“Pirates Will More Pleasantly Accept the Patronage of His Imperial Majesty”: Colonial Projects of Peter the Great and Jacobite Conspiracies (1718–1725)

This article is devoted to the issues of the colonial policy of Peter the Great in 1718–1725. Drawing on new archival documents, the author analyzes the trends in the geopolitical development of the Russian Empire in the focus of the ideology of the Jacobite movement and connects the main trends of Russia’s imperial expansion in the World Ocean with the plans for the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, interpreting in a new way the geopolitical plans of Peter the Great regarding an alliance with the pirates of Madagascar and the organization of slave trade.

The entourage of George I, dissatisfied with the strengthening of Russia's position in northern Germany and fearing the consequences of a change in the balance of power in the Baltic, in the late 1710s put together an alliance in which they tried to involve the Netherlands, France, Denmark, and Prussia, in order, relying on them, to impose on Stockholm and St. Petersburg a peace corresponding to the interests of Great Britain.
London, of course, was well aware of the great inf luence of immigrants from the British Isles, closely associated with the Jacobite movement, at the Russian court. 5 It developed during the lifetime of General and Rear Admiral P.L. Gordon (1635Gordon ( -1699, the closest adviser to the tsar in the field of military reforms, whom, according to the words of an Austrian diplomat, secretary of the embassy of Leopold I I.G. Korb, Peter the Great respectfully called "papa." 6 Some of the Jacobites, for example, the brothers Roman and Jacob Bruce, with good reason can be attributed to the "fledglings from Peter's nest," the closest royal associates. 7 The second journey of Peter the Great to the West in 1716-1717 was accompanied by the appearance in the Russian service of "Englishmen, contrary to the court," 8 arousing the increased interest of British agents. Peter, referred to in the secret correspondence of the supporters of the "pretender" as Davis, Mr. Blunt, Buckley, and Colman, met incognito with Jacobite leaders John Erskine, the 6th Earl of Mar (1675-1732), and James Fitzgerald Butler, the 2nd Duke of Ormonde . 9 Arriving in Paris, the tsar hired a participant in the uprising of 1715 Thomas (Foma) Gordon, nephew of Patrick Gordon. 10 Former officer of the British Navy, who had shortly before left his post without permission and was awarded a secret audience with the Princess of Modena, 11 received captain-commander rank on June 1, 1717, 12 and an instruction to "write to England, calling on naval officers to serve in H  1247-1967Fedosov, D. (2001)  Great Britain, or regarding the recruitment of various specialists into the tsarist service. 22 In addition, they carried on a lively correspondence with the exiles who settled in France, Germany, and Italy. Some of the new officers of the Russian fleet played a very important role in the Jacobite movement. Gay, for example, after his dismissal moved to Rome and served at the court of James III. In 1739-1741 and 1744-1751, he was a "majordomo" and, apparently, more than once carried out secret orders of his king. The sphere of his special concerns included relations with Russia and the St. Petersburg Jacobites. 23 At the same time, he was a member of the Jacobite Masonic lodge in Rome and was a member of the "Tobo Lodge," created in Spain in 1726 and connecting the supporters of the "pretender" operating in Rome, Paris, London, Leiden, Madrid, Spa, and St. Petersburg. Thus, to its St. Petersburg branch, founded, apparently, by General James Francis Keith, who had come from Spain (and became Yakov Vilimovich Keith in Russia) (1696-1758), 24 belonged Saunders, Little, Gordon, as well as his son-in-law, the lawyer Henry Stirling, 25 who played a prominent role in Russian-Jacobite contacts in 1716-1718 and in attempts to create a Russian-Swedish-Spanish coalition.
Stirling was a confidant of his uncle-a physician, archiatrist, and president of the Medical College-22 Thus, in January 1723, Peter the Great instructed Vice Admiral Gordon to find two geologists in England or Scotland, "who know how to find coals according to signs from above the earth and to be skillful in their craft" ( The dokhtur was not limited to the treatment of patients and medical and botanical studies. Using extensive connections in the scientific world of Europe, he was responsible for inviting foreign specialists to Russia and acquiring books, tools, and rarities, and on behalf of the monarch he carried on a lively correspondence with foreign scientists and collectors. However, equally zealously, the trusted tsarist physician weaved threads of intrigue, sending secret messages to numerous relatives and like-minded people in foreign lands and interceding with the tsar for his "brave countrymen." 27 The "zealous Jacobite" Areskin was listed in the secret correspondence of the supporters of the "pretender" as Murphy and Mr. Doodle and played a major role in the preparation of the Gyllenborg conspiracy-a rebellion named after the Swedish envoy in London. 28 Accompanied by a certain "Scottish Capuchin, nicknamed the Archangel," Areskin traveled with Peter to Paris, and then moved to Amsterdam, where he held secret negotiations on the invasion of Scotland with the "Grand Vizier" of Charles XII-the Holstein minister It is thanks to these conversations that Count C. Gyllenborg was convinced that Peter the Great mortally "hated" George I (Haley, Barnaby, Hern) and "would willingly send him to the devil himself," as he was convinced of the rights of Jacob III (Truman, Mr. Brown, Mr. Paul, Mr. Peterson, Peter, Mr. Phyllis) and wished to restore him to the throne. 30 Experienced undergrounders, the Jacobites were accustomed to operate in secret and weaved extensive conspiratorial networks using ciphers, passwords, and signs. 31 Realizing that they were threatened with the gallows for high treason, they behaved with extreme caution, saving life and freedom thanks to the ability to change masks, disguise themselves, hide from prying eyes, and intrigue. Since their activities were not limited to Europe, it is not surprising that, as the contacts of the Stuart supporters with St. Petersburg became more active, their influence on the plans of Peter the Great to penetrate into the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean began to be felt. For all the seeming "scatteredness," insufficient forethought, and adventurism of these plans, they reveal a single imperial logic, behind which was the desire to turn Russia from a country that from time to time fell into the orbit of the politics of the great powers into a full-fledged participant in a large geopolitical game, talking with partners from positions of power. 32 For their part, the Jacobites G. Camocke, W. Morgan, J. Norcross, and J. Veit tried to use the tsar's ambitions in their own interests.

CAMOCKE AND THE JACOBITE PIRATES
In 1712, the British naval officer and Irish Jacobite George Camocke (1666?-1722?) made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Russian service. In 1714, he was accused of sympathizing with the Stuarts and was forced to move to Spain, where he engaged in the arms trade and privateering, then settling in the Spanish fleet. On March 28, 1718, in a secret petition, he invited Queen Mary of Modena to conclude an alliance with the pirates of the Bahamas, who, according to him, "for the sake of fighting a common enemy," were "ready to unanimously proclaim James III as their king." 33 However, these intentions should not have been reported to anyone except the "pretender" himself, the Duke of Ormonde, and the Earl of Mar. According to Camocke, the pirates had "two 50-gun and two 40-gun ships, and about 16 sloops and brigantines from 12 to 6 guns," as well as "one of the Bahamas, on which a defensive stronghold was erected, and 24 guns were installed." They "humbly desire," Camocke argued, that James III send a loyal man to New Providence with the authority of "America's Governor General" to grant them amnesty and letters of marque. 34 In the event that he was considered "worthy of such a great mission," Camocke promised to acquire a 50-gun ship in Cádiz and, having recruited three dozen loyal officers, capture the Bahamas, create his own fleet from trade prizes there, and destroy British trade in the Caribbean Sea. However, apparently, Camocke's plans at the court of James III were recognized as too adventurous.
Meanwhile, Camocke's hopes for New Providence, where there was a bloody war against the pirate gangs of Charles Vane, Teach the Blackbeard, and Stede Bonnet, could be quite founded. 35 By that time, the British possessions of North America had already developed their own clans and structures that were zealous of the claims of the mother country to control the colonies and remained faithful to the traditional family political and religious ideals. Therefore, it is symptomatic that the pirates, including their leaders, who often came from the colonial elite, 36 often sympathized with the Jacobites, proclaimed the "pretender" "their king," and even presented some documents allegedly received from him. 37 Of course, it is difficult to say how seriously they took this "game" themselves. Nevertheless, one of Bonnet's captives, the merchant J. Killing, testified at the trial that the pirates raised a toast to the health of the "Old Pretender" on board and expressed the hope of "seeing him the king of the English nation." 38 According to the slave trader W. Snelgrave, captured by pirates, the team of T. Cocklyn also drank "to the health of the pretender, James III" in April 1719. 39 Diverse and heterogeneous "elements" of Jacobite culture can be found in the names of pirate ships. 40 Bonnet, for example, renamed his Revenge to Royal James. 41 This name also appealed to H. Davis and E. England. In addition, Teach Blackbeard's and Captain Lane's Queen Anne's Revenge, Royal Fortune, New King James, and Duke of Ormonde reminded of the Stuarts and their supporters. 42 It should also be taken into account that the "pretender" enjoyed the sympathy of people from the lower strata of society, and those who considered themselves outcasts generally sympathized with the Jacobites, seeing them as "brothers in misfortune." When the country was hit by a financial crisis associated with the collapse of the South Seas Company, social discontent with and hatred for the government of George I increased noticeably.

CAPTAIN MORGAN AND THE MADAGASCAR
PLAN At the end of the 1710s, the teams of Davis, England, B. Roberts, and O. Levasseur, nicknamed La Buse, found shelter on the island of Sainte Marie, located east of Madagascar. That is why the plan of cooperation with them was called Madagascar in the documents of the Jacobites.
In 1713, "envoys of pirates" from the South Seasa certain captain Simon Saint-Leger and his son Samuel-turned to the secretary of the Swedish embassy in Hannover, J.-G. Werfing, offering in exchange for the protectorate of Stockholm to transfer 500000 pounds to the treasury of Charles XII and send 25 ships. Not having the authority to conduct such negotiations, Werfing sent Saint-Leger to Hamburg to the Swedish Governor of Bremen and Verdun, Count M. Vellingk, who was interested in strange guests who said that they were ready to enter the royal service and bring 1400 people with them. The count promised to talk over this matter with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs D.N. von Goepkin, and he, in turn, even ordered to choose a suitable refuge for pirates on the southwestern coast of Sweden: the small port of Kungsbacka, from where it was possible to control transport along the Kattegat. However, the king was then in the Otto- In May 1718, while in Lund, the king learned from Colonel K.M. Leitrum about the pirates' attempts to establish contact with Copenhagen. At the same time, the possibility of creating a Swedish colony in Madagascar and the restoration by the Swedes of their East India Company in Gothenburg was also discussed. In June 1718, other "pirate" messengers from Madagascar arrived in Strömstad to Charles XII: a former officer of the British fleet, Captain W. Morgan and his companion G. Monery, promising large sums of money and expressing their readiness to launch attacks on English ships. 44 Having met with them, the king instructed Baron von Görtz to conduct further negotiations.
True, the attitude of both "emissaries" to Madagascar could not but cause doubts: "Captain Morgan" was a well-known Jacobite agent: like Camocke, he had left the country in 1716 and served in the Spanish fleet. An "honest and reliable" person, as the Earl of Mar characterized him in a letter to Count Dillon on November 14, 1718, 45 Morgan, according to Duke of Ormonde, "suffered a lot for a just cause." 46 Highly appreciating the merits of Morgan, James III hoped to subsequently entrust him with the organization of his fleet and saw in his connections with the "pirates" from the island of Sainte Marie a "happy twist of fate." 47 It is difficult to say what exactly was discussed at secret audiences, but as a result, on June 24, 1718, the pirates received safe conduct from Charles XII, according to which Morgan was appointed Governor of Sainte Marie and could independently choose his assistants. The beautiful harbor of the island was supposed to be turned into a Swedish military base, and the pirates became royal subjects and promised to transfer about half a million pounds to the treasury. Sweden was going to send a secret expedition to the Indian Ocean under the command of Lieutenant time, Morgan reported all the details of the case entrusted to him to one of the leaders of the Jacobite underground, Count Dillon (1670-1733), asking him not to dedicate anyone to the secret, except for James III and Earl of Mar. For the "pretender," the count prepared a special note, which set out the provisions of the safe conduct granted to Morgan by Charles XII. 48 In a letter to the Earl of Mar on October 7, 1718, Count Dillon portrayed the captain as an active and loyal person who was entrusted with the leadership of the pirates. 49 However, the Swedes failed to get to Madagascar. In the autumn of 1718, Klinkuström went with Morgan to Madrid, where they lived for a whole month, meeting daily with the Duke of Ormonde, who represented the interests of James III at the Spanish court. There, the pirates allegedly agreed not only to transfer 30 ships to the Swedes but also to participate in the invasion of Scotland for the restoration of the Stuarts. 50 The fact that Peter the Great was also involved in complex Jacobite intrigues was talked about even during the Gyllenborg conspiracy. Thus, the French envoy in St. Petersburg Comte J. de Campredon reported to Paris about the preparation of the Jacobite expedition and a certain "plan for this enterprise," which allegedly was "roughly sketched by the tsar" and found in the papers of Görtz, who was arrested after the death of Charles XII. 51 F.I. Soimonov noted later that the letters found from both of these royal advisers [Gyllenborg and Görtz-D.K.] showed a concordant intent to put it into action when the Swedish king went to England with twelve thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, and with many guns to arm twelve thousand Englishmen. And allegedly from these letters it was clear that the Swedes had a good hope of attracting the Peter the Great to this treason. 52 Petersburg, of course, denied its participation in the projects to restore the Stuarts. On October 17, 1720, Russian resident in London M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin handed over to the British government a lengthy memorial, which stated that "his royal majesty never gave his protection to rebels against the British crown," but the tsar "does not consider himself obliged to bear responsibility for every Englishman who came to his realm, nor to consider whether he is 48 Calendar of the Stuart Papers,Vol. 7,pp. 362,363. 49 Ibid. p. 196. 50 For details see Syveton, G.G. in the pretender's party or not." Any "secret intentions" discussed with Görtz were categorically denied, and George I himself was accused of trying to create a coalition against Russia. 53 After reviewing the document, the British ordered Bestuzhev-Ryumin to leave the country within eight days. At the turn of 1718-1719, the Jacobite movement suffered a series of tangible blows. On November 19, 1718, Areskin died after a serious illness at the mineral resort in Olonets. 54 His kith and kin suspected poisoning. On November 30, in Norway, during the siege of the Danish fortress Friedrichsgal, Charles XII died, and in March 1719 Görtz was executed, accused of treason. The military expeditions prepared by the Jacobites also ended in failure: in March 1719, a hurricane scattered the fleet of the Duke of Ormonde that had left Cádiz; the auxiliary squadron of Lord Marshal D. Keith managed to land troops in Lochalsh Bay, but the Spanish-Scottish corps was defeated in June at Glen Shiel.
However, this did not stop the Jacobites. Under the leadership of Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, they prepared a new conspiracy, the participants in which expected, taking advantage of parliamentary elections, to raise a rebellion in London in the early fall of 1722 and at the same time to land armed detachments in Cornwall and Scotland with the support of Spain and Sweden. Vessels of the Swedish Madagascar Company under English pennants were prepared to transport troops in Cádiz. They were supposed to be headed by the "Governor of Madagascar" Morgan. 55 In the fall of 1721, a Swedish expedition headed to Cádiz under the command of Adjutant General and Commander K.G. Ulrich. Along the way, he was supposed to "look for Governor Morgan," who was then hiding in the Breton estates of the Duke of Ormonde. 56 Ulrich was supposed to present the captain with letters of entry into the service of the Swedish East India Company, which was engaged in trade with Brazil and Africa, and the appointment as Governor of Sainte Marie. 57 After that, they were to proceed, according to the official order, through Cádiz to Sainte Marie. The commander was strictly instructed to "keep this whole enterprise secretly and maintain secretly, so that not a single soul could find out about this, not only reveal this to anyone, and give little to know about it." All correspondence should be con- ducted with the help of a "digital cipher, so that when it happens to notify signs worthy of writing in their letters, then write it in numbers." 58 At the beginning of 1722, Morgan showed up in Cádiz, where Ulrich had been waiting for him since October 1721. However, by this time, the Jacobite plans had failed again: the participants in the conspiracy were arrested in London, and Morgan, "having barely begun to think about the expedition," "could not prepare for the campaign," "was impoverished," 59 and completely left Cádiz. Meanwhile, a rebellion broke out in the Swedish squadron, and the commander had to return to Sweden, where he was sentenced to death, which was then commuted to imprisonment in the Marstrand fortress. A year later he was released, and in January 1724 he moved to St. Petersburg. In February, he received an audience with Peter the Great and handed over to the tsar the royal instructions given to him on August 16, 1721, and the materials of his trial. 60 Morgan, having promised Ulrich to come to Sweden, 61 moved with his son to Genoa, 62 and in 1723 sold the ships of the Swedish Madagascar Company, after which he disappeared without a trace.

THE LONDON MISSION OF JOHN NORCROSS
The search for the failed "governor" began first in the summer of 1722. The search for him was entrusted to a former officer of the British Navy, closely associated with the Jacobite underground, Captain J. Norcross, who was sent to London. He took part in the uprising of 1715, fought in the troops of the Earl of Mar under Preston, then fled to Brittany and settled in Saint-Malo. Here he acquired a small 4-gun ship and privateered in the North Sea until he was captured by the Dunkirk corsairs, who handed the prisoner over to England. After his release in 1716, Norcross moved to Swedish Gothenburg and, in the midst of preparing the first Swedish expedition to Madagascar, made acquaintance with Morgan. 63 This man was, as Count Dillon wrote to the Earl of Mar on March 8, 1718, rather unbalanced and frivolous. His ideas were not credible. However, it seemed that he was loyal to the cause of the king and, being a good sailor, could be useful in matters relating to pirates. 64 S710 HERALD OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Vol. 92 Suppl. 8 2022

KOPELEV
In June 1721, Norcross, already as a Swedish captain, entered the Russian service, but only six months later he retired. Perhaps this was due to the fact that when sending such emissaries on secret missions, they were dismissed from service so that they would not compromise Petersburg in case of failure. In June 1722, at the height of the Atterbury conspiracy, Norcross suddenly appeared in Paris and, together with the Jacobite Colonel D. O'Brien (Chevalier Abrien), appeared before the ambassador, Prince V.L. Dolgorukov, saying that, on the instructions of the emperor, he had been sent to London to search for contacts with the pirates of Madagascar: "He, Norcross, was ordered, having found those pirates, to promise them the patronage of Your Imperial Majesty and that they would be allowed to live in the city of Arkhangel'sk or in nearby places." Russian patronage was provided on the same terms as the Swedish one: the pirates had to transfer one million ecu to the treasury. 65 According to the prince, the Swedes were seriously afraid of the successful completion of the mission, and therefore, "they want to turn him, Norcross, away from that, and for that they sent him … that petition, and they call him to the service to use him for that business with those pirates." The captain presented the ambassador with a passport, "which was given to him by the Admiralty … which he regards as an abschied, for it says that he will live where he wishes." However, the visitor did not inspire confidence in the prince. In addition, the embassy learned that Norcross was going to go to Flanders, and from there to Sweden, as Prince Dolgorukov wrote, for the use of his case, since he received a petition, and from his conversations he himself could see that if he does not have a decree from Your Imperial Majesty about the above-reported case about those pirates, then he, Norcross, missed, as I understand, that voice on purpose, so that he could improve his affairs in Sweden and receive the aforementioned petition. 66 After this meeting in Paris, traces of Norcross are lost. Only in 1727 did it become clear that the Jacobite and pirate liaison had become a prisoner of the Danish government. He was sentenced to prison and spent 15 years in Copenhagen Castle. In 1742, the regime was softened for him, but he was never released from the castle until his death in 1758.

JAMES VEIT AND THE SLAVE TRADE
The activities of Morgan and Norcross became part of the secret operations of the Russian government in preparation for the secret Madagascar expedition of 1723-1724, the idea and design of which arose by analogy with the Jacobite conspiracy schemes devel- oped during the Atterbury conspiracy. 67 London's reaction to its preparation was reminiscent of the measures taken during the Gyllenborg conspiracy. British merchant ships were then banned from sailing to Sweden, and a military squadron was sent to the Baltic Sea to protect the Hanoverian possessions from possible intrigues of the Swedes and Russians. Oil was added to the fire by numerous pamphlets and brochures depicting the disasters that threatened the inhabitants of the British Isles in the event of a foreign invasion. One of them, presumably written by D. Defoe, described the "heinous intrigues" of Gyllenborg and Görtz, as a result of which an "evil alliance" arose, uniting "Goths and Vandals, Muscovites, Turks, Tatars, and Italian and French papists" around the Stuarts. This horde was led by King Charles XII, a cruel despot, who treated his "servile and barbaric subjects" like "brute cattle." 68 In another pamphlet, Defoe urged his compatriots not to repeat the disastrous mistakes of Carthage and Constantinople. Otherwise, the fields would be covered with blood, the valleys would be devastated, the people would be robbed, the virgins would be raped, the churches would be ruined, and the old and the young would be killed. 69 Similar sentiments were very characteristic of the 1720s. The Jacobite conspiracy loomed like the "sword of Damocles" over the new dynasty, giving rise to a monstrous mixture of real fears, ungrounded conjectures, and vain hopes. Exaggerating the "Russian threat," London anxiously expected the appearance of Muscovite squadrons off the northern coast of Scotland, headed by the leaders of the Jacobite underground. In June 1722, for example, the British ambassador to France, L. Schaub, informed the secretary of state of the Southern Department, J. Carteret, about "the ships that the tsar equips in Arkhangel'sk, and the Jacobites are involved in this." 70 The conspirators counted on the fact that, for the landing of the supporters of the "pretender," Peter the Great would send a transport convoy and an expeditionary force from Arkhangel'sk to Scotland consisting of "4000 infantry and 2000 cavalry without horses, only with all weapons and accessories to the horses." They expressed confidence that Peter the Great "will be more inclined to this intention, because it is not an example more capable of doing this to Your Imperial Majesty as the late King of Sweden of blessed memory, who had this 67 For details see Kopelev, D.N. (2016)  intention, if he had not been prevented by death." For this, James III promised the "famous in the whole universe" emperor to maintain the secrecy of everything that he would do for him, and also guaranteed the conclusion of an alliance in the event of his accession to the throne. 71 It is not surprising that, under such conditions, any naval operation of St. Petersburg attracted the closest attention, and the dispatch of two Russian frigates from Rogervik Bay to Madagascar in December 1723 did not go unnoticed. On February 9, 1724, the Comte de Campredon sent the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of France, Ch.-J.-B. de Fleuriau, Comte de Morville, an alarming report about two frigates sent "by the tsar from Revel," which "returned there badly damaged by a storm." "It is believed," Campredon wrote erroneously, "that these frigates are heading to the island of Tobago in order to establish a colony there under the pretext that the Courlanders had previously inhabited it." 72 More accurate information was provided by Captain of 3rd Rank J. Den, a former naval officer who served an exile in Kazan and left for Great Britain at the end of 1723. 73 Returning to his homeland, Den ordered his notes for a year and prepared a work on the creation and condition of the Russian fleet, 74 which revealed some details of the preparation of the Madagascar expedition: The cold this winter did not set in as early as it usually did, and Vice Admiral Wilster with Captains Lawrence and Myasny on Krondelivde and Amsterdam-Galee, armed with 36 guns each and having 180 crew members, with a supply of food for eight months, were sent on a secret mission, as they believe, to Madagascar, in order to lead some pirates there, who some time ago made profitable offers if they received the protection of his royal majesty. Twice they tried to go on their way, but, faced with headwinds and bad weather, they were forced to return to Revel. As suggested by P.A. Krotov, Den left Russia "in the late fall of 1723." However, perhaps, this happened a little later, since the Briton had information about the January disaster of 1724, which happened during the repair of the ships of the expedition that returned back: 16 sailors died during the keeling of the Amsterdam-Galey frigate. Den, however, mistakenly believed that the crew of the Dekrondelivde suffered then in the Revel docks (according to him, "the lieutenant captain with 13 sailors drowned"). 75 The informants of Jacob III also had information about what was happening in the Baltic. On May 25, 1724, Captain of 2nd Rank D.S. Kalmykov, who had previously studied navigation in Great Britain, informed Admiral General Count F.M. Apraksin that recently he had met the Irishman James Veit, a representative of the "pretender" party; the latter arrived in 1723 as a passenger on a French trading flute and hoped to enter the Russian service. Previously, as Kalmykov found out, Veit had served in J. Low's Company of All Indies, which was proved by the relevant patents. "Everything shows," Kalmykov noted, "that the person is not stupid, and a seaman, but more than leading in merchant ways." Veit also had the necessary connections among the St. Petersburg Jacobites; in particular, he mentioned in a conversation his acquaintance with Lieutenant General P.P. Lassie, who had settled in Russia as early as 1700. In presenting to Kalmykov his thoughts on trade in the Indian Ocean and the colonization of Madagascar, Veit tried to be presented to Count Apraksin as soon as possible, and especially insisted that no one knew about him, except for the Admiral General and Peter the Great. According to Kalmykov's report, Veit was already about to return to France and even boarded the ship, "but heard that his imperial majesty is soon expected here," and "deliberately came down to wait," hoping to meet with the monarch. 76 Veit's plan provided for the organization of largescale overseas trade, which would link the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean into a single logistics hub. To do this, Petersburg was recommended to wedge into the slave trade system that had developed within the Atlantic "Golden Triangle," 77 expanding it through the development of new centers in Brazil, Mozambique, Madagascar, and the Mascarene Islands. It was necessary to start with one 750-ton vessel, on which one could transfer a thousand "Araps" and related goods: "A ship for such a capture must be good and not new; there are from 160 to 200 people on it, and 40 guns." In August-September, it was proposed to send it from the Baltic through La Rochelle to Rio de Janeiro, to deliver the wine purchased along the way. Then it was necessary to collect the goods necessary for the natives 75  and, having arranged "an excitement for hunting for the future merchants," move to the Mascarene Islands, to the island of Bourbon (Reunion), buying Araps in Madagascar and Mozambique and transporting them to Brazil. Veit added, I also think, for the sake of preserving such a perception, it is necessary that His Imperial Majesty give his amnesty (forgiveness of pardon) to all such pirates met either in Madagascar or India, where, having written them to continue to live honestly and under permission in their state to live in peace, in which way many will bow down, which, through measures, and quantities, and wealth, without hesitation, spread the public goodness and profit of any nation. At the same time, it was recalled that the "multiplication, wealth, and strength" of the French possessions in Bourbon and Mauritius were ensured "through a large number of pirates, whom they accepted and will once again accept and cover with their patronage." Veit also knew about the plans of the Swedes, but, in his opinion, "pirates will more pleasantly accept the patronage of his imperial majesty than that of the Swedish king and the French Indian company, for the sake of being in their different religions, all of whom, being not of their religion, are expelled by such authorities." 78 It is not known whether the meeting between the emperor and Veit took place. However, the note he presented and the history of contacts with the "Jacobite" pirates make it possible to understand better how the ideas of the Stuart supporters influenced the formation of Russian foreign policy. The proposals and plans of the conspirators did not come true; however, when they appeared, they did not disappear without a trace, they pushed for the drawing up of new projects; generated tension and distrust; and created a basis for disinformation, rumors, and conjectures. Thus, the failure of the Madagascar expedition led to a new round of rumors. Not having time to arrive in Kronshtadt, Den received information that 12 Russian ships were preparing to go to sea, which, allegedly, together with the Swedes, were "going on some kind of special expedition." His agent learned that this squadron belonged to the Mississippi Company, but in reality it was sponsored by the Spanish Bourbons and the Pope and was intended to support the Jacobites. 79 In general, the use of Jacobite networks allowed Petersburg to detect vulnerabilities of its opponents and collect important information. However, of course, hopes and expectations coexisted here with mirages and hoaxes. Receiving constantly updated and contradictory information, being influenced by changing and "mutating" ideas, the leaders of the empire were repeatedly subjected to complex political manipulations and were often forced to make decisions without fully realizing what was happening in reality.

OPEN ACCESS
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