164 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1688 [A.D. 1687. In a book quoted by the German editors— Korb's Diarium Idncris in Moscoviam

Passages from the diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries : A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699"

164 DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. [1688

[A.D. 1687.

In a book quoted by the German editors— Korb's Diarium Idncris in Moscoviam, page 316— it
is said that Gordon was not merely threatened with degradation, but that he was actually
reduced to the lowest rank. But this statement seems to have been hazarded without sufficient
grounds. Nor is it true, as the same writer affirms, that Gordon did not regain his former

ary 2. dignity until the fall of Golizyn. On the contrary, so early as January, 1687, he was
formally apprised that, by order of the Czars, he was to command the select regiments of the
second division, in a war against the Tartars of the Crimea. He lost no time in drilling his
soldiers, and after a month's diligent exercise, was able to begin his march on the twenty-

lary 22. second of February.

To Gordon, as quartermaster-general, it fell to find themeans of transport, to reconnoitre
the line of advance, to make the roads and bridges, and to determine where the camp should be
pitched for the night. The route was over steppes swarming with the light horse of the
Tartars, so that the Muscovites had to march in dense columns, flanked on either hand by rows

i. of waggons, to break the charge of thd enemy. It is noted that, on the eighth of May, when

the expedition set out from the neighbourhood of Kiew, the string of waggons, twenty thousand
in number, was a thousand fathoms long, and five hundred and fifty-seven fathoms broad. By
the middle of June, the army had reached the lower steppes of the Dnieper, when the grass
having been set on fire by the Tartars, or, as was suspected, by the Cossack allies of the invading
force, dearth of forage for the horses compelled a retreat. The troops were soon afterwards
disbanded ; thanks and more substantial rewards being bestowed upon the officers. Gordon's

mber 11. services were recompensed by promotion to the rank of General.

A.D. 1688.

He spent the next year quietly at Moscow. He records that the Boyars, Peter Alexeiewitsch
ary 8. Golizyn, and Boris Feodorowitsch Dolgoi'uky, dined at his table in the beginning of January. A
new city was to be built where the Samara flows into the Volga, and of the plans which were
called for, Gordon's was chiefly followed. But he was not without his detractors. At a great
council, the Patriarch spoke bitterly against him, saying that the Muscovite arms could not
hope to prosper so long as a heretic commanded the best troops of the empire. But the Boyars
only laughed at this display of orthodox zeal. From his Butirki regiment— so called from the
place where it was quartered in the neighbourhood of Moscow— trained soldiers and drummers
were drafted to Kolomenski, at that time the residence of the younger of the two Emperors;
and this, it would seem, was the beginning of his intercourse with that remarkable man. Hence-
forth, the name of the Czar Peter becomes more and more frequent in the Diary.

Thus, on the twenty-fifth of January, it is noted that a privy council was held, at which the
Princess Sophia and both the Czars were present, the younger for the first time.

Two days afterwards, being the anniversary of the Czar Alexei Michaelowitsch of blessed