b o o k imprifonment of three and twenty years, here fuffered an
■ /untimely death.
Thefe melancholy ideas, heightened by the dreadful
gloom, the dead lilence, and the awful appearance of a few
folitary centinels, communicated fuch an impreflion as will
not eafily be obliterated; and even at this diftance of time
and place, I ihudder at the recollection of a Ruffian ilat&~
prifon.
C H A P . . VII.
Q/-Catharine I.— Her origin and early adventures.— Married
to a Swediffi dragoon.— Captured by the Ruffians.— Becomes
themijlrefs, confort, and fucceffor o f Peter the Great.
— Death o f that monarch without appointing his fucceffor..
— Hijlory o f Catharine’s elevation to the throne.— Her.
death and charaSler-..
T V /T a n Y authors have exprefled great furprizeat the-c h a p .
fnggS contradictory reports relative to the origin of fo- VIT"
extraordinary a perfonage as Catharine I. But when we'
confider the lownefs of her extradlion, the variety of uncommon
adventures which befel her during the early period
of her life, her equivocal fituation with general Bauer
and prince Menzikof, before her connexion with Peter the
Great; and that ffie did not excite the publick curiofity until'
Hie became the favourite of that emperor, when fhe and her
friends could prevent,, as much as poffible, all inquiries into;
her former fituation ; I am lo far from being furprized that
we know fo little, thatlrather wonder we know fo much about
her birth and early adventures. Tó expedí that the hiftory of a.
perfon of low extradfion, who gradually rofe to the moft exalted
flation, ffiould contain no uncertain and difcordant accounts,
is to expedí impoffibilities. All that remains, therefore,
is,, without prejudice - or partiality, to examine and
compare the various hiflories of Catharine I. and to colled!
from the whole the moll rational and probable narrative.
7 Catharine.