1699] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 193 ' A number of Strelitzes were executed

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

1699] DIARY OF PATRICK GORDON. 193

' A number of Strelitzes were executed. September 3

' T was at Preobraschensk, and saw the crocodile, swordfish, and other curiosities, which his October 3.
M^esty had brought from England and Holland.

' Orders were issued not to give support to any of the wives or children of the executed November 1'
Strelitzes.'

The Diary closes on the last day of this year, with these devout aspirations ; — ' Almighty December 31
God be praised for his gracious long suffering towards mo in sparing my life so long. Grant,
gracious God, that I may make a good use of the time that thou mayest be pleased yet to grant
me for repentance. This year I have felt a sensible decrease of health and strength. Yet thy
will be done, gracious God !'



These were the last words that Gordon was to enter in his journal of many years. His
strength was now fast failing, and during the following summer he became so weak that he was
unable to leave his bed. He died at seven o'clock in the morning of the twenty-ninth of
November, 1699. The Czar, who had visited him five times in his illness, and had been twice
with him during the night, stood weeping by his bed as he drew his last breath; and the
eyes of him who had left Scotland a poor unfriended wanderer, were closed by the hands of an
Emperor.

Peter himself ordered the funeral procession, and took his place in its long line, accompanied
by all the pomp of his empire, and followed by the representatives of most of the great powers
of Eiirope. The body was carried on the shoulders of twenty-eight colonels; two generals
supported the footsteps of his widow, and twenty ladies, the wives of high Muscovite digni-
taries, walked in her train. The religious obsequies were performed by the priests of the
church which he loved, in the first chapel of stone which the Roman Catholics were suffered to
raise in Moscow. It was built chiefly by his bounty, and his tomb was dug before its high altar,
in a vault, where this inscription may still be read :

SACEAE TZAREAE MAJESTATIS MILITIAE GENERALIS

PATRIGIUS LEOPOLDUS GORDON

NATUS ANNO DOMINI 1635 DIE 31 MARTII

DENATUS ANNO DOMINI 1699 DIE 29 NOVEMBRIS

REQUIESCAT IN PACE



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