Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/277

 shortly afterwards restore me my coachman; and when he refused to give up Erasmus, I told the purveyor who had been attached to my household, and whom they call pristav', that men would both think and speak ill of the prince if he took away the servants of ambassadors. In order that neither the prince nor I should be blamed, I asked him to allow him to come before me in the presence of the prince's counsellors that I myself might understand his wish on the subject. The prince agreed to this, and it was done; and when I asked Erasmus whether he wished to remain with the prince on the score of religion, he answered, "Yes"; upon which I said, "If you have made your bed well, well may you lie on it." Afterwards a certain Lithuanian, who had attached himself to the family of Count Nugarol, dissuaded him from his purpose, when his reply was that he dreaded to encounter my severity. The Lithuanian then asked him if he would come back if the count would receive him into his family, to which he consented. When the count heard of the matter, he asked me if I would agree to the arrangement. I replied that he was free to act as he pleased in the matter for me; for I myself wished it to be So, lest the relatives of the young man should interpret the matter otherwise than as it really occurred.

However they seldom flee to the Russians unless when there is no place to live in, and no security elsewhere. Such was the case in my time with one Severinus Nordwed, admiral of the sea to Christian, king of Denmark, a warlike man indeed, but accustomed to invoke the auspices of the devil upon all his undertakings, of whom I have heard many things which in prudence I leave unsaid. When he saw that the king was hated on account of his cruelty at Holmia (which is the capital of Sweden, and called in their own language Stockholm), and that he of his own accord left his kingdom, Severinus took possession of a certain place in the island of Gothland (which is twelve German miles in extent), from which he daily infested the Baltic Sea, sparing nobody, and