the bank considerably bigger than before. Boswell at length abandoned all further attempts to close it, after suffering a heavy loss; and the engineering skill of England seemed likely to be completely baffled by this hole in a river's bank.

The competent man was, however, at length found in Captain Perry, who had just returned from Russia, where, having been able to find no suitable employment for his abilities in his own country, he had for some time been employed by the Czar Peter in carrying on extensive engineering works.

John Perry was born at Rodborough, in Gloucestershire, in 1669, and spent the early part of his life at sea. In 1693 we find him a lieutenant on board the royal ship the Montague. The vessel having put into harbour at Portsmouth to be refitted, Perry is said to have displayed considerable mechanical skill in contriving an engine for throwing out a large quantity of water from deep sluices (probably for purposes of dry docking) in a very short space of time. The Montague having been repaired, she put to sea, and was shortly after lost. As the English navy had suffered greatly during the same year, partly by mismanagement, and partly by treachery, the Government was in a very bad temper, and Perry was tried for alleged misconduct. The result was, that he was sentenced to pay a fine of 10007., and to undergo ten years' imprisonment in the Marshalsea. This sentence must, however, have been subsequently mitigated, for we find him in 1695 publishing Regulation for Seamen," with a view to the more effectual manning of the English navy; and in 1698 the Marquis of Caermarthen and others recommended him to the notice of the Czar Peter, then resident in England, by whom he was invited to go out to Russia, to superintend the establishment of a royal fleet, and the execution of several gigantic works which he contemplated for the purpose of opening up the resources of his

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empire. Perry was engaged by the Czar at a salary of 3007. a year, and shortly after accompanied him to Holland, from whence he proceeded to Moscow to enter upon the business of his office.

One of the Czar's grand designs was to open up a system of inland navigation, to connect his new city of Petersburgh with the Caspian Sea, and also to place Moscow upon another line, by forming a canal between the Don and the Volga. In 1698 the works had been begun by one Colonel Breckell, a German officer in the Czar's service. But though a good military engineer, it turned out that he knew nothing of canal making; for the first sluice which he constructed was immediately blown up. The water, when let in, forced itself under the foundations of the work, and the six months' labour of several thousand workmen was destroyed in a night. The Colonel, having a due regard for his personal safety, immediately fled the country in the disguise of a servant, and was never after heard of. Captain Perry entered upon this luckless gentleman's office, and forthwith proceeded to survey the work he had begun, some seventy-five miles beyond Moscow. Perry had a vast number of labourers placed at his disposal, but they were altogether unskilled, and therefore comparatively useless. His orders were to have no fewer than 30,000 men at work, though he seldom had more than from 10,000 to 15,000; but one twentieth the number of skilled labourers would have better served his purpose. He had many other difficulties to contend with. The local nobility or boyars were strongly opposed to the undertaking, declaring it to be impossible; and their observation was, that God had made the rivers to flow one way, and it was presumption in man to think of attempting to turn them in another.

Shortly after the Czar had returned to his dominions, he got involved in war with Sweden, and was defeated by Charles XII. at the battle of Narva, in 1701.

Although the Don and Volga canal was by this time half dug, and many of the requisite sluices were finished, the Czar sent orders to Perry to let the works stand, and attend upon him immediately at St. Petersburgh. Leaving one of his assistants to take charge of what had been done, Perry waited upon his royal employer, who had a great new design on foot of an altogether different character. This was the formation of a royal dockyard on one of the southern rivers of Russia, where he contemplated building a fleet of war ships, wherewith to act against the Turks in the Black Sea. Perry immediately entered upon the office to which he was appointed, of Comptroller of Russian Maritime Works, and proceeded to carry out the new project. The site of the Royal Dockyard was fixed at Veronize on the Don, and there Perry was occupied for several years, with a vast number of workmen under him, in building a dockyard, with storehouses, ship sheds, and workshops. He also laid down and superintended the building of numerous vessels, one of them of eighty guns; and the slips on which he built them are said to have been very ingenious and well contrived.

The creation of this dockyard was far advanced, when Perry received a fresh command to appear before the Czar at St. Petersburgh. Peter had now founded his new capital there, and desired to connect it with the Volga by means of a canal, to enable provisions, timber, and building materials to flow freely to the city from the interior of the empire. Perry forthwith entered upon an extensive survey of the intervening country, tracing to their respective heads the rivers flowing into Lake Ladoga. He surveyed three routes, and recommended for execution, as the most easy, that by the river Svir from Lake Ladoga to Lake Onega, from thence by the river Kovja to Lake Biela, then down into the Volga by a cut from Bielozersk to Schneska. The fall on the Petersburgh side of the navigation was 445

feet from the summit level, and 110 feet to the Volga. The works were immediately begun, and carried on, though with occasional interruptions, caused by the war in which Peter was for some time longer engaged with his formidable enemy of Sweden, but whom he eventually routed at Pultawa, in 1709.

Before the works were completed, however, Perry fled from Russia like his predecessor, but not for the same reason. During the whole of his stay in the kingdom he had been unable to get paid for his work, valuable although his services had been. His applications for his stipulated salary were put off with excuses from year to year. Proceedings in the courts of law were out of the question in such a country; he could only dun the Czar and his ministers; and at length his arrears had become so great, and his necessities so urgent, that he could no longer endure his position, and threatened to quit the Czar's service. It came to his ears that the Czar had threatened on his part, that if he did, he would have Perry's head; and the engineer immediately took refuge at the house of the British minister, who shortly after contrived to get him safely conveyed out of the country, but without being paid. He returned to England in 1712, as poor as he had left it, though he had so largely contributed to create the navy of Russia, and to lay the foundations of its afterwards splendid system of inland navigation. Shortly after his return to this country he published his description of Russia,' which,

1 The title of the book, now little known, is- The State of Russia under the present Czar: In relation to the great and remarkable things he has done, as to his naval preparations, the regulating his army, the reforming his people, and improvement of his country; particularly those works on which the author was employed, with the reasons of his quitting the Czar's service, after having been fourteen years in that country. London:

Printed for Benjamin Tooke, at the Middle Temple Gate in Fleet Street, 1716.' The work was translated into French, under the title-Etat présent de la Grande Russie ou Moscovie,' &c.

Paris and Brussels, 12mo. 1717; The Hague, 12mo. 1717; Amsterdam, 12mo. 1720. It was also published in German, entitled- Der Jetzige Staat von Russland oder Moskau,' &c. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1724.

as the first authentic account of the extraordinary progress of that new empire, was read with great avidity in England, and was shortly after translated into nearly all the languages of Europe.

It will be remembered that all attempts made to stop the breach at Dagenham had thus far proved ineffectual; and it threatened to bid defiance to the engineering talent of England. Perry seemed to be one of those men who delight in difficult undertakings, and he no sooner heard of the work than he displayed an eager desire to enter upon it. He went to look at the breach shortly after his return, and gave in a tender with a plan for its repair; but on Boswell's being accepted, which was the lowest, he held back until that contractor had tried his best, and failed. The road was now clear for Perry, and again he offered to stop the breach and execute the necessary works for the sum of 25,000. His offer was this time accepted, and the works were commenced in the beginning of the year 1715. The opening was now of great width and depth, and a lake had been formed on the land from 400 to 500 feet broad in some places, and extending nearly 2 miles in length. Perry's plan of operations may be briefly explained with the aid of his own map. (See next page.)

In the first place he sought to relieve the tremendous pressure of the waters against the breach at high tide, by making other openings in the bank through which they might more easily flow into and out of the inland lake, without having exclusively to pass through the gap which it was his object to stop. He accordingly had two openings, protected by strong sluices, made in the bank a little below the breach, and when these had been opened and were in action, he commenced operations at the breach itself. He began by driving in a row of strong timber piles across the channel; and these piles

Boswell's price had been 16,3007., and he undertook to do the work in fifteen months.