The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

COMPASSION. Voltaire in his history of the Czar Peter, gives us the following anecdote of the Czarina: "The humanity of this princess," says he, "has been carried to a degree unparallelled in the history of any nation. She had promised that during her reign nobody should be put to death; and she has kept her word." She is the first sovereign that ever showed this regard to the human species. Malefactors are now condemned to serve in the mines and other public works—a regulation not less prudent than humane since it renders their punishment of some advantage to the state. In other countries, they only know how to put a malefactor to death with the apparatus of an executioner, but are not able to prevent the execution of crimes. The terror of death does not, perhaps, make such impression on evil-doers, who are generally given to idleness, as the fear of chastisement and hard labor renewed every day.

As there was something very extraordinary in the advancement of this princess, the reader will not be displeased with a relation of the steps by which she ascended the throne. She was born in a village called Nungen, on the banks of the Worthsey, in Livonia, and, losing her parents, who were of low condition, she became destitute of support. The parish clerk, who kept a school, took her into his house till Dr. Gluck, minister of Marienburg, happening to come to that village, eased the clerk of his burden, by taking her into his family. The doctor, pleased with her behavior, treated her almost in the same manner as if she had been his own daughter; and not only had her taught spinning and sewing, but instructed her himself in literature above the knowledge of her sex. At length a Livonia sergeant in the Swedish army fell passionately in love with her, and she agreed, with consent of the doctor, to marry him. The next day the Russians made themselves master of Marienburg; and the General, casting his eyes accidentally on Catharine, and observing something very striking in her air and manner, took her under his protection, and afterwards into his service. Sometime after, she was advanced to be house-keeper to Prince Menzikoff, who was the General's patron: here the Czar seeing her, she made such an impression on him, that he married her in the year 1711. What became of her former husband, the sergeant, is not known.