Sir Samuel Greig
Sir Samuel Greig, Governor of Cronstadt, Admiral of all the Russias, and commonly called the Father of the Russian Navy, was a Scotsman of humble but respectable parentage, and was born at the ancient seaport town of Inverkeithing, in Fifeshire, on the 30th of November, 1735.8 He was educated by the parochial schoolmaster, who lived long to boast of his pupil, for the Domini would seem to have been still alive when the old statistical account of Scotland was published in 1794.
When very young, Samuel Greig entered the British navy, and at an early age obtained the rank of lieutenant. In 1759 he served with the fleet of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, C.B. (afterwards Lord Hawke), when blockading the harbour of Brest, where a fine French fleet lay, under the pennant of the Marquis de Conflans. At that time a double invasion of Britain (one by the way of Scotland, the other on the coast of England) was threatened; but Commodore Boys blocked up Dunkirk, and Rodney bombarded Havre-de-Grace, while the French transports and flat-bottomed boats lay inactive in Brest, with the fleet of M. de Conflans; till a violent storm in autumn, having driven the ships of Sir Edward Hawke into Torbay, the marquis put to sea with twenty-one sail of the line and four frigates, and threw all England into consternation.
With twenty sail of the line, Hawke left Torbay, and came up with the French fleet between Belleisle and Cape Quiberon, close in on the coast of France, and in the desperate conflict which ensued, “young Greig,” though a subaltern, is said to “have eminently distinguished himself.” The battle began at two o’clock, P.M., on the 20th of November.
Sir Edward, in the Royal George, 110, lay alongside De Conflans in the Soleil Royale, 80, which was soon driven on shore and burned. He then lay alongside the Thesée, and sent her to the bottom by one broadside. La Superbe shared the same fate; the Juste was sunk off the mouth of the Loire; the Hero was burned; and thus M. de Conflans was totally defeated. Nothing saved the rest of his fleet from irretrievable ruin but the shadow of a tempestuous night, in which two British ships of the line were lost. Lieutenant Greig served with the fleet in all its operations, during the long cruise off the coast of Bretagne, and the blockade of the river Vilaine, to prevent seven French ships which lay there from joining Conflans, whose battered squadron had reached Rochefort; but so dangerous were the storms, and so incessantly tempestuous the weather, that the fear of invasion passed away. Sir Edward Hawke was at length recalled, and the thanks of Parliament and a pension were awarded to him. In this war the British destroyed, or took twenty-seven French ships of the line and thirty-one frigates. Six of their vessels perished. Thus, in all they lost sixty-four sail, while Britain, by every casualty, lost only seven line-of-battle ships and five frigates.
The next scene of Greig’s service was at the capture of several of the West India Islands.
War having been declared against the Spaniards, an attack on their settlements in the West Indies was arranged, and Martinico, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Grenada were taken. Then Cuba was assailed. Greig was with the fleet, consisting of nineteen sail of the line, eighteen frigates, and 150 transports, which had 10,000 soldiers on board, and sailed for Cuba under Admiral Sir George Pocoke, K.B., whose commodore was the Hon. Augustus Keppel, raised to the peerage in 1782.
The energy and exertions of Lieutenant Greig, during that tremendous cannonading which preceded the siege and capture of the Moro Castle, elicited the praise of his commander; but no promotion followed, for the time was unfavourable for either Scotsmen or Irishmen rising in the British service. After incredible exertions, difficulties, danger, and slaughter, Havannah was captured, with 180 miles of coast; the Puntal Castle, the ships in the harbour, three millions sterling of booty, and an immense quantity of arms, artillery, and stores were surrendered to the British. Greig’s share of this enormous prize-money was very small, being somewhere about 80l.
Lieutenant Greig served in many other engagements during that successful war; and his bravery, activity, and skill as a seaman had so frequently elicited particular attention, that after the treaty of peace which was signed at Paris in February, 1763, under Lord Bute’s administration, when the Court of St. Petersburg requested that a few British officers of distinguished ability might be sent to improve the Russian fleet, Greig was one of the five who were first selected, and his rank as lieutenant in the navy of Russia was confirmed by the Empress Catherine II., in 1764. The only stipulation he and the others made was, that they were to have the power of returning to the British service whenever they chose.
Russia, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, has ever been an excellent field for Scottish talent and valour. Thus Greig, by his superior skill in naval affairs, his intelligence and diligent discharge of the duties entrusted to him, soon attracted the special notice of the Imperial Government, and the Empress appointed him a captain in her fleet. He drew many other Scotsmen around him, and, with these, he was at incredible pains to teach the half-barbarous and wholly unlettered Russians the science of seamanship and the art of gunnery, in all of which they were very deficient, “and he rapidly raised the Russian naval service to a degree of respectability and importance which it never before had attained.”
In 1769, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, a war broke out between Russia and Turkey, consequent on the civil strife which religious intolerance had kindled in Poland. The Czarina marched in her troops; and while pretending that her sole object was to rescue one body of Polish citizens from the tyranny of the other, she secretly sought to enslave them all, and render their country a province of the Russian empire.
The growing greatness of the latter had alarmed its old hereditary enemy, the Grand Seignior, who required Catherine immediately to withdraw her troops from the Polish republic. Evasions were given, and conflicts began between the Russian and Turkish outposts, on the borders of the Ottoman empire, until the sack of Balta, in Lesser Tartary, and a general massacre of its inhabitants, by the soldiers of the Czarina, procured the committal of her ambassador to the Castle of the Seven Towers, in October, 1769; and hostilities, which were only suspended by the rigour of the season, began early in the spring of the ensuing year.
Captain Greig was appointed commodore of the fleet which was to sail for the Mediterranean, under Alexis Count Orloff; and in that ample arena of service he had an opportunity of displaying his zeal and intrepidity in such a manner as led to his immediate promotion to the rank of flag-officer.
A partial breaking up of the ice in the Baltic enabled some of the fleet to sail; and so early as the 14th of January, 1770, one part of the armament, under the Scottish admiral Elphinstone, consisting of one 70-gun ship, two of sixty guns each, and five others, arrived at Spithead, en route for the Archipelago.
The other division, of twenty-two sail of the line, reached Port Mahon, in Minorca, so early as the 4th of January; and by the 6th of March appeared off Cephalonia, the largest of the Ionian Isles, and, with a fair wind, bore away directly for the Morea. At Minorca they left some vessels to wait for Elphinstone, who left Spithead on the 14th of April, passed Gibraltar on the 4th of May, and before the end of July had twice defeated the Turkish fleet—on one occasion encountering three times his force, and destroying eight ships; on the second occasion, with nineteen ships, encountering Giafar Bey, with twenty-three. Giafar’s largest ships were destroyed, and his fleet dispersed.
In the great battle of the 6th of July, Greig, Mackenzie, and other officers in the Russian fleet, had an opportunity of eminently rendering good and gallant service; and by their energy and skill the world now saw a naval force, which, as Cormick says, had issued from the foot of the Baltic, able “to shake the remotest parts of the Mediterranean, to intercept the trade of the Levant, to excite and support the insurrection of the Greek Christians, and to leave nothing of the vast empire of their enemies free from alarm and confusion.”
The united squadron of the Admirals Count Orloff, Elphinstone, Spiritoff, and Commodore Greig, followed the Turkish fleet, which consisted of fifteen sail of the line, twelve frigates, &c., into the Channel of Scio, which divides the island from Anadoli, or the Lesser Asia; there the Turks were at anchor in a most advantageous position, at the foot of the Gulf of Liberno, where their rear and flanks were protected by rocks.
Early in the morning of the 5th, Commodore Greig was sent to reconnoitre the roads between Scio and the main; and in the afternoon he signalled the enemy in sight, consisting of thirty sail in all. Orloff, the admiral-general, held a council of war, at which Greig’s opinion was specially asked, and his advice followed.
On the 6th, at ten in the morning, Orloff signalled to form line, and the Russian fleet approached the Turks. Orloff was in the centre, with three Birnates; Commodore Greig led one division, and Elphinstone the other—in all, ten sail of the line, and five frigates; and they each bore down with ensigns flying, all their ports open, and decks cleared for action. There were many French officers on board of the Turkish fleet, which had been joined by about thirty lieutenants, who had received the permission of King Louis to enter the Sultan’s service. A terrible scene of carnage ensued, and the whole conflict is admirably detailed in a letter published in the Scots’ Magazine for that year, by a Lieutenant Mackenzie, who served on board of her Imperial Majesty’s ship the Switostoff.
At eleven o’clock the battle began. Admiral Spiritoff ranged up alongside of the Turkish admiral, who was in the Sultana, of ninety brass guns, and thus they fought yard-arm and yard-arm together, pouring in and receiving cannon-shot, chain-shot, hand-grenades and musketry. Spiritoff’s topmasts were shot away, his bulwarks battered down, and blood ran from his scuppers into the sea. He led his sailors in an attempt to board the Sultana, and tore the banner of the Crescent from her stern; but the boarders were repulsed, and obliged to sheer off, for the Turk took fire, and his burning mainmast fell on board of Spiritoff’s ship, which also became wrapped in flames; and in ten minutes both ships blew up. “I leave you to judge,” says Mackenzie, “of the dreadful scene of seeing so many hundreds of poor souls blown into the air, while the rest were hotly engaged.” Spiritoff and twenty-four officers saved themselves in the barge.
The remainder of the Turkish fleet, after being severely mauled by Elphinstone and Greig (Orloff was little of a seaman), cut their cables, and ran into the harbour of Chismeh, a small town in the Sanjak of Siglah, at the bottom of a bay one mile broad, and two miles long. Across the mouth of this bay the fleet, under Orloff, Elphinstone, and the Commodore, lay for the whole night, firing round shot, and throwing in bombs. The fire of Greig’s ship was particularly destructive; but on the Turks getting batteries established on the height between Scio and the coast of Anadoli, he and the two admirals were obliged to haul off. Two fireships were prepared an the 7th, under the direction of Elphinstone and Greig; and a council of war was held by the principal officers in the cabin of Count Orloff. It was there suggested by the Commodore, and resolved upon, that at midnight four ships of the line, two frigates, and the bomb-ketch, should enter the harbour, and while attacking the enemy, send the fireships on their errand of destruction; but volunteers were required to lead, and three officers, all Scotsmen, at once stepped forward. These were, Commodore Greig, Lieutenant Mackenzie, of the Switostoff, and Captain-Lieutenant Drysdale (or Dugdale, for this officer is called alternately by both names in many accounts of these wars), and they made every preparation for the desperate duty before them. At half-past twelve at night the signal was made to weigh anchor, and bear into the little bay; Drysdale and Mackenzie had the fireships; Greig led the ships of the line and the two frigates, which, at four hundred yards’ distance, cannonaded the Turks, while the bomb-ketch plied its mortars. Greig signalled the fireships to bear down; Drysdale and Mackenzie answered it, and, favoured by the wind, ran right into the teeth of the Turks, whose centre ship was at that moment set on fire by a fortunate shot from the Commodore.
Drysdale’s crew unfortunately left his ship before the proper time. Indeed, the Russians were so overcome with terror by the darkness of the night, the boom of the Turkish shot, and by the fireships, of which they were unable to comprehend the use, that it was only by dint of his sword and pistols that Drysdale kept them to their duty; but when near the enemy the helmsman abandoned the rudder, the whole crew sprang into their boat, and abandoned the brave Scotsman on board of the fireship!
In this terrible situation his native courage never deserted him; he lashed the helm, and (though a boat full of armed Turks was pulling alongside) held the ship on her course till, with his own unaided hands, he hooked the grapnel-irons to the anchor-cable of the nearest ship, which proved to be a large caravella. He then fired the train by discharging a pistol, and in doing so was severely scorched by the explosion. At the moment the Turks boarded him on one side he sprang into the sea from the other, and swam from the blazing ship. Many a shot was fired after him, but he escaped, and was saved with difficulty by the boats of Greig.
The fireships blew up with the most admirable effect, and the result was, beyond Greig’s utmost expectations, decisive and disastrous, for in five hours the whole Turkish fleet was burned to the water-edge and totally destroyed—all, save one ship, Giafar Bey’s, of seventy guns, four row-galleys, and some gilt barges of twenty-four oars. The morning sun, as he shone upon the Isle of Scio and Anadolian shore, saw a scene of unexampled devastation—every Turkish mast had vanished from the bay, and pieces of charred and floating wreck alone remained! The following were the ships destroyed by Greig:——
| Capitan Alebi, 84 guns. | Achmet, 86 guns. |
| Bashaw, 90 guns. | Hamisi, 60 guns. |
| Patrona Ayckrece, 80 guns. | Ali Randioto, 60 guns. |
| Reala Mustapha, 96 guns. | Melehin, 80 guns. |
| Mulensi Achmet, 84 guns. | Rapislan Bashaw, 64 guns. |
| Emir Mustapha, 84 guns. | Zefirbe, 84 guns. |
La Barbarocine, 64 guns, was towed out of the harbour by his boats. Two other large ships (names unknown) were burned, with four frigates, eight 40-gun ships, eight galleys, and several row-boats. He rescued 400 Christian slaves, hauled close in shore, bombarded the town, blew up the castle, and reduced the whole place to a heap of rubbish before nine o’clock in the morning, by which time more than 6000 Turks had been shot, burned, or drowned.
For this brilliant service Greig was at once made a rear-admiral by Count Orloff, while Lieutenants Drysdale and Mackenzie received the rank of captain, all of which appointments the Empress was pleased to confirm. Though the unfortunate Capitan Pacha, who commanded, was severely wounded, the Sultan ordered his head to be struck off, and appointed Giafar Bey admiral in his place. As rear-admiral Greig’s pay amounted to 2160 roubles per annum. Immediately after this victory Admiral Elphinstone sailed with his squadron for the Isle of Tenedos, to block up the Dardanelles, where he captured forty vessels destined for Constantinople, forced most of the Isles of the Archipelago to declare for Russia, and levied contributions everywhere, taxing Mitylene in 150,000 piastres. Greig accompanied Count Orloff to the liege of the Castle of Lemnos, which proceeded slowly, the only troops they had being revolted Greeks, who were afterwards cut to pieces by Hassan Bey, and then the Russians bent all their efforts to force the passage of the Dardanelles; but so strongly was it fortified by the Chevalier Tott, and other Frenchmen, that every attempt proved futile.
In the winter of 1770 Greig’s commission was further confirmed by a letter from the Empress, and in his ship, the Three Primates, he brought the nominal commander-in-chief, Count Orloff, to Leghorn on the 7th of December, as the fleet was leaving the Archipelago for want of men, and the batteries of the Dardanelles were daily becoming stronger under the skilful eye of Tott, to whom the grateful Sultan paid 100 scudi daily, as the saviour of his capital.
At Leghorn the Sieur Rutherford, Commissary of the Russian Court, sold all the prizes taken by the fleet. Having secret views of his own concerning the unfortunate Princess Tarakanoff, the Count Orloff, who is styled minister plenipotentiary, general of the Russian troops, and admiral-general, proposed to spend the winter partly at Pisa, and partly at Leghorn, “in order to take care of the Russian squadron,” as peace was expected. Greig is said to have demurred; Admiral Elphinstone expressed dissatisfaction, and when ordered to sail on “a secret expedition” he bluntly declined. An altercation ensued between him and the count. He was put under arrest, and reported to the Empress, who recalled him, and he retired from her service in disgust. On his presentation to Catherine he appeared in the blue uniform of the British navy, on which she turned coldly away, saying to one of her favourites, “It is high time this Scot was out of my service, when he has laid aside my uniform!”
Meanwhile the fleet was not inactive, for Mackenzie, Brodie, and other officers, who served under Spiritoff, were very zealous. Thus, by the 20th January, 1771, they had destroyed nineteen Dulcignotte tartans, and exacted from the Isles of the Archipelago the same tribute which they yearly paid the Sultan. At the same time the Russian troops had taken the city of Sinope, on the Black Sea, the fortress of Giurgievo, and other places in the Turkish provinces. A squadron, commanded by the Knights of Malta, joined Orloff’s flag; Scio was again ravaged by the Russians, a large dulcignotte destroyed, and the fighting among the fertile and beautiful isles of Greece was incessant; Greig was constantly employed, and daily added to his reputation as a brave and skilful officer.
He had assisted in the destruction of all the magazines which had been formed to supply the Turkish capital; at the bombardment of Negropont, the capital of the ancient Eubœa, where the troops were landed to destroy the stores of corn and flour; he had cruised along the shore of Macedonia; been at the bombardment of Cavalla in Romelia, and the destruction of the storehouses at Salonica; and in the Gulf of Kassanderah, while Count Theodore, the brother of Count Alexis Orloff, scoured all the shores of Anadoli, and cannonaded Rhodez. The united Russian fleet, under the three admirals, Orloff, Spiritoff, and Greig, made sixty-six sail in all on the 1st of November.
While the Russian army by land was making daily successful attacks on the Turks, and had crossed the Danube under General Romanzow, and twice besieged Silistria, pushing the war round the shores of the Black Sea, and into the Crimea, the naval squadrons had many desperate encounters in the Archipelago, and one very sharp action off the Isle of Scio, when seven Russian ships of the line and two frigates engaged ten Turkish ships and six large galleys, on the 10th of October, 1773, and after fighting from ten in the morning until long past mid-day, entirely defeated them, taking five sail, sinking two, and putting the rest to flight. In one of these encounters a ball struck Admiral Greig, and bent one of the points of his cross of St. George, carrying away a piece of the enamel. Every captain of the Russian navy then wore the military order of St. George, the badge of which is a knight and dragon, attached to a black ribbon.
A descent was made upon the Isle of Cyprus; another on Candia, and elsewhere; but the Russians were repulsed, and four sacks filled with their scalps were sent from Stanchio as a proof of the reception they had met with in that island.
In the end of 1773 Greig returned to St. Petersburg, and, with Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, made every exertion to have a better and more efficient squadron dispatched to the Dardanelles. With this under his command he sailed again from Cronstadt, and after touching at Portsmouth, bore on for the Mediterranean on the 17th of February, 1774. With his flag flying as vice-admiral, he reached Leghorn, where, for purposes of his own, Alexis Orloff was again loitering. On this expedition Greig was accompanied by his wife, for whom every accommodation had been made in his ship, the Issidorum; but being of course unwilling that she should risk the dangers of the Turkish war, he landed her at Leghorn, where the house of the Russian consul was assigned to her as a residence. The ships composing his fleet were—
| The Issidorum, | 74 guns Captain Surminoff. |
| The Mironfitz, | 74 guns Captain Mouskin Pouskin. |
| St. Alexander Newski, | 64 guns Captain Voronari. |
| Demetrius Douski, | 64 guns Captain Pajaskoff. |
| St. Paulus, | 30 guns Captain Palovski. |
During Greig’s brief sojourn at Leghorn there occurred one of those atrocities which so frequently blackened the reign of Catherine II.
Alexis Count Orloff, a man of the most inhuman character and brutal propensities, had conceived a passion for the young and beautiful Princess Tarakanoff, daughter of the late Empress Elizabeth, by her clandestine marriage with the Grand Veneur. This princess had been conveyed to Rome by the artful Prince Radzivil, beyond the reach of Catherine’s intrigues and tyranny. But Orloff had been ordered to decoy her back to St. Petersburg on the first opportunity. Accordingly, during one of his visits to Leghorn, he laid a snare for her, by sending an Italian, named Signor Ribas, afterwards a Knight of Malta, to visit her. This vile person, who found the poor princess in a mean lodging, told her that he “had come to pay homage to her beauty and misfortunes, and to deplore the destitution in which he found her.” He then offered her money, adding that he “was commissioned by Alexis Orloff to promise her the throne her mother had filled, and at the same time his sincere love, if she would honour him with her hand.” After some hesitation she was overcome by the apparent sincerity and brilliance of the proposal, which seemed the more splendid by her destitute condition, and accepted the offer of Orloff. He visited her repeatedly; a feigned marriage was performed by two Russian officers, disguised as Catholic priests; villainy completed the imposture: for a time—two or three months—he placed her in a magnificent palace at Pisa, and then brought her to Leghorn. It was at this crisis that Admiral Greig entered the port, and his wife9 is mentioned as being among the first to visit the young princess, who was far from suspecting the terrible snare laid for her—a snare of which the English consul is said to have been cognizant. Deluded by the caresses and feigned love of Orloff, she begged to be “shown the large and beautiful ships of the Russian fleet,” which was ordered to prepare for her reception.
On her arriving at the beach, she was placed by Orloff in a handsome boat, screened by a silken awning; the second barge conveyed the vice-admiral and other British officers, who for many years after were all unconscious of the villainy of Orloff. Music, huzzas, and salutes of artillery welcomed the unhappy daughter of the Empress Elizabeth on board the nearest ship; and the moment she stood upon its deck, she was handcuffed with heavy irons, and thrust into one of the lowest cabins. She threw herself at the feet of Orloff, and implored pity as his wife; but was answered by laughter and mockery, while the anchor was weighed, and the ship sailed for St. Petersburg, where she was shut up in a fortress on the Neva, and was never heard of again!
Rumour adds a darker tinge to this tale of Russian cruelty, by asserting that, two years afterwards, when the waters of the Neva rose ten feet by an inundation, they filled the horrid vault in which she was confined, and drowned her. Her body was then flung into the stream, and swept by its current into the Gulf of Finland.
But to return. As the wind continued fair, Greig bore away for Paros, a beautiful isle of the central Cyclades, which was the rendezvous of the fleet under Spiritoff, and where a great many small vessels of an entirely new construction, were prepared for the purpose of embarking and landing troops.
Here the Russians had seized and sold a number of Venetian ships, consequently the senate ordered all their vessels of war to be prepared to resist the new armament of Greig, and in March rigged two ships of 84 guns each, and two more of 75: these ultimately came to blows with the Turks, and defeated them off the Isle of Candia.
On the 10th of March, tidings having come to Paros that the Turkish fleet were about to surprise the Russian garrison at Sciros, a 50-gun ship and four frigates were despatched to oppose the attempt, but signally failed—for they were all burned or taken but one. The general head-quarters of the Czarina’s forces were at the Isle of Paros; and there, during the spring of 1774, the Admirals Spiritoff and Greig anchored their armaments at Port Naussa, on the northern shore—one of the finest harbours in the Archipelago, and in the channel between Paros and the bold and lofty coast of Naxos. Their regular troops occupied Marmora and Zimbido, while their Albanian allies were at Bachia. Greig and Spiritoff made every effort to refit the old ships, and prepare them for hostilities in summer, and when their cruisers joined them from Patmos and Tasso; but before anything of importance was achieved, the Empress concluded a peace with the Turks—a peace, says Frederick the Great, “resplendent with glory, by the success which her arms had met with against her enemies during the war;” and by this peace, the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardgi, Catherine stipulated that the Crimea, which had hitherto been under the subjection of the Turks, should be, in all time coming, an independent sovereignty under its own khans, thus lessening the power of the Porte.
Admiral Greig now returned to Russia with the fleet, and for many years devoted himself entirely to the improvement of the Russian marine, and the development of the naval resources of the Empire—remodelling its code of discipline, relaxing its barbarity, civilizing and educating its officers and men, by training the marine cadets on board of two frigates or floating academies, and thus justly earning for himself the honourable and endearing sobriquet of the Father of the Russian Navy. For these and other valuable services the grateful Empress bestowed upon him the government of Cronstadt, and a commission as High Admiral of all the Russias, at the same time decorating him with the Orders of St. Andrew, St. George of the second class, St. Vladimir, which she instituted on the 22nd September, 1782 (her twentieth coronation day), and St. Anne of Holstein, which is always the gift of the Grand Duke. His great assistant was Mr. Gordon, director-general of the ship-building, who at one time had building, under his own immediate care, two ships of 100 guns each, three of 90 guns each, six of 70 guns each, and ten of 40 guns each—all of which, for their skilful construction, strength, swiftness, and beauty of mould, had never been equalled by any previous effort of Russian naval architecture.
The admiral’s pay was now 7000 roubles per annum.
In accordance with the custom of the Russian nobility, who add the Christian name of their father to their own, with the termination owitch, which signifies the son of, we find the Scottish admiral signing and designating himself “Samuel Carlovitch Greig.” He was ever treated with the greatest consideration and honour by the Empress, who, in the year 1776, paid him the compliment of a visit—then esteemed an unparalleled act of condescension for the crowned head of Russia, who, among many absurd and hyperbolical titles, had (and perhaps still retains) the blasphemous one of “Chamberlain to Almighty God.”
On the 18th of July the Empress, attended by all the great officers of her state and household, went in a magnificent barge from Oranienbaum to Admiral Greig’s ship, the yards of which he had manned. As soon as he had handed her on board, the Imperial standard was hoisted, and the whole fleet fired a salute, which was responded to by nine hundred pieces of cannon in Cronstadt. Dinner was set in Greig’s cabin for the Empress and a hundred guests, who were the principal officers of her marine and other departments. The whole fleet then weighed anchor, and Catherine, accompanied by the infamous Orloff, Field-Marshal Count Galitzin, and Count Bruce, the adjutant on duty, was rowed in her barge along the line amid another salute of cannon. Before returning to Oranienbaum she placed on Greig’s breast the golden and eight-pointed star of St. Alexander Newski, with the red ribbon, which is worn over the left shoulder.
During the peace, Greig was unremitting in his efforts to draw British officers into the service, and the number who offered their swords and valour to the Czarina soon conduced, by their skill and talent, to render her navy for the first time respectable and formidable in Europe.10
Thus it was that, in 1799, in Lord Duncan’s line of battle, August 24th, at the Texel, we find among the Russian ships of war, the Ratisvan, commanded by Captain Greig; and in September, under the same gallant admiral, the Scottish captains Scott, Dunn, Boyle, Maclagan, Ogilvie, and Rose, commanding the Russian ships Alexander Newski, 74; Neptune, 54; Rafaill, 44; Revel, 44; Minerva, 38; and St. Nicholas, 38, embarking the Russian troops at Revel; and thus it was, that when Russia, fifteen years before, projected a new war against the Turks, in consequence of their interference with the affairs of the independent Crimea, the Empress found her fleet to consist of upwards of ninety sail at Cronstadt, Revel, and in the Sea of Asoph.
By the 11th of October, 1783, Admiral Greig had ready a fleet for the Mediterranean consisting of twelve sail of the line—viz., one of 76 guns, two of 74, three of 70, four of 64, two of 60, four frigates, a sloop, three store-ships, two fireships, two bomb-ketches, and two galleys. The vice-admiral of this fine armament was his old brother-officer, who had shared with him the glory of that night’s desperate work in the Bay of Chismeh. All these ships were in the best condition, and British officers were judiciously distributed among them; but the poor Khan of the Crimea, Sahim Gueray—the last of the lineal descendants of the far-famed Ghengiz Khan—abdicated his power, which he transferred to the Czarina, and his valuable territory on the Black Sea was quietly confirmed to her by a treaty with the Sultan in 1784. Since then it has formed a part of the Russian Empire, together with part of the Kuban and all the land between the Boog, the Dneister, and the Black Sea.
The next scene of Admiral Greig’s active service was against the Swedes, who became implicated in the dispute which ensued between the Porte and the Czarina, against whom they rashly declared war. Hostilities ensued; the Swedish troops advanced into Finland, and recaptured several towns.
“Alexis Count Orloff, appointed to command the Mediterranean fleet, has declined that honour, and left the court,” says the Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1788; “and Admiral Greig, on whom it in course devolved, has pleaded the necessity of a journey to his native country, to be excused from that service.” The armament offered Greig by the Empress was on a magnificent scale; it consisted of twenty-eight ships of the line, three of them carrying 100 guns and 800 officers and seamen each; six of 90 guns, with 650 seamen each; four of 80 guns, with 600 seamen each; eleven of 74 guns, with 500 men each; two of 64 guns, with 400 men each; two hundred and forty-eight sail of frigates, sloops, and transports, containing eleven battalions of infantry; two carracques, with 1000 horse, and seven of marines; twenty-five victual and hospital ships, mounting in all 1194 pieces of cannon, and having 28,000 men on board.
But the admiral does not seem either to have visited Scotland or sailed with this armament to the Mediterranean, as he assumed command of the Imperial Baltic fleet, destined to oppose the Duke of Sudermania, brother of the King of Sweden, who put to sea with twenty-one sail, consisting of the Gustavus, 111, Sophia, Magdalena, and Prins Gustaf, of 70 guns each; nine 60-gun ships, six 40-gun frigates, and three smaller vessels.
Count Wachdmeister led the van, Captain Linderstedt the rear. Sweden made incredible exertions in this war, the object of which was to retake Finland and Carelia; four 40-gun frigates were fitting out at Gottenberg, and nine ships of the line at Carlscrona. The news of these and other armaments filled St. Petersburg with something very like consternation; but Greig prepared for sea with all the vessels he could collect, and the utmost activity prevailed at Riga, where Count Brown, a veteran Irish general, was governor. Greig declared, however, to the Empress, that if the United Kingdoms of Great Britain engaged in this war antagonistic to Russia, he would feel himself under the painful necessity of resigning his high rank, and returning to his former position of lieutenant in the Royal Navy; “that he would always exert himself to the utmost against any other power who might be in alliance with the enemy, but that he would never fire a shot in the face of his native country.” He ordered the calibre of the ship guns to be altered, directing that all from 24-pounders downwards should be of less weight with a larger bore.
In May, 1788, while war and preparations were pending, a dispute ensued between the Empress and upwards of sixty British officers of her fleet, on occasion of a rumour being spread abroad, that she meant to receive into her service Paul Jones, the celebrated Scottish renegade. These gentlemen, nearly all of whom were Scotsmen, waited on the President of the Admiralty, and resigned their commissions, delivering, at the same time, a manifesto, “whereby they not only refused to serve under, but even with that officer.” The French officers who were paid by the Czarina displayed the same repugnance to have this famous privateersman for a comrade; and by this dispute, which, however, was soon arranged, ten sail of the line were for a time completely unofficered. To the satisfaction of Admiral Greig and his compatriots, it was arranged, that “Mr. Jones should never be appointed to command in that part of the ocean where they were employed.” In the meantime, a scandalous adventure of the Chevalier Paul with a girl of loose character, ended his hope of employment even under Catherine II.
Greig now received from the Emperor of Germany a present of 10,000 roubles and a valuable estate in Livonia. This was just before he sailed from Cronstadt with the fleet, which consisted of one three-decker, eight 74-gun ships, eight 66-gun ships, and seven frigates, to oppose the formidable force of the Duke of Sudermania, whom he overtook between the island of Schten Seaker and the Bay of Cabo de Grund.
The Duke of Sudermania states, that with thirty-one sail he was cruising in the Narrows of Kalkboden and Elkhomen in a dense fog, with an easterly wind, when, early on the morning of the 17th of July, the report of alarm guns ahead summoned his crews hurriedly to quarters, and almost before order of battle could be assumed, amid the dangers of a lee shore, enveloped in the morning mist, the fleet of the Scoto-Russian Admiral, consisting then of thirty-three sail, all in close order, were within gunshot, his van being close to the prince’s centre. After considerable manœuvring, in which the skill of Greig is praised by the prince in his dispatch, they were within musket-shot by five P.M., when the battle began in all its fury, and sixty-four ships, twenty-nine of which were sail of the line, engaged in all the carnage of a yard-arm conflict; and so thickly did the smoke of the Russian fleet settle down upon the Swedes, “that it was impossible to make or answer signals,” says the Duke of Sudermania, “or even to distinguish our own line.”
The duke was in the Charles Gustavus, a three-decker; Greig fought his own ship, the Rotislaw of 100 guns; and the operations of the day are thus detailed by him in his dispatch to the Empress:—
“I most humbly beg to inform your Imperial Majesty, that on the 17th of July, about noon, we fell in with the Swedish fleet, consisting of fifteen ships of the line, carrying from sixty to seventy guns; eight large frigates (carrying 24-pounders), which were brought into the line owing to their weight of metal; five smaller frigates, and three tenders, commanded by the Prince of Sudermania, with an admiral’s flag, and having under his command one vice and two rear admirals. I immediately signalled to make sail towards the enemy; they formed line and awaited us—our fleet, as it came up, formed also. The weather was clear, with a light breeze from the south-east. We bore right down on the enemy’s line, and my flagship, the Rotislaw, engaged the Swedish admiral about five P.M.
“The engagement was very hot on both sides, and lasted without intermission till six. Twice the Swedes attempted to retreat, but as it fell quite calm during the contest, and the ships would not answer their helms, the two fleets fell into some confusion, but the fire was kept up on both sides till dark, and then the Swedes, assisted by their boats, got to a distance from our ships. In this action we have taken the Prince Gustavus, of 70 guns, which carried the vice-admiral’s flag.
“She was defended with great bravery for more than an hour against the Rotislaw, and we had above 200 men killed and wounded on board before she struck. On board of her was the Count Wachdmeister, A.D.C. General to the King of Sweden, who commanded the van of the Swedish fleet. He came on board of my ship with an officer whom I sent to take possession, and delivered to me his flag and sword. In consideration of his gallant defence, I restored to him the latter.
“I am sorry to inform your Majesty, that in the night, and after the battle had ceased, the Wadislaw dropped astern of our line and fell among the Swedish fleet, by whom she was taken, as the darkness of the night and the thickness of the smoke concealed her from us. I received notice of this disaster about midnight from a petty officer, who was dispatched to me before the enemy took possession. In this engagement several of your Majesty’s ships have received considerable damage, and the whole fleet so much in masts and rigging, that I was not in a condition to pursue the enemy, who, favoured by the wind, crowded all the sail they could to reach the coast of Finland, to the east of Cabo de Grund, and we lost sight of them steering north-east. This action began between the island of Schten Seaker and the Bay of Cabo de Grund, the former bearing SSE. distant three German miles, and the latter NWW. about the same distance, seven and a half miles east of Hohlang. I subjoin a list of the killed and wounded. The whole fleet are now repairing sails and rigging.
“I must say, on this occasion, that I never saw a battle maintained with more spirit and courage on both sides; and we have nothing to boast of but the capture of the commander of the vanguard, and that the enemy left us in possession of the field of battle. All the flag officers, and the greater portion of the captains gave proofs of the utmost courage and firmness; and the bravery of the subaltern officers in general is entitled to every praise; BUT it is with grief, that I am obliged to declare myself very much dissatisfied with the conduct of certain captains, whom I shall be under the necessity of superseding. This will be done after a more particular inquiry, the account of which I shall transmit to your Majesty. If they had done their duty like good officers and faithful subjects, this action would have been more completely decisive, and have produced consequences equally satisfactory to your Majesty and your glorious empire. I must not fail, at the same time, to make a special report of those who, on this occasion, personally distinguished themselves by their courage and conduct. (Here follow the lists.)
Sam. Carlovitch Greig.
“H.I.M. Ship Rotislaw, July 18th, 1788.”
The duke says that his fleet was swept round by the current, and every ship was thus raked fore and aft by those of Greig; that after a lull in the conflict, it was renewed at 8 P.M., when, after another desperate encounter, the Swedish fleet, with lights at the mast-heads, bore away for Helsingfors with all sail set, leaving the Prins Gustaf, of seventy guns, lying disabled and without a flag; that many of the Russian ships were severely mauled, but the Swedes were riddled; for masts, spars, and even the rudders of some were knocked to pieces, while most of them had received perilous shots between wind and water.
The Wadislaw, which they took, was a copper-bottomed seventy-four, carrying 32 and 42-pounders, with 738 men. It was ten at night before the last shot was fired. The Russians remained masters of the channel, with all their colours flying; but had the officers all done their duty, the Swedes would not have escaped so easily, if at all. Greig had 6000 troops on board; their presence in close action greatly increased his list of casualties, for he had 319 killed and 666 wounded, whereas the Swedes had only eight officers struck, and the number of seamen is not known.
Admiral Greig was soon after reinforced by four ships of the line; but as the Duke of Sudermania received six more of seventy guns each, the fleets remained of nearly equal strength.
Count Wachdmiester had yielded his sword to Greig, who returned it to him, saying, “I will never be the man to deprive so brave and worthy an officer of his sword—I beseech you to receive it.”
After making a suitable reply, the count sheathed it, and said, “that neither he nor any other person in Sweden believed that the Russian fleet was in so admirable a condition as he found it.”
The Russian seamen had fought with incredible ardour and bravery; when the wadding ran short, many of them tore off their clothing to clean and charge home the cannon; but all the officers were by no means partners in their glory; for Greig found himself under the painful necessity of placing under arrest two captains, two captain-lieutenants, and thirteen other officers, all Russians, and sending them to St. Petersburg in the frigate La Kergopolte, of twenty-four guns, charged with having “abandoned Rear-Admiral Bergen when he was surrounded by four Swedish ships, and defending himself against them for two hours with the greatest bravery, till he was compelled to strike, when his ship, the Wadislaw, was completely shattered.”
Sir Samuel Greig added, that he had repeatedly signalled to those officers “to advance and support the commander of their division, but that either from not understanding the said signals, or from some other reason, they remained where they were, and saw him taken.” Concerning their misconduct, and the battle of the 17th July, the Empress immediately wrote, with her own hand, the following characteristic letter to her gallant Admiral:—
“TO THE MOST WORTHY AND BRAVE, &c.
“We should be wanting in that gratitude and politeness which should ever distinguish sovereigns, did we not with the utmost speed convey to you our approbation of your exemplary conduct; and the obligations which we owe you for your intrepid conduct in your engagement with the fleet of our enemy, the Swedish king. To the constant exertion of your abilities, and your zeal for the glory of the common cause of ourselves and the whole Russian Empire, may, under God, be attributed the very signal victory you have gained; and we have not the smallest doubt, but that every part of our dominions, to which this event shall be transmitted, will behold it in its proper view. It is with grief we read the record of these poltroons, who, unable to catch fire from the spirited exertions of their brother-warriors, have so signalized themselves in the annals of treasonable cowardice! and to that cowardice the Swede has to boast that any ship of their fleet escaped when so encountered.
“It is our pleasure that the delinquents mentioned in your despatch be immediately brought to Cronstadt, to await our further displeasure. We sincerely wish you, and all with you, health, and the most signal assistance of the Almighty God, whose aid we have invoked, and of whose assistance we cannot doubt in a cause so just.
“Your services will live perpetually in our remembrance; and the annals of our Empire must convey your name to posterity with reverence and with love!
“So saying, we recommend you to God’s keeping ever. Done at St. Petersburg, the 23rd of July, in the year of grace 1788.
“Catherine.”
The punishment of the seventeen unfortunates was peculiarly Russian in its barbarity; for they were placed in chains, with iron collars around their necks, and doomed to perpetual slavery in the hulks at Cronstadt, though many were cadets of the noblest Muscovite families.
In 1789, Professor Schloeger, of Gottingen, published in his political magazine the orders issued by the Czarina to the admiral before leaving Cronstadt; and by these it appears, that he “was to attack, and, if possible, to carry away the Swedish admiral-general, even at the total loss of the whole fleet of Russia.”
For nearly a fortnight Greig busied himself in thoroughly refitting his fleet; on the 6th of August he signalled to weigh anchor at dawn, and on the 7th arrived off Sveaborg, where he found four Swedish ships at anchor in the roads; but they cut their cables, and, under a press of sail, retired into port in confusion. Greig followed them boldly, and just as his leading ship came within musket-shot of the sternmost Swede, the latter struck upon a sunken rock; her mainmast went by the board, and after maintaining a short cannonade with Admiral Roslainow, she struck her colours. The other three escaped into shallow water. Greig’s boats took possession of the bilged ship, which proved to be the Gustavus Adolphus, of 64 guns, commanded by Colonel Christierne, who was taken prisoner with thirteen officers and 530 men, after which Greig ordered her to be blown up. He next seized a ship laden with cables, sails, medicine, &c., for the Swedish fleet.
Meanwhile the Duke of Sudermania remained a quiet spectator in Sveaborg, where he was completely blocked up by Greig, although he had under his command sixteen ships of the line and eight frigates.
Till the 9th Greig remained off Sveaborg, which is strongly fortified by nature and art, and then, in the hope that the duke would come out, as the wind was favourable for his doing so, he sailed slowly across the Gulf of Finland towards the opposite coast of Revel, and on his approaching the isle of Margen, placed his cruisers towards the west, so as completely to cut off the Swedish fleet from all succour by way of Carlscrona, and to prevent them forming a junction with five ships laden with stores, of which they were in the greatest need.
Here Greig was joined by two 64-gun ships; and on the 14th of August he was off Revel in Esthonia. Meanwhile the Swedish and Russian troops had many fierce encounters in Finland; but the former were unsuccessful, and this expedition ended in defeat and disaster.
The indefatigable Greig continued to cruise in the gulf until the month of October; and, though suffering from a severe illness, he completely blocked up the Swedes in Sveaborg, cut them off from succour, and saved St. Petersburg from alarm.
On the 2nd October, the weather became exceedingly stormy, and the Russian fleet were all dispersed. Then the Duke of Sudermania thought he might essay something against Greig; but, though sick and infirm, the latter soon collected all his ships, and the blockade was resumed more strictly than ever; but, unhappily, his illness terminated in a violent fever, and, on the 26th of that month the brave admiral expired, in the fifty-third year of his age, on board of his flagship the Rotislaw, to the great sorrow of every officer and seaman in the fleet, where, by his bravery, justice, generosity, and goodness of heart, he had indeed won for himself the honourable title of the Father of the Russian Navy.
The tidings of his death were the signal for a general mourning at St. Petersburg; and, while Admiral Spiritoff assumed the command of the fleet, the Empress ordered the interment of her favourite officer to be conducted with a pomp, solemnity, and magnificence never before witnessed in Russia.
The funeral took place on the 5th of December. Some days before it, the body lay on a state bed in the hall of the Admiralty, which was hung with black cloth, while the doors were festooned with white crape, and the vast apartment was lighted by silver lustres. Under a canopy of crape the body was placed on three small arches, dressed in full uniform, the head being encircled by a wreath of laurel. At its foot stood an urn, adorned with silver anchors and streamers, inscribed—
“S.G. nat. d. 30 Nov. 1735—obit d. 15 Oct. 1788.”
The coffin stood on six feet of massy silver. It was covered with black velvet, lined with white satin; the handles and fringes were of pure silver, and the pillows of blonde lace. On three tabourettes of crimson and gold lay his five orders of knighthood—one of them, the St. George’s Cross, mutilated by a shot in the Archipelago; and around were twelve pedestals, covered with crape and flowers, bearing twelve gigantic candles. At the head of the bed hung all his flags; and two staff officers and six marine captains were constantly beside it until the day of interment, when Lieutenant the Baron Vanden Pahlen pronounced a high eulogy in honour of the brave deceased.
The cannon of the ramparts and fleet fired minute-guns during the procession from the Admiralty to the Cathedral of St. Catherine, through streets lined by the troops. The funeral pageant was very magnificent and impressive.
Swartzenhoup’s dragoons, with standards lowered; the grenadiers of the Empress, with arms reversed; the public schools of the capital; the clergy of the Greek Church; General Lehman, of the marine artillery, and two marshals bearing Greig’s admiral’s staff and five orders of knighthood; eighteen staff officers, and three bearing naval standards, preceded the body, which was borne on a bier drawn by six horses, led by six bombardiers, and attended by twelve captains of ships, followed by their coxswains. Then came General Wrangel, governor of the city, with the nobles, citizens, the marshals with their staves, and a regiment of infantry with arms reversed, and its band playing one of those grand dead-marches which are peculiar to Russia. So, with a band of choristers preceding it, and amid the tolling of bells, the remains of Admiral Greig were conveyed to the great cathedral, and there lowered into their last resting-place, amid three discharges of cannon and musketry from the ramparts, the troops, and the fleet, where he was so well beloved and so much lamented.
Every officer who attended had a gold ring presented to him by Catherine II., with the admiral’s name and the day of his death engraved upon it; and a magnificent monument has since been erected to mark the place where he lies—a man “no less illustrious for courage and naval skill, than for piety, benevolence, and every private virtue.”
His estate in Livonia is still in possession of his descendants.
His son John died in China in 1793. Another son became Sir Alexis Greig, Admiral of the Russian fleet, and Knight of all the Imperial orders. In 1783 he studied at the High School of Edinburgh; he served as a volunteer on board the Culloden under Admiral Trowbridge, and commanded the Russian fleets at the sieges of Varna and Anapa in 1828; though in 1801 he had been exiled to Siberia for remonstrating with the Emperor Paul for his severity to certain British sailors. His son Woronzow Greig (also educated, I believe, at the High School of Edinburgh) was A.D.C. to Prince Menschicoff, and bore a flag of truce from Sebastopol to Lord Raglan. He died of a mortal wound on the desperate field of Inkermann.
Notes
8 His father was a seafaring man. In the Edinburgh Courant, 24th June, 1761, was the following notice: “The Thistle, Capt. Charles Greig, of Inverkeithing, bound for St. Petersburg, passed the Sound on the 6th instant.” In Russia, the admiral bore the name of Samuel Carlovitch Greig (i.e. the son of Charles).
9 Tooke states that Mrs. Greig was not at Leghorn; but the French authorities affirm that she was, and place this event in 1774.
10 In the battle with the Swedes in 1790, four Russian ships were commanded by Scottish captains, viz., Denniston, whose head was shot off; Marshal, who was drowned when leading his boarders; Miller and Aikin, who each lost a leg. The latter died under the torture of his wound. Six Russian admirals, all Scotchmen, Mackenzie, Ogilvie, Mercer, Mason, and the two Greigs, have hoisted their flags in the Black Sea. Mackenzie was the first naval chief at Sebastopol.—See Slade’s Travels, vol. ii.