1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 49 quarters, and exercized these souldiers

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

1661] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 49

quarters, and exercized these souldiers twice a day in faire weather. I re- September 2
ceived money, twenty fyve rubles, for ray welcome ; and the next day,
sables, and two dayes thereafter, damask and cloth.

I received a months meanes, in cursed copper money, as did these who September ■>;
came along with me.

About thirty officers, most whereof I had bespoke in Riga, came to September 2:
Mosko, most of them being our countreymen, as Walter Airth, William
Guild, Georg Keith, Andrew Burnet, Andrew Calderwood, Robert Stuart,
and others, most whereof were enrolled in our regiment.

I marched, by order, into the utmost great tovme, and to the Sloboda October.
Zagrodniky, and tooke up my quarters

At the first, some contentions did fall out betwixt the officers and sojours,
with the rich burgesses, who would not admitt them into their houses.
Amongst the rest, a merchant, by whom my quarters were taken up, whilst
my servants were cleansing the inner room, he breake downe the oven in
the utter roome, which served to warme both, so that I was forced to go to
another quarter. But, to teach him better manners, I sent the profos* to
quarter by him, with twenty prisoners and a corporalship of sojours, who,
by connivence, did grievously plague him a weeke ; and it cost him near a
hundred dollers, bcfor he could procure an order out of the right office to
have them removed, and was well laught at besides for his uncivilitv and
obstinacy.

During my abode here, two notable passages happened, which follow :

The first : The souldiers takeing a liberty to keep brandy for their owne
uses, and sometimes to sell, which being prejudicial! to his Majesties reve-
nues (the profitt of all strong liquor brewed or made in his countrey, come-
ing into his treasure), it is not only strictly forbidden to all to sell any by
smalls, but the breach hereof most severely punished ; spyes and searchers
being every where, who, getting notice of the selling of any such liquor,
delate and immediately give notice to the office On a Sunday afternoone,
whilst I was in the Sloboda of the Strangers, a writter, with twenty or thirty
Streltsees, comeing to a house where the sojours had brandy, the doore being
shutt, befor they gott entrance, the sojours carryed their brandy back into
the garden, so that, after a narrow search, and nothing found, the sojours

* [Profos, that is. provost,— the provost marshal]
H