Related
52 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661 The Boyar Elia Danielovits Miloslawskj
1699] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 193 ' A number of Strelitzes were executed
654. OBER-OFFICER of the Dnieper Pikemen Regiment, 1776-1784.
1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 47 good earnest to consider how I might ridd myself of this countrey
110 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1686 I gave up my petition
42 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1661 misfortune
1667] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 97 storme, wee could not gett over to Embden
116 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1686 a third, on the way to Konigsberg
1666] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 79 I did writt to Sir John Hebden
1661-2] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 63 The Boyar, Ella Danielovitz Miloslawsky, mustered six hundred souldiers
Summary
Passages from the diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries : A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699"
1661-2] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 63
The Boyar, Ella Danielovitz Miloslawsky, mustered six hundred soul-
diers of our regiment, and makeing them to a new regiment of Streltsees,
gave thera to a Golova called Nikifor Ivan[ovItz] Kolobuf, whereat the
sojours grieved exceedingly.
At the same tyme, I was ordered to teach the said Golova or colonell
the exercize of foot, he haveing never served to foot befor, neither knew
any thing what belonged to the command of a regiment.
We were called into the office to take the oath of fidelity to the Tzaar,
the Hollands minister being to administrate it, and speaking befor us.
When he said that wee should swear to serve his Majcstie faithfully and
truly all the dayes of our lyves, I protested, and would not proceed, relying
on my capitulation ; which not being allowed, and I remaining constant, I
was detained in the prykase, untill this medium was found, and 1 forced to
swear to serve so long as the warr with Polland should continue.
[For more than a twelvemonth after his arrival at Moscow, Gordon seems to have been op-
pressed with melancholy. The depreciation of the copper money, caused by an al)use of the right
of coining possessed by cities and individuals, was so great, that although his pay was increased
by a fourth part of its nominal amount, he had difficulty in living upon it. He saw no way of
quitting the country. He had a severe illness, issuing in an intermittent fever, which troubled
him for a considerable time. Altogether, the adverse and unlooked for change in his fortunes
went so much to his heart, that he believed he would have sunk under it, but for constant oc-
cupation in drilling his men, and the relief which he occaiionally found in the company of the
Scottish officers, with many of whose ways, however, he had little or no sympathy.
He records in his Diary more instances than one of the ignorance and suspicious temper of
the Muscovites. One of their prisoners of war, a Lithuanian officer, named Ganseroski, was
advised by his Italian doctor to sprinkle cream of tartar upon his food. They spoke in Latin;
and the Eussian captain of the guard, hearing the words cremor tartaric reported that the patient
and his physician held discourse on the affairs ot Crim Tartai'y. It was with some difficulty that
the leech escaped torture. Bribery and corruption prevailed everywhere. Hearing that the
Boyar, Feodor Michaelovvitsch Milotawski, was about to depart on an embassy to Persia, Gordon
and his friend Captain Paul Menzies made interest to be included in the number of his attend-
ants. The Boyar's consent was purchased by a gift of a hundred ducats to himself, and of a
saddle and bridle worth twenty ducats to his steward. But Gordon's services were too valuable
to be parted with, and obstacles interposed by higher authority disappointed his hopes of a
journey to the East.
[A.D. 1662.]
In 1662 he reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Sick of the frivolous or dissipated 1(J62.
society of his military companions, he now resolved to cultivate the acquaintance of the virtuous
Gordon was brought up and remained a lifelong Roman Catholic, at a time when the Church was being persecuted in Scotland. At age of fifteen, he entered the Jesuit college at Braunsberg, East Prussia, then part of Poland. In 1661, after many years experiences as a soldier of fortune, he joined the Russian army under Tsar Aleksei I, and in 1665 was sent on a special mission to England. After his return, he distinguished himself in several wars against the Turks and Tatars in southern Russia. In recognition of his service he was promoted to major-general in 1678, was appointed to the high command at Kiev in 1679, and in 1683 was made lieutenant-general. In 1687 and 1689 he took part in expeditions against the Tatars in the Crimea, being made a full general. Later in 1689, a revolution broke out in Moscow, and with the troops under his command, Gordon virtually decided events in favor of Peter the Great against the Regent, Tsarevna Sophia Alekseyevna. Consequently, he was for the remainder of his life in high favor with the Tsar, who confided to him the command of his capital during his absence from Russia. In 1696, Gordon's design of a "moveable rampart" played a key role in helping the Russians take Azov. One of Gordon's convinced the Tsars to establish the first Roman Catholic church and school in Muscovy, of which he remained the main benefactor and headed the Catholic community in Russia until his death. For his services his second son James, brigadier of the Russian army, was created Count of the Holy Roman Empire in 1701. At the end of his life the Tsar, who had visited Gordon frequently during his illness, was with him when he died, and with his own hands closed his eyes. General Gordon left behind him a uniquely detailed diary of his life and times, written in English. This is preserved in manuscript in the Russian State Military Archive in Moscow. Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries (1635–1699) was printed, under the editorship of Joseph Robertson, for the Spalding Club, at Aberdeen, Scotland, 1859.