magnificently received by the Tsar, and that Peter proposed to marry him to one of his own daughters. This attention to Charles Frederick, implying Russian support to the Holstein faction in the struggle for the Swedish throne, was a well-aimed stroke by Peter. It clearly implied that only by signing a peace treaty with the Tsar which incorporated Russian acquiescence in Frederick I's possession of the Swedish throne would the new King ever be easy in his new title.
Frederick informed Peter that he was ready to reopen negotiations, and a second peace conference was convened on April 28, 1721, in the town of Nystad on the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. Again, the Russian representatives were Bruce, now a count, and Osterman, now a baron. In the opening sessions, the Russians were astonished to find that the Swedes expected easier terms than those they had been offered at Aland. The Swedes in turn were dismayed to learn that Peter now demanded permanent cession of Livonia, whereas previously he had been content with a 'temporary' occupation of forty years. 'I know my interest,' the Tsar now declared. 'If I leave Sweden in Livonia, I would harbor a serpent in my bosom.'
Great Britain's new desire for peace in the North did not entail a total abandonment of its Swedish ally. In April 1721, King George I wrote to King Frederick I that, in accordance with treaty obligations, a British fleet would enter the Baltic that summer. But George begged that Sweden attempt to conclude a peace with Russia. The cost of sending a fleet every summer was prohibitive, George explained; the sum expanded on the present squadron came to 600,000 pounds. A few weeks later, Norris' twenty-two ships-of-the-line appeared, but throughout the summer the British squadron lay anchored in Stockholm Skargard, completely idle.
Meanwhile, with the negotiations at Nystad deadlocked over Livonia and no military truce arranged, Peter once again launched his galley fleet against the Swedish coast. Five thousand soldiers under Major General Lacy landed one hundred miles north of Stockholm and attacked the fortified town of Gefle, but the town was too strong for Lacy's strength and the Russian troops moved south, leaving a swath of destruction. Sundeval and two other towns were burned, along with nineteen parishes and 506 villages. Lacy defeated the Swedish force sent against him, while his galleys burned six Swedish galleys. On June 24, having ravaged 400 miles of Swedish coastline, Lacy was ordered to withdraw.
Lacy's raid, although oh a smaller scale than those of the preceding summers, appeared to be the last straw for Sweden. Frederick I finally yielded Livonia. The main articles of the peace treaty granted Peter the territories he had so long desired. Livonia, Ingria and Estonia were ceded 'in perpetuity' to Russia, along with Karelia as far as Vyborg. The remainder of Finland was to be restored to Sweden. As compensation for Livonia, Russia agreed to pay two million thalers over four years, and Sweden was granted the right to purchase Livonian grain without paying duty. All prisoners of war on both sides were to be freed. The Tsar pledged that he would not interfere in Swedish domestic politics, thus confirming Frederick I's right to the throne.
It was on September 14, 1721, when Peter had left St. Petersburg for Vyborg to inspect the new frontier which would be drawn by the treaty, that a courier arrived from Nystad with the news that the treaty had actually been signed on September 10. The Tsar was exuberant. When a copy of the treaty was placed in his hands, he wrote joyfully, 'All scholars in arts usually finish their course in seven years. Our school has lasted three times that long. However, thank God, it is so well finished that better would have been impossible.'
News that peace had come after twenty-one years of war was received with jubilation in Russia. Peter was beside himself with excitement, and the celebrations which took place were prolonged and prodigious. St. Petersburg first realized that something extraordinary had happened when on September 15, the Tsar's yacht was unexpectedly seen sailing back up the Neva, returning from his visit to Vyborg far sooner than expected. That the news was good was signaled by repeated firing of salutes from the three small canon on board the yacht and, as the vessel grew nearer, by the sound of trumpeters and drummers on deck. A crowd quickly gathered at the wharf on Trinity Square, swelled every minute by the arrival of more government officials, for there could only be one reason for this behavior on the approaching ship. When Peter stepped ashore and confirmed the news, people in the crowd wept and cheered. Peter walked from the wharf to Trinity Church to pray and give thanks. After the service, General-Admiral Apraxin and the other senior officers and ministers present, knowing what reward would most please their master, asked him to accept promotion to admiral.
Meanwhile, tubs of beer and wine were being set in the middle of streets packed with excited people. Peter mounted a small, makeshift platform in the square outside the church and shouted to the crowd, 'Rejoice and thank God, you Orthodox people, that Almighty God has put an end to this long war lasting twenty-one years, and given us a happy and eternal peace with Sweden!' Taking a cup of wine, Peter toasted the Russian nation while the ranks of soldiers fired their muskets in the air and the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress thundered a salute.
A month later, Peter gave a masquerade party that continued for days. Forgetting his age and his various ailments, he danced on tabletops and sang at the top of his lungs. Tiring suddenly in the middle of a banquet, he rose from the table, ordered his guests not to go home and went to sleep on his yacht anchored in the Neva. When he returned, the celebration continued, with rivers of wine and prodigious noise. For an entire week, thousands of people remained masked and in fancy dress, dining, dancing, walking in the streets, rowing on the Neva, going to sleep and rising to begin again.
The celebration reached a peak on October 31 when Peter appeared in the Senate to declare that, in gratitude for God's mercy in giving Russia victory, he would pardon all imprisoned criminals except murderers, and that he would annul all debts to the government and arrears of taxes accumulated over eighteen years from the war's beginning to 1718. In that same session, the Senate resolved to offer Peter the titles of Peter the Great, Emperor and Father of His Country. This resolve, in which the Holy Synod joined, was put in the form of a written petition and taken to the Tsar by Menshikov and a delegati6n of two senators and the Archbishops of Pskov and Novgorod. Peter promised to consider the petition.
A few days before, Campredon, the French ambassador, who had helped urge the Swedes toward peace, had arrived at Kronstadt aboard a Swedish frigate. Breaking all the laws of protocol the happy Tsar himself went on board the frigate, embraced the envoy on deck and took him to visit the six large Russian men-of-war then anchored in the port. Returning to the capital, and walking through the streets, Peter kept the astonished Campredon with him throughout the festive week. In the Trinity Church, Peter placed Campredon in a position of honor, abruptly shoving aside a nobleman who obscured the Frenchman's view. During the service,. Peter himself directed the liturgy, sang with the priests and helped beat time. At the end of the regular service, the terms of the treaty and its ratification were read to the congregation. Peter's favorite churchman, Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, delivered an oration praising the Tsar and was followed by Chancellor Golovkin, who addressed Peter directly:
'By your tireless labors and leadership alone, we your loyal subjects have stepped from the darkness of ignorance into the theater of fame of the whole world, and, so to speak, have moved from non-existence to existence, and have joined in the society of political peoples. For that and for winning a peace so renowned and so rewarding, how can we render our proper gratitude? And so that we may not be with shame before the whole world, we take it upon ourselves in the name of the Russian nation and of all ranks of the subjects of Your Majesty, humbly to pray you to be gracious to us and agree, as a small mark of our acknowledgement of the great blessings that you have brought to us and to the whole nation, to take the title: Father of the Fatherland, Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia.'
With a brief nod of his head, Peter indicated that he would accept the titles.* 'Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!'* shouted the senators.
*The idea of awarding the title of emperor to the Tsar was not, of course, wholly spontaneous on the part of the Senate. Four years earlier, in 1717, when Michael Shafirov, brother of the Vice Chancellor, was rummaging among old records and papers in the archives, he found a letter written in 1514 by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian to Tsar Vasily Ivanovich (father of Ivan the Terrible). In the letter, Maximilian, urging Vasily to join him in an alliance against the King of Poland and Grand Prince of Lithuania, addressed the Tsar as 'Great Lord, Vasily, Emperor and Dominator of All the Russians.' When Shafirov showed Peter the letter, which was written in German, the Tsar immediately had it translated into all languages and gave copies to all foreign ambassadors in St. Petersburg. Simultaneously, through Russian diplomats and agents, he had the letter published in newspapers throughout Western Europe along with the notice, 'This letter will serve to maintain without contestation the said title to the monarchs of all Russia, which high title was given them many years past and ought to be valued so much the more because it was written by an emperor who by his rank was one of the first monarchs of the world.'
In Europe, acceptance of the Russian title came only in stages. Holland and Prussia immediately recognized
