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

ISSN 1019-3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2022, Vol. 92, Suppl. 8, pp. S703–S712. © The Author(s), 2022. This article is an open access publication. Russian Text © The Author(s), 2022, published in Rossiiskaya Istoriya, 2022, No. 2. “Pirates Will More Pleasantly Accept the Patronage of His Imperial Majesty”: Colonial Projects of Peter the Great and Jacobite Conspiracies (1718–1725) D. N. Kopelev# Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia e-mail: Received October 28, 2022; revised November 1, 2022; accepted November 1, 2022 Abstract—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. Keywords: Russian Empire, Peter the Great, James III, Jacobites, Charles XII, Madagascar, piracy, slave trade DOI: 10.1134/S1019331622140076 the son of Sophia of Hanover, George Ludwig, who then became King George I. Wartime dictates its own laws. Therefore, no matter what character an internal split in a country acquires, it always carries a threat to the elites, expanding opportunities for intrigues and interference by the enemy. In an attempt to turn political, dynastic, religious, and regional strife to their advantage, the warring parties use a variety of means, many of which are determined in the shadow offices and are used with the participation of individuals whose activities are not brought to the fore, although it is they who lay the foundation of the future state. If, for some reason, what was conceived fails to be implemented, then such projects and related events recede into the shadows, often acquiring a reputation of adventurous enterprises. After the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, London’s opponents were able to influence the internal affairs of the kingdom, taking advantage of the fact that the decline of the Protestant branch of the ruling Stuart dynasty forced the English Parliament in 1701 to pass the Act of Settlement, which eliminated Catholic princes from succession to the throne in favor of the Protestant Sophia of Hanover, the granddaughter of King James I Stuart. However, in June 1714, she died at the age of 83, less than a month and a half before the death of the sickly Queen Anne, after whom the throne of Great Britain went to her second cousin, 1 Corp, E.T. (2004) A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689– # Dmitrii Nikolaevich Kopelev, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), is an Associate 2 Corp, E.T. (Ed.) The Stuart in Rome: The Legacy of Exile, Alder- Professor in the Department of History at the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. shot, pp. 10, 11; See also Corp, E.T. (2011) The Stuarts in Italy, 1719–1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile, Cambridge. He was opposed by Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, known as the Old Pretender—the son of James II, deposed in 1688, and Princess Mary Beatrice of Modena. Proclaimed after the death of his father by his followers as King James III, he lived with his mother in France, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The peace of Utrecht forced him to move to Lorraine and settle in Bar-le-Duc.1 Here the court of exiles spent three years, but, after the unsuccessful Jacobite uprising of 1715, he had to settle in papal Avignon, and from the spring of 1716, in Italy. From 1719, Rome was the refuge of the Stuarts—the center of attraction for all those dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the British Isles.2 From that time, in the secret documents of the Jacobites, Tsar Petr Alekseevich, on whose support they had reason to hope, was mentioned increasingly often. In the fight against the Hanoverian dynasty, James III relied on the assistance of Paris and Madrid, considering as his potential allies the participants in the Northern War—both Charles XII, the “icon” of 1718, Cambridge. S703 S704 KOPELEV the Jacobites, and the “liberator” Peter the Great. According to the Old Pretender, the latter was “the only foreign independent monarch” who could be relied upon.3 Seeking to win over the tsar to his side, James wrote to the Russian ambassador in Paris, Prince V.L. Dolgorukov: “My gratitude for his good deeds will have no other boundaries than the limits of my power, which, I confess, is now weak, but which, with his complicity, will rise and then be used in his favor.”4 For his part, Peter, who organically combined deep political calculations with intuition and passion, acted in accordance with the unfolding circumstances and was ready for a risky game. THE JACOBITE “DIASPORA” IN THE BALTIC FLEET 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 (1635– 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 3 Manuscripts Department of the National Library of Russia (MD NLR), Fund 885, File 503, fol. 81 verso. 4 Archive of the St. Petersburg Institute of History RAS (SPb IH RAS Archive), Fund 276, Inventory 2, File 133/2, fol. 454. 5 See more in Bruce, M.W. (1936) “Jacobite Relations with Peter the Great,” Slavonic and East European Review, No. 14, pp. 343– 362; Anderson, R.C. (1947) “British and American Officers in the Russian Navy,” No. 33, pp. 17–27; Murdoch, S. (1996) “Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy: The Scottish Jacobites in Russia 1688–1750,” Slavonica, No. 3/1, pp. 7–28; Fedosov, D. (2001) “Peter the Great: The Scottish Dimension,” in Hughes, L. (Ed.) Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives, Basingstoke, pp. 89–101; Wills, R. (2002) The Jacobites and Russia, 1715–1750, East Linton; Collis, R. (2010) “Jacobite Networks, Freemasonry, and Fraternal Sociability and Their Influence in Russia, 1714–1740,” Politica Hermetica, No. 24, pp. 89–99; Coroban, C. (2010) “Sweden and the Jacobite Movement (1715– 1718),” Revista (...truncated)