the boat to be carried into water called the Prussian Pond. This proving not much better, he resolved to have her taken to the Lake Perestave. By this time, his mother, the Czarina, became alarmed and endeavored to dissuade him from his intention, but, with the ingenuity of youth, Peter contrived to have the boat transported to Lake Perestave, and then, under pretext of performing a vow in Trinity Monastery, prevailed upon his august mother to allow him to make the journey. After inspecting the lake, he persuaded her to build a house there. Eventually Carsters Brand also was established in a small shipyard on the shore of the lake, where he built two miniature frigates and three small yachts. With these Peter diverted himself for a few years. In 1694 he visited Archangel, and sailed from there in his yacht the St. Peter, for Ponoia, in company with the English and French fleet of merchant ships under convoy of a Dutch man-of-war, commanded by Captain Jolle Jolson. Peter was so delighted with this voyage that he resolved upon building a fleet and establishing shipbuilding yards on the river Veronez. Shipwrights were sent for from Holland, and in 1696 the first naval vessels were constructed in Russia. Peter sent great numbers of his nobility and gentry into Holland and other countries to learn shipbuilding and navigation. In 1697 he went himself to Holland, and there engaged as a workman in a shipbuilding yard near Amsterdam, working at all the branches of ship-construction, from laying the keel to the bending of sails. It is related of him that, while doing
