Series 1 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Second volume)

INTRODUCTION
383
Czar John Alexowitz, with Charles Leopold, Duke of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was celebrated at Dantzic with great
pomp and splendour, and this distinction bestowed on his
physician may have been among the honours conferred in
connection with this event. The charter is dated the 30th
April, the day after a magnificent entertainment and ball
given by the King of Poland on the occasion of the marriage,
at which he was present, and on the very day on which
Peter left for Konigsberg to review a fleet of forty-five of his
galleys. The Czar left Dantzic at the beginning of May;
and visiting in succession Stralsund, Mecklenburg, Hamburg
and Pyrmont, reached Rostock on the 14th of July, and
taking command of the galleys, which had arrived there to
meet him, sailed to Copenhagen on a visit to his ally, the
King of Denmark, which he reached on the 17th, and where
he was joined by the Czarina Catherine on the 23rd.
It was during the three months1 stay of the Russian Court at
Copenhagen, that Dr. Erskine’s interest and help were solicited
by his friends in Scotland in connection with the affairs of
his elder brother, Sir John Erskine of Alva. The latter was
deeply implicated in the Jacobite rising of 1715, under his
relative the Earl of Mar, and was included in the attainders
and forfeitures which passed upon those who took part in
that attempt. About the middle of January 1716, when
bringing money and arms for the rebels from France, Sir John
was shipwrecked near St. Andrews, though he himself and the
crew of the vessel were saved.1 Notwithstanding this, how¬
ever, very soon thereafter—on the 2nd February 1716—he
was sent by the Chevalier St. George (‘ the old Pretender ’),
and the Earl of Mar, to France with despatches to the Duke
of Orleans, the Regent of France, to the Pretender’s wife, and
to the Earl of Bolingbroke, his secretary.2 A fragment of a
1 Calendar of the State Papers at Windsor; Historical MSS. Commission
Report, 1902, pp. 486, 490, 494.
2 Historical MSS. Commission \th Report, 1874, Appendix, p. 525.
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