The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

Extract of a Letter from Petersburg

The joy produced by the success of the Russian arms, against the Turks, has, on a sudden, been eclipsed by a cloud that overspreads the Court, & covers all the transactions of the Imperial Palace with impenetrable darkness. Nothing yet has passed to the public, but a vagrant and confused report of something designing, and something discovered. Nothing is pretended to be certainly known; but that in the night of the 4th of October; the Countess Czernikoff & the Countess D. Algarotti, were seized at midnight in their own apartments, & carried prisoners to different fortresses, where none are permitted to know their fate. On the next morning several of the Ladies attending on the person of the Empress, were ordered to retire from the Court. and confine themselves either at their own houses in different principal towns named by her Imperial Majesty. Such sudden revolution in many of the principal families, has given rise to different conjectures and reports. Some hold that a very dangerous correspondence has been intercepted between the-Countess D. Algarotti and the King of Prussia. while others no less confidently assert, that it happened between her and Prince Heraclius. Some whisper, that the Swedes had formed a design to seize the Empress, and enforced the restitution of Livonia and Finland. However this be, the guards have been changed, and the Regiments which for some time past have done duty at the Palace, are destined to garrison the forts on the frontiers of China. Some declare openly that the Countess Czernikoff having received the knout has confessed that she has been privy to propositions for deposing the Empress. Others add still a blacker crime, that she had treated for a reward to poison her. But since whatever the Countess has confessed or denied. was said to particular Commissioners with every precaution of secrecy, it is apparent that these reports can be considered as nothing more than such guesses as curiosity and ignorance will always produce. But as no man knows the crime of those that are now in custody, so no man knows what may in a few days be charged upon himself; and a general dejection and dismay is visible through all the attendants in the Court. The affections of the people for their Imperial Mistress is pourtrayed in the universal solicitude that clouds every face, where the report of her danger has been heard. It is hoped, however, by those who judge most cooly, that the utmost crime of the Ladies has been only the discovery of some secrets of State, and that none of them have been so flagitiously corrupt, as to attempt the sacred person of their Sovereign.