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Peter retained his high regard for Danish-Norse
shipbuilding during his whole life, and it was on this
account that Danes and Norwegians were enabled to
exert so great an influence in St. Petersburg. This is
the reason, too, that Danish-Norse[1] seamen were received
so kindly in Russia even long after the death of the great
Czar.
Next to Peter, Norwegians and Danes had the greatest
share in the founding of the Russian fleet, and among
them the place of honor belongs to the Norseman
Cornelius Cruys, who in 1697 was assistant master of ordnance
in the Dutch navy, where he was held in high regard as a
ship-builder, a cartographer, and as a man well versed in
everything pertaining to the equipment of a fleet. Peter
made him his vice-admiral, and assigned to him the
technical control of the fleet, the building of new vessels,
their equipment, and, above all, the task of supplying
them with West European officers.
Weber assigns Cruys a place in the first rank among
those foreigners to whom Russia owes much of her
development, and remarks that it was he, “the incomparable
master of ordnance, who put the Russian fleet upon its
keel and upon the sea.” He belonged to the fashionable
circles of St. Petersburg, owned a large and beautiful
palace on the Neva, where now tower the Winter Palace
and the Hermitage, and was one of the few among the
wealthy that enjoyed the privilege of entertaining the
Czar on festive occasions. He became vice-president of
the council of the Admiralty, was promoted, after the
peace of Nystad, to the position of admiral of the Blue
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