ected from among the serfs
and ordered to go had no option; they were obliged to submit. And thus
the supply of laborers was kept full, notwithstanding the dreadful
mortality which was continually tending to diminish it.

If Peter had been willing to exercise a little patience and moderation in
carrying out his plans, it is very probable that most of this suffering
might have been saved. If he had sent a small number of men to the
ground the first year, and had employed them in opening roads,
establishing granaries, and making other preliminary arrangements, and,
in the mean time, had caused stores of food to be purchased and laid up,
and ample supplies of proper tools and implements to be procured and
conveyed to the ground, so as to have had every thing ready for the
advantageous employment of a large number of men in the following year,
every thing would, perhaps, have gone well. But the qualities of
patience and moderation formed no part of Peter's character. What he
conceived of and determined to do must be done at once, at whatever cost;
and a cost of human life seems to have been the one that he thought less
of than any other. He rushed headlong on, notwithstanding the suffering
which his impetuosity occasioned, and thus the hymn which solemnized the
entrance into being of the new-born city was composed of the groans of a
hundred thousand men, dying in agony, of want, misery, and despair.

Peter was a personal witness of this suffering, for he remained, during a
great part of the time, on the ground, occupying himself constantly in
superintending and urging on the operations. Indeed, it is said that he
acted himself as chief engineer in planning the fortifications, and in
laying out the streets of the city. He drew many of the plans with his
own hands; for, among the other accomplishments which he had acquired in
the early part of his life, he had made himself quite a good practical
draughtsman.

When the general plan of the city had been determined upon, and proper
places had been set apart for royal palaces and pleasure-grounds, and
public edifices of all sorts that might be required, and also for open
squares, docks, markets, and the like, a great many streets were thrown
open for the use of any persons who might choose to build houses in them.
A vast number of the mechanics and artisans who had been attracted to the
place by the offers of the Czar availed themselves of this opportunity to
provide the