Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: house where the conspirators were assembled, and took them all into custody. This happened on the 2d of February, 1697, and on the 5th of March they were executed in the grand square before the Kremlin, and their heads fixed on spikes of iron, as, not very many years ago, those of traitors were fixed on Temple Bar; with this difference, that the spikes for the heads of the Strelitzes were driven into a lofty column, erected for the purpose on the spot; their arms and legs bound round the column, and their trunks thrown on the ground for the dogs to devour. The principal conspirators are said to have been three boyars, a colonel of the Don Cossacks, and four captains of the Strelitzes. CHAPTER III. The Tzar Peter travels into Holland—His Residence at Zaandam. The conquest of Asoph being accomplished chiefly by the odd plan of attack proposed by General Patrick Gordon and the assistance rendered by the ships built by foreigners, and manned chiefly with them, the Tzar was now more than ever convinced of the pre-eminence of the natives of Western Europe over his own barbarous subjects. This consideration created in him a strong desire to give to the latter every facility and encouragement for enlarging their minds, and improving themselves in every species of useful knowledge, and more particularly in the art of war, and the construction of large ships on sound principles of naval architecture. Influenced by these motives, he despatched, in 1697, Nestesuranoi. Lacombe. JohnMottley. sixty young Russians, selected by Le Fort out of his regiment, to Venice and Leghorn, in order that they might make themselves acquainted with everything pertaining to the art of ship-building and navigation, and particularly with the construction of row-galleys; and forty more were sent to ...