on that account."

Catharine was inoculated on the 12th of October, 1768, and went
immediately to a secluded private palace at some distance from the
city, under the pretense that she wished to superintend some repairs.
She took with her only the necessary attendants. Soon, however,
several of the nobility, some of whom she suspected had not had the
small-pox, followed. As a week was to elapse after the operation
before the disease would begin to manifest itself, the empress said to
Dr. Dimsdale,

"I must rely on you to give me notice when it is possible for me to
communicate the disease. Though I could wish to keep my inoculation a
secret, yet far be it from me to conceal it a moment when it may
become hazardous to others."

In the mean time she took part in every amusement with her wonted
affability and without the slightest indication of alarm. She dined
with the rest of the company, and enlivened the whole court with those
conversational charms for which she was distinguished. The disease
proved light, and she was carried through it very successfully. Soon
after, she wrote to Voltaire,

"I have not kept my bed a single instant, and I have received company
every day. I am about to have my only son inoculated. Count Orlof,
that hero who resembles the ancient Romans in the best times of the
republic, both in courage and generosity, doubting whether he had ever
had the small-pox, has put himself under the hands of our Englishman,
and, the next day after the operation, went to the hunt in a very deep
fall of snow. A great number of courtiers have followed his example,
and many others are preparing to do so. Besides this, inoculation is
now carried on at Petersburg in three seminaries of education, and in
an hospital established under the protection of Dr. Dimsdale."

The empress testified her gratitude for the benefits Dr. Dimsdale had
conferred upon Russia by making him a present of fifty thousand
dollars, and settling upon him a pension of one thousand dollars a
year. On the 3d of December, 1768, a thanksgiving service was
performed in the chapel of the palace, in gratitude for the recovery
of her majesty and her son Paul from the small-pox.

The Turks began now to manifest great apprehensions in view of the
rapid growth of the Russian empire. Poland was so entirely
overshadowed that its monarchs were elected and its government
administered under the influence of a Russian army. In truth, Poland
had become but