chance, Bakunin
escaped the death to which here also he was condemned, by receiving a
pardon from the Czar; he was imprisoned first in the fortress of SS.
Peter and Paul, and then at that of Schluesselburg; and in 1855,
through the exertions of his influential relatives, was banished to
Siberia. At that time a report had generally gained credence in
Europe, although lacking any foundation, that Bakunin had by no means
owed his life, that three countries had already condemned, to the
chance favour of a monarch usually far from gracious; and the distrust
of the apostle of Revolution was still more greatly increased when, in
1861, he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in the Amur
district, and returned to Europe _via_ Japan and America. Now the
otherwise mysterious success of this escape has been explained. The
Governor of the Amur (Muravieff-Amurski) happened to be a cousin of
Bakunin's relation, Muravieff, and moreover (according to Bakunin's
own statement),[3] a secret adherent of the revolutionary movement. He
appears to have lived on a very intimate footing with Bakunin, and
granted the exile all kinds of favours and freedom; and thus Bakunin
was entrusted with the mission of travelling through Siberia in order
to describe its natural resources. While on this journey he succeeded
in embarking on a ship in the harbour of Nikolajewsk, and escaping. In
1861 he arrived in England, and settled in London, where he entered
into relations with the members of the "International." As to the part
that Bakunin played here, as he did later, as an agitator for
Anarchist ideas, we will speak later when we come to the history of
the spread of Anarchism.

[3] There is a kind of autobiography for the period 1849-60,
by Bakunin himself in a letter, dated from Irkutsk (8th
December, 1860) to Herzen. _Michael Bakunin's
Social-Political Correspondence with Alexander Iw. Herzen and
Ogarjow_, with a biographical introduction, appendices, and
notes by Professor Michael Dragomanoff. Authorised
translation from the Russian, by Dr. Boris Minzes, Stuttgart,
1895 (_Bibl. russischer Denkwuerdigkeiten_, edited by Dr. Th.
Schiemann, vol. vi.), No. 6, pp. 29 and 99.

When the Revolution broke out in Poland in 1863, Bakunin was one of
the leaders of the expedition of Polish and Russian emigrants that was
planned in Stockholm, and which was to revolutionise Russia from the
Baltic coast. When this attem