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IX.

described as having relief in sickness, refuge in CHAP. calamity; and in their old age a comfortable asylum. We asked the Prince, if there existed one, amongst the happiest of his slaves, who would not rejoice to exchange his Russian liberty for what he was pleased to term English slavery.

"in

-We had seen the peasants of this very man, according to his own pathetic discourse, sickness, in calamity, and in old age;" and it was well known to every person present, that their "relief and refuge" was in death, and their "asylum" the grave.

Another nobleman assured us, that the greatest punishment he inflicted upon his slaves (for he professed to have banished all corporeal chastisement) was to give them their liberty, and then turn them from his door. Upon further inquiry, we discovered that his slaves fled from their fetters, even if there were a certainty of death before their eyes, rather than remain beneath his tyranny. Great indeed must be the degree of oppression which a Russian will not endure, who from his cradle crouches to his oppressor, and has been accustomed to receive the rod without daring to murmur. Other nations speak of Russian indolence; which is remarkable, as no people are naturally more lively, or more disposed to employment. We

IX.

CHAP. may perhaps assign a cause for their inactivity, in necessity. Can there exist any inducement to labour, when it is certain that a ruthless tyrant will deprive industry of its hard earnings? The only property a Russian nobleman allows his peasant to possess, is the food he cannot or will not eat himself; the bark of trees', chaff, and other refuse; quass, water, and fish oil. If the slave have sufficient ingenuity to gain money without his knowledge, it becomes a dangerous possession; and, when once discovered, it falls instantly into the hands of his lord.

A peasant in the village of Celo Molody, near Moscow, who had been fortunate enough to scrape together a little wealth, wished to marry his daughter to a tradesman of the city, and offered fifteen thousand roubles for her freedom -a most unusual price, and a much greater sum than persons of his class, situate as he was, will be generally found to possess. The

(1) A few thousands of their fellows eat wheaten bread, because thirty millions of slaves browse on herbs and gnaw birch bark, on which they feed, like the beavers, who surpass them in understanding." Secret Mem. of Court of Petersburg, p: 268.

(2) This anecdote of a peasant's wealth, and the example mentioned in p. 109, seem to prove an incorrectness in the description given of the hardships sustained by the lower order of people in Russia; unless

the

tyrant took the ransom; and then told the father, that both the girl and the money belonged to him, and therefore she must still continue among the number of his slaves. What a picture do these facts afford of the state of Russia! It is thus that we behold the subjects of a vast empire stripped of all they possess, and existing in the most abject servitude; victims of tyranny, and of wickedness; exposed to a more unprincipled dominion, and to severer privations, than the most wretched vassals of any other system of despotism upon earth.

Traversing the provinces south of Moscow, the land is as the garden of Eden; a fine soil, covered with corn, and apparently smiling in plenty but enter into the cottage of the poor labourer, who is surrounded by all these riches, and you find him dying of hunger, or pining

CHAP.

IX.

the Reader be further informed, that the term Peasant, as applied to the population of Russia, does not necessarily imply that part of it who are poor. A peasant may be very rich. He may be found in the exercise of a lucrative trade, or engaged, as a merchant, in commerce; yet, as he belongs to the class of slaves, both his wealth and his person belong to some particular lord. Sometimes the lords content themselves in receiving a moiety of the earnings obtained by their slaves; but very frequently they seize all within their power, and hence arises the necessity a rich peasant feels of concealing what he may possess. It is the agricultural peasant who sustains constant privation, in the midst of apparent wealth.

VOL. I.

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CHAP. from bad food, and in want of the common necessaries of life. Extensive pastures, covered with cattle, afford no milk to him. In autumn, the harvest yields no bread for his children. A selfish and misdoing lord claims all the produce. At the end of summer, every road in the southern provinces is filled with caravans, bearing corn and all sorts of provisions, every produce of labour and of the land, to supply the nobles of Moscow and Petersburg with the means of wealth, and the markets of those two capitals, which, like whirlpools, swallow all that approaches their vortex, with never-ending voracity'.

(1) "A few cities enjoy the pleasures of life, and exhibit palaces, because whole provinces lie desolate, or contain only wretched hovels, in which you would expect to find bears, rather than men." Secret Mem. of the Court of Petersburg, p. 268.

[graphic][merged small]

FROM MOSCOW TO WORONETZ.

Departure from Moscow-Celo Molody- Serpuchof-
Insolence and Extortion-River Oka-Celo Zavody-
Antient Games-Vast Oriental Plain-State of Tra-
velling-Tula-its Manufactures-Imperial Fabric of
Arms-Present State of Tula-Economy of Fuel-
Iron Mines-Road from Tula to Woronetz-Dedilof-
Change of Climate-Boghoroditz-Celo Nikitzkoy-
Bolshoy Platy-Effremof-Nikolaijevka-Celo Pe-
trovskia Palnia-Eletz-Ezvoly-Zadonetz - Celo
Chlebnoy - Bestuzevka - Celo Staroy Ivotinskoy -
Woronetz.

Ir is now necessary to take leave of Moscow, CHAP

where we passed some pleasant hours, and many others of painful anxiety, exposed to insult, and to oppression, from the creatures,

X.

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