sum was at that time sufficient to maintain three hundred and thirty-nine thousand five hundred, as well sea as land forces: but both the revenues and troops are augmented since that time.

      The customs, diets, and manners of the Russians, ever bore a greater affinity to those of Asia than to those of Europe: such was the old custom of receiving tributes in kind, of defraying the expenses of ambassadors on their journeys, and during their residence in the country, and of

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