1660] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 31 take ship for Scotland. Ou his way back to the camp, he waited on the commandant of Pillau

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

1660] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 31

take ship for Scotjand. Ou his way back to the camp, he waited on the commandant of Pillau,
by whom, much against his will, he was constrained to stay to a marriage feast. He was much
rallied for his temperance at dinner, nor was it without difficulty that he was persuaded to join
in the gaieties which followed. The charms of hi': host's daughter having prevailed against
his dislike of dancing, the officers assailed him with fresh provocations to drink, but he turned a
deaf ear to them all.

When he returned to the anny, the general sent for him to say that a regiment of dragoons
was about to be raised, and that he should have a company in it. His first care was for the
health of his men, and for this purpose he repaired to I'osen to take counsel with a Jew doctor
in gi-eat repute for his successful treatment of the plague. Of this practitioner he bought ten dol-
lars' worth of pills. Several pages of the Diary are tilled with details of marches and counter
marches, of which the only object seems to have been the subsistence of the soldiers. It was
'the custom of the couutrj'' that recruiting parties and troops on march should be supported by
the districts through which they passed; but this privilege had been so much abused by self-
constituted bands, that Gordon was received very much as if he had been invading a hostile
country. His entrance into towns and villages was opposed by the inhabitants in arms; and
his men had often to march with matches lighted. He spared a visit to one town, of his own
accord, ho tells us, because it belonged to a prince who befriended foreigners, and because its
' provost' or chief-magistrate was a Scot. But he repented this precipitate piece of courtesy,
for which his countryman showed no gratitude.

A.D. 1660.

He was at the Castle of Lubowna, near Guesen, in the summer of IGCO, when the Podstaroste IfiGO.
infonncd him that the King of England had been recalled to his throne. Gordon was so over-
joyed with the tidings that he departed for once from his accustomed abstemiousness. He had
to pay the forfeit of his loyal festivities next morning.

Field-marshal Lubomirski, compelled by the jealousy of the nobles to abandon his design oi
raising a dragoon regiment, proposed that Gordon's company should be merged in his own
body-guard, and that that the whole should, in the meantime, be under Gordon's command.
In this capacity of Captain-lieutenant, he served in that campaign of the Poles and Crim-Tar-
tars, against the Cossacks of the Ukraine and the Muscovites, which terminated in the
disastrous route of the latter at Czudno or Slobodischtsche, in June, 1660. In this battle, June.
in which the Russians lost 115 standards, C7 guns, and 36,000 men killed or taken
prisoners, Gordon greatly distinguished himself, and received several wounds. His friend
Lieutenant colonel Menzies,* who fought in the Muscovite ranks, was taken prisoner by

* Thomas Menzies of Balgownie, the son of at Riga in Leifland with Ladie Marie Farser-

aRoman Catholic family driven from Scotland son, borne of noble and honourable parentage

by the Covenant, bus been mentioned in a pre- in the dukedomc of Curland.' It was given in

vious page, as Patrick Gordon's fellow travel- evidence by Lord ilenry Gordon, at Aberdeen

lerfrom i->antzic to Braunsberg in the summer in 1672, 'that the said deccast Lievtennant-

of 1651. In the same year ' he wes married Collonell Thomas Mcnzcis, being, in anno 1667,