Rise of Russia and Prussia 309 could not endure habitual drinkers, for such he thought unfit for business. When he paid a visit to a friend he would pass almost the whole night, not caring to part with good company till past two o'clock in the morning. He never kept guards about his person. . . . He never could abide ceremony, but loved to be spoke to frankly and without reserve. It was while Gordon was fighting for the tsar that Peter undertook the founding of the new town of St. Petersburg. In the year 1703 the tsar took the field early, cantoned his troops in the month of March, and about the 20th of April brought the army together ; then marched and invested another small but important place called Nyen-Chance, which surrendered on the 14th of May. The commodious situation of this place made the tsar resolve to erect on it a consider- able tcwn, with a strong citadel, consisting of six royal bas- tions, together with good outworks; this he soon put into execution and called it St. Petersburg, which is now esteemed so strong that it will be scarcely possible for the Swedes ever to take it by force. As he was digesting the scheme of this, his favorite town, which he designed not only for the place of his residence but the principal harbor of his shipping, as having a commu- nication with the sea by the river Nyen ; having duly observed and sounded it all over, he found it would be a very natural project to erect a fort in the isle opposite to the island of Ratusary ; which for a whole league over to the land is not above four feet deep. This is a most curious work scarcely to be matched. He went about it in winter, in the month of November, when the ice was so strong that it could bear any weight, causing it to carry materials such as timber, stone, etc. The foundation was thus laid: trees of about thirty feet in length and about fifteen inches thick were taken and joined artfully together into chests ten feet high; these chests were filled with stones of great weight, 351. How Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg, (From General Gordon's History.)
