pon that unknown ocean from which Russia
had all its life been shut out! His ship was the first to bear a
Russian flag into foreign waters, and now Peter had taken the first
step toward learning how to build a navy, but he had no place yet to
use one. So he turned his nimble activities toward the Black Sea. He
had only to capture Azof in the Crimea from the Turks, and he would
have a sea for his navy--and then might easily make the navy for his
sea! So he went down, carrying his soldiers and his new European
tactics--in which no one believed--gathered up his Cossacks, and the
attack was made, first with utter failure--all on account of the new
tactics--and then at last came overwhelming success; and a triumphant
return (1676) to Moscow under arches and garlands of flowers. Three
thousand Russian families were sent to colonize Azof, which was guarded
by some regiments of the _Streltsui_ and by Cossacks--and now there
must be a navy.

There must be nine ships of the line, and twenty frigates carrying
fifty guns, and bombships, and fireships. That would require a great
deal of money. It was then that the utility of the system of serfdom
became apparent. The prelates and monasteries were taxed--_one vessel
to every eighty thousand serfs_!--according to their wealth all the
orders of nobility to bear their portion in the same way, and the
peasants toiled on, never dreaming that _they_ were building a great
navy for the great Tsar. Peter then sent fifty young nobles of the
court to Venice, England, and the Netherlands to learn the arts of
shipbuilding and seamanship and gunnery. But how could he be sure of
the knowledge and the science of these idle youths--unless he himself
owned it and knew better than they? The time had come for his
long-indulged dream of visiting the Western kingdoms.

But while there were rejoicings at the victory over the Turks, there
was a feeling of universal disgust at the new order of things; with the
militia (the _Streltsui_) because foreigners were preferred to them and
because they were subjected to an unaccustomed discipline; with the
nobles because their children were sent into foreign lands among
heretics to learn trades like mechanics; and with the landowners and
clergy because the cost of equipping a great fleet fell upon them. All
classes were ripe for a revolt.

Sophia, from her cloister, was in correspondence with her agents, and a
conspiracy ripened to overthrow Peter and