The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars. James Grant

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СКАЧАТЬ 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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