John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia (1827)

Major General Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833) was a Scottish soldier and diplomat who had served as the British East India Company administrator and envoy to Persia during the Napoleonic Wars. While in Persia, Malcolm maintained a journal that he later published under the title of Sketches of Persia, from the Journals of a Traveller in the East (London, 1827). Malcolm had met many Georgians in Persia and left interesting descriptions of them, some of which are presented below. 

***

Aga Ibrahim had been a great trafficker in the slaves, male and female, which the army of Aga Mahomed [Agha Mohammad Shah of Persia] brought from Georgia in his irruption into that country in 1797 [1795]. He had retained one in his own family, of whom he appeared dotingly fond. The more wine he took, the more he spoke of his favourite Mariamne. “I have often,” said he, “offered to marry her, if she would only become a Mahomedan, but all in vain; and really, when she is on her knees praying before her cross, or chanting hymns to the Virgin Mary, she looks so beautiful, and sings so sweetly, that I have twenty times been tempted to turn Christian myself. Besides, I can hardly think of Paradise as delightful without Mariamne !”

***

Before leaving Abusheher we had received many proofs of the favour of the Prince Regent of Shiraz. Soon after our arrival at that place, a favourite officer of his Guards brought a present of twelve mule-loads of fruit. When this young man came to pay his respects to the Elchee, Khojah Arratoon [Armenian merchant, known by the name of 'Blue Beard'] desired to withdraw. When asked the reason: “Why,” said he, “the person who is deputed by the Prince Regent is a Georgian, the son of my next door neighbour in Tiflis. When Aga Mahomed Khan [Agha Mohammad Shah of Persia] plundered that city in 1797 [should be 1795], he was made a prisoner, with twenty or thirty thousand young persons of both sexes; and having since been compelled to become a Mahomedan, and now enjoying high rank, he may be embarrassed at seeing me.” The Envoy said, “It does not signify, you are my Treasurer, and must be present at the visit of ceremony; depend upon it he will not notice you.” It was as predicted; the bearer of the present, a very handsome young man, superbly dressed, and of finished manners, appeared to have no knowledge of Arratoon, though his eye rested on him once or twice. When the visit was over, the good Armenian could not contain himself: “That vile Mahomedan wretch," he exclaimed, “he has lost sight and feeling, as well as religion and virtue. Have I given him sweetmeats so often, to be stared at as a stranger? I should like to know who was his father, that he should look down upon me. It will be a mournful tale,” he concluded, “that I shall have to write to his mother, who is in great distress, and who, poor deluded creatures lives in hopes that there is still some good in this dog of a son of hers.” 

There was a mixture of wounded pride, of disappointment, and humanity, in Blue-beard's sentiments, that made them at once amusing, and affecting. He came, however, early next morning to the Envoy with a very different countenance, and evidently deeply affected. “What injustice have I not done,” said he, “to that excellent young man! He sent a secret messenger to me last night; and when we met, ran to embrace me, and after telling me the short tale of his captivity, sufferings, and subsequent advancement, inquired in the most earnest manner after his mother. He has not only given a hundred tomans to relieve her immediate wants, but has settled that I am to be the Agent for future remittances. He informed me that he recognized the friend of his youth, and never had more difficulty than in the effort to appear a stranger; but he explained his reasons for being so cautious: he is not only a Mahomedan, but has married into a respectable family, and is a great favourite with the Prince, and must, therefore, avoid any conduct that could bring the least shade of suspicion on the sincerity of his faith or allegiance. I shall make his mother very happy,” continued Blue-beard, who was evidently quite flattered by the personal attention of the young Georgian, and the confidence reposed in him; “for I will, when I send her the tomans, tell her my conviction, that her son, whatever he may profess, is a Christian in his heart. Indeed he must be so; for if he had been a true Mahomedan he would have acted like one, and have disowned, not supported, his mother, whom he must consider an infidel.” 

Paxton Hibben, "The Republic of Mirth" [Travel Notes on Georgia] (1921)

As I searched for accounts in various periodicals, I accidentally stumbled on this fascinating article published in the American magazine "Travel" in July 1921 (Vol. XXXVII, Issue 3). 

This travelogue was written by Paxton Hibben, prominent American diplomat, journalist and humanitarian. After graduating from Princeton and Harvard, Hibben joined the US Foreign Service and served seven years at various foreign posts in Central and South America; in 1912, after committing a number of public indiscretions, he was compelled to resign from the State Department. He then joined the Progressive Party and was involved in Theodore Roosevelt's presidential campaign. With the start of World War I, Hibben became a war correspondent and reported from several fronts. In 1918-1923, he served on a military relief commission in Armenia, visited Georgia and helped the Red Cross in its efforts to rescue children during the Russian famine of 1921-23. Returning to the US, he pursued a literary career, publishing a number of books and numerous articles. Hibben died of pneumonia in New York in 1928. 

In light of Hibben's clear anti-Bolshevik sentiments in this article, it is rather ironic that his wife agreed to the Soviet request to bury him in Moscow as a way of honoring his efforts to mitigate the effects of famine in Russia. In 1929, Hibben was given a state funeral  and buried at Moscow's Novodevichy Convent.

Hibben wrote this article less than six months after the Democratic Republic of Georgia ceased to exist in the wake of the invasion of the Bolshevik forces in February 1921.

I find it difficult to conceive the Republic of Georgia turned Bolshevist, as the press dispatches have it. It is not a preoccupation that will worry anyone else, however, for when one speaks of “Georgia” in these United States it means the district immediately surrounding Atlanta - not a toy republic lying somewhere between the Black and Caspian Seas, six thousand miles from Savannah. It is the Republic, not the State, of Georgia that the press dispatches say has turned, is turning, or will turn, Bolshevist.

The report shocks me. Somehow, the ornate and charming Georgians as I knew them seem to fit ill with the stern realities of communism. Old Prince Napoleon Murat, for example, great-great-grandson of the illustrious French marshal and whose grandmother was the last Queen of Mingrelia, teetering about on his two canes, his immense shapka of silky sheepskin bobbing from side to side as he hobbles—what will he become in a government of abstemious commissars, requiring no toastmaster at their frugal feasts? What will they all become, these handsome male butterflies in a land where every other man is a prince, when there are no more Princes and every man must work or starve?

And those dancers so vividly pictured by H. G. Wells in his description of Baku, as something exotic and peculiarly Asiatic - what a pity he did not visit Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, to recognize them as just Georgians at their favorite and common pastime!

It was, I think, the happiest life in the world—the six months I spent in Transcaucasia. Not Armenia, of course. There is nothing but horror and tragedy and despair in that pitiful land. But Georgia could not be tragic  - not even reluctantly accepting a Bolshevism it does not understand and certainly at bottom does not want. “A volatile people fond of dancing and light wines,” the description of the French in an apocryphal geography of one's childhood (how wide of the truth!), fits the Georgians like a glove. Dancing, as Wells implies, is what they do best— gilt and filigree daggers balanced on the palms, the points in the corner of each eye, they dance to the tune of a barbaric strumming of two fingers on a kettledrum, and the shrill whine of wood-wind. To dance better (I can think of no other reason) they wear long boots of soft leather, like kid gloves, with pointed toes and no heels, that lend themselves nicely to dancing, but make poor marching equipment. The tcherkaskas, too, are picturesque when the wearers are in a whirl of complicated figures. They are the long coats we are accustomed to attribute to cossacks, with wasp waist, flaring skirt, artificially squared shoulders, and a double row of pockets across the chest, where cigarettes, not cartridges, are kept dry in chased silver tubes.

I lived across the street from the barracks, where there seemed to be far more dancing than drill, more skill with daggers balanced on nose or forehead than with rifle or machine gun. Officers and men alike - frequently in one democratic company - danced by the hour, generally solo, but sometimes also in competitive pairs. It is monotonous to watch. The steps and the formal postures are always the same; the music never varies; the skill is of high uniformity. One elbow of the dancer is crooked sharply, hand stiffly outstretched against the breast, the other arm outheld, hand hanging limp like a kerchief - goodness knows by what obscure symbolism: heel and toe, heel and toe, round and round he goes, the skirted tcherkaskas swinging out like a bell. And then the dagger stunts—always the same tricks, of which they never seem to weary. A childlike people!

As for the light wines - they are the best I know anywhere, and at 40 cents the quart, in restaurants. They all come numbered, and it is by the number you order: 66 is white, like a Moselwein. The first word learned by visiting naval officers from vessels stationed at Batum they pronounce shitysatshest—and the clever Georgians understand at once and produce 66. For the more initiated, there is 47—red, like the heavier Algerian wines of French Africa. There are others, less in demand among the foreigners because slightly resinated, as are the Greek vins du pays. These are the wines of Kakhetia, especially beloved by the Georgians themselves.

After nine months of British military occupation, 66 and 47 grew rare, and frequently one was forced to accept the Kakhetian wine. But if one shied at the taste, the Georgians knew a trick or two. They made a krushon—a sort of cup—of it, in a great pot-bellied glass bowl, with a hammered silver ladle. To soften the taste of resin, slices of peaches, pears, cucumbers, apples, or oranges were added, and whole cherries, while to give the krushonstrength, a generous dash of cognac was poured in, and, when obtainable, a liqueur or two to sweeten lit up. Nectar! Served with a cake of ice floating about, krushon is of deceptive potency. Almost anyone is ready to dance, Georgian or any other style, before the glass bowl is half empty.

To the Georgians, however, krushon is a drink for women and foreigners. They prefer the strawberry-colored Kakhetian wine, with all its violin-bow tang of resin. A round of drinks in the Georgian Club, sitting at little tables under the starry sky, is not a bottle and four or five glasses, but a bottle for each man. Nor are the tedious gyrations of the western corkscrew to be tolerated. An effete invention of one-handed drinkers! The dagger, always hanging from a gorgeous belt at the waist—not on one hip, but precisely in the center of the body—is your true Georgian’s bottle opener. A single blow, and the top of the bottle goes spinning, not a drop spilled or a grain of glass in the wine.

“No delays this way,” the handsome Georgian Prince (they are all Princes) explains. “One might die of thirst, otherwise.”

Vodka there is, of course, but not the aromatic zoobrovka of pre-war days, alas! Only the raw petrol-tasting product of potato or barley, like nothing so much as the secret distillations of the

amateur violator of the 18th amendment. The cognac is better. Indeed, it is quite as good as the usual French brands, and in the days before the war was frequently bottled and sold with French labels—and no one the wiser.

If dancing is the recreation of the volatile Georgians, drinking seems the principal business transacted. It is done earnestly and with an application which, in a less enlightened land, leads only to excessive income taxes. No one has ever seen a Georgian drunk— there are only twenty-four hours in the day and they are not enough to produce intoxication in such sincere drinkers. Besides, if ever a Georgian did get drunk, who would be left sober to record the miracle?

And as they drink, they sing—sing beautifully, with the clear voices of mountaineers—the sentimental ballads of the type our grandmothers sang, or the infinitely sad folk songs of a people in slavery. Music is as much the life of a Georgian as his food. The opera at Tiflis is an amazing structure of mingled late Persian and early Norddeutscher Lloyd architecture, set in a garden with trees and a pebbled enclosure, dotted with iron tables where one may sit and have a krushon between the acts.

[...]

Moreover, the Russian Art Theatre in Tifiis gave the best of Russian drama. And there was the Artistic Club, ubiquitous in Russia, where, after the opera or play, stage favorites met poets, singers, or just people fond of music and the theatre. There, for the sheer love of the thing, extra numbers were given by professionals and amateurs alike, with a spontaneity which certain Parisian cafés counterfeit. The music halls of Tiflis were tawdry and undistinguished. Russia patronizes the music hall. but produces no vaudeville talent to speak of. The Russian circuit was ever the gold mine of American negro buck and wing dancers, vapid English song and dance artists (you know that kick!), and the inextinguishable French whiner of interminable pathetic love songs or semi-indecent comic couplets. all on the same tune. The war cut off the supply of these performers, with the result that the program of the Tiflis music hall was a poor thing at best. But it is, after all, not to see but to be seen that a Georgian frequents a music hall. The private boxes are open to the main body of the hall at just a height to make the occupants most visible and most conspicuous. In these the handsome Georgian Princes, interspersed with visiting naval officers from allied ships, discussed krushon and sang in opposition to the performance on the stage.

Parties in Tiflis had a habit of lasting until dawn, not so much from any undue gaiety, but because they rarely began before midnight, when dinner ends.

After all, as I look back on the days in Transcaucasia, what stands out in memory is neither the bathing beach at Batum, where the question of propriety in bathing suits is simply solved by their being none  at all for rich and poor alike, nor the universal beauty of the Georgian women, from whose number from time immemorial the wealthiest Turks have sought the flowers of their harems. It is the food! To find in the Near East where, from Greece and Serbia to Persia, the food is horrible - inedible mutton in forty styles, and vegetables cooked in mutton tallow and served swimming in oil - to find in Georgia such food as exists nowhere else in the world, is a double delight. First, there is, of course, caviar. Caviar comes from the Caspian, a few hours by train from Tiflis. There, it is really fresh—and he who does not know fresh caviar on its native, so to speak, heath has not lived. You may buy a cupful for thirty cents, served with chopped onion and just a few drops of lemon, or spread on buckwheat cakes, with drawn butter and sour cream. Let those who have not tasted the dish of the gods turn up their noses. I’ve heard them say before now: “How can you eat such a devilish mixture!"— until they tried it.

Then there is sturgeon for those who like it, although in my estimation it was sturgeon that first justified the slang expression "a poor fish.” But to set off against the overrated sturgeon are the trout of Lake Gochka—extraordinary speckled-scaled, pink fleshed things that the Georgians serve with a nut sauce that few products of the cuisine equal and none excels. Rabchiki—I do not know what a "rabchik" is, plover, perhaps—hazel-hen, the dictionary says—but whatever the fowl may be, he or she (there are no capons) is beyond compare.

And such fruit as not even California boasts—and California is not backward about boasting. The Georgians make a great ceremony of peeling you a pear or a peach-—or a cucumber, to eat as if it were an apple—and handing it to you on a fork with all solemnity. It is a deplorable habit, especially at a large dinner, when each Georgian thinks he must perform the rite out of sheer politeness, for there are so many other and better things to eat than fruit, however excellent. Venison, partridges, duck, quail, wild goose or rabbits, are all to be had for a day’s shooting a few hours from Tiflis. Turkeys are more common than strictly fresh eggs in the United States—and not much more expensive.

Most succulent of all, however, are the soups, each a meal in itself—red borsch, with a clot of sour cream floating in the savory dish, or thick, odoriferous stschi, king of soups the world over. And for dessert, it is quite possible that the original famous “Georgia watermelon" came, not from the state lying east of Alabama, but from the Georgian Republic.

The cook who performs the infinite variety of culinary miracles costs the munificent sum of $2 per month in wages—and at that one is accused of debauching the labor market by paying extravagant rates!

A city of night life, Tiflis. The shops struggle open about nine and stagger through a hard morning, scarcely visited before eleven. At three, they close permanently, for all Tiflis goes to lunch at that hour, and returns no more during the day. There was little in the shops, after five years of war and blockade—mostly second-hand articles: field glasses at a song; cameras (but no films of later vintage than 1914) ; jewelry of all kinds, paintings, silverware, ball dresses (no need for these now!), wine-stained tablecloths, pawned after one meal to get the next—even the precious hypodermics of the addicts went the same way in order to obtain the drug of oblivion and the addicts were reduced to snuffing.

There was one large cooperative restaurant in Tiflis where students, teachers, public officials and others receiving small salaries, or none, could obtain a satisfying meal at eight cents. The patrons took turns waiting at table and washing the dishes, and expenses were accordingly light but the food was excellent. I have seen cabinet ministers there, solemnly doing their trick at dish washing, like the rest. Dinner is at ten o'clock, and there is little else to do afterwards, if one be not of roystering turn.

It is sad to think of it all changed—no more 66 or 47 ; under Soviet rule, prohibition is not an excuse for law-breaking— it is a fact. But, after all, the rest remains. All nights and matinees at the opera or ballet will be for workers, instead of once or twice a week. But opera and ballet will go on. There will still be the beautiful women (and no one has yet charged the Bolsheviki with requiring bathing suits), the ideal climate, the exquisite fruit—and the cooking.

Also, I think that even communism will dash itself to pieces against the charming, delightful, care-free laziness of the Georgian character. They inhabit an earthly paradise - why should they work—even for Lenin or Trotzky?

Jan Janszoon Struys, The perillous and most unhappy voyages of John Struys, 1676

Jan Janszoon Struys was the Dutch sailor and sail maker who traveled widely in Asia for almost three decades starting in 1647. In September 1668, he and seventeen other Dutchmen, led by Captain David Butler, decided to travel to Moscow and to enter the Russian service. In Moscow, Struys and his companion acquired a ship and sailed down the Volga River to Astrakhan. However, they could not have chosen a worse moment to reach this city since a Cossack rebellion, led by Stenka Razin, erupted in the region and the Cossacks sacked the town. The Dutchmen fled from Astrakhan and tried sailing to Darband but bad weather forced them to land on the coast of Daghestan, where they were taken prisoner and sold into slavery. The Dutchmen remained in slavery for a year. Struys was taken to Yerevan, where he was sold on June 12 to a Persian, who  then took him to Darband, where he was sold again to a Persian who took him to Šamāḵi, where he was sold, at his own request  in October 1670, to Bogdan Gurdziecki, an Armenian/Georgian from Georgia who served as the Ambassador of the King of Poland to Persia (for details click here). 

Struys and other Dutchmen were ultimately freed through the intercession of the Dutch East India Company, which asked Shah Solayman of Iran for help in freeing the captives. After being freed in November 1671, Struys crossed Iran to reach Bandar Abbas, from where he returned to the Netherlands in October 1673. Three years later he published an interesting memoir, "J. J. Struys Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige Reysen," about his travails in the East. The book was highly successful and went through numerous editions, being translated into German, French and English. 

While in captivity, Struys came across many Georgians, though few of them left good impressions on him. The selections below are from the 1694 English edition, with minor stylistic changes. 

"My Patron had bought not long before 2 Georgian Girls for Slaves, the one of 11, and the other of 12 years old, with whom he lay by turns, which was no small trouble to his Wife, who was herself not above 26 years of Age, and therefore very unwilling to be a Widow with a living husband."

[...]

On 1 November, I was sent for by the Ambassador [of Poland Bogdan Gurdziecki], where being introduced into the Parlor, he speedily bad me sit down, and fell to asking many Questions about my Nation, and my coming to be a Slave. I told him all from the Beginning to the End. He then called for a Bowl of Wine, and bade me drink. Whilst I sat there, two young Georgian Girls were brought to the Door, who being stole by the Dagestan Tartars, of handsome Bodies and tolerable Beauties as also the Ambassador's own Country Women, he had compassion of them and bought them for the value of 100 Crowns. These he kept for Warming Pans, and would upon Occasion, when he made any Feast, cause them to dance: nor did they much seem to be concern'd at the loss of those heavy burthens called Maidenheads [virginity], although the Art is to know where they first got rid of them."

[...]

[In the fall of 1670, Ambassador Gurdziecki became involved in a dispute with fellow Poles.] On November 2 came the Sister of the Ambassador, and his Brother with a great Retinue and Pomp. Their Reception was with an Extravagant Banquet, which continued several days. So long as this banqueting lasted, there was such Gluttony, Drunkness and Prodigality, indeed such beastliness shown, that I almost abhorred the name of a Christian, when on the other side I saw the Mahometans point at them, who are themselves very abstemious and temperate. Yet this only was to gratify the Georgians and Persians, for [the Ambassador] demeaned himself very churlishly [rudely] towards the Polish Gentry who were sent to grace his Person as a Retinue. Scarce were they ever admitted into his presence; he took their allowance in Diet [food] and Habit [clothing].

At last having spent the Money they brought with them out of Poland, the Poles were reduced to such poverty that they went up and down like Beggars, being ashamed to come into honest Company, for besides their costly Attire which he always kept locked up, he would not allow them a sufficiency of Linen to keep themselves clean. If any offered to complain, he threatened to sell them for Slaves, which tended to the great detriment of those his Domestics, and Dishonour of the King and Crown of Poland. This bred in the Polish Gentry such disaffection that they resolved often times to have revenge; but as those who know themselves conscious of such ill demeanor are ever in fear of their Persons, so he who knew himself guilty of such wicked doings, had always a certain number of his own Nation [Georgians] to secure and guard him. However they once finding opportunity, and being already come to the very End of Patience, attacked him with their Swords and Axes, as he was about to leave his Dining-Room, where they chopped and mangled him so that he lay for dead upon the Floor, in the Portic, having received 17 grievous Wounds, and lost three Fingers of his Right hand.

Yet by the great diligence and skill of his surgeon, who was then at hand, he was restored to his former Health and Sanity. This outrage as it could not but engender bad blood, so it rendered the Ambassador much more spiteful than before, and that very night to be revenged, he sent a Georgian Soldier to Paniegros, a Polish Gentleman, who was Assistant in this Embassy, and equally empowered to treat with the Ministers of State at the Persian Court, and therefore reckoned by [Gurdziecki] as an obstruction in the Promotion of his Interest, as well as being ready to represent the Occasion of these Tumults to the [Polish] King, in such manner as might tend to [Gurdziecki's] disadvantage. Yet it ought to be understood of this Gentleman [Paniegros], that he neither gave encouragement, nor knew any thing of that extravagant Action [attempted murder]. The Georgian having obtained entrance [to Paniegros's appartment], ran to his bedside and there most inhumanly murdered him whilst asleep. This Paniegros was a Gentleman of a brave conduct, and withall of a meek temper, having purchased the Love even of those that seemed to be his Lot-enemies for his prudent and civil deportment, He had lived for some years together at Amsterdam, and spoke very good Nether-dutch.

 The rest of the Polish Nation were arrested and secured, some whereof were fast in Chains. Nor with this did the Ambassador hold up, but daily revenged himself of the Poles, which he used as Slaves; and the more to oversaw them he enlisted several Georgian soldiers to guard his Body. The Prince of Scamachy now sensible of the Differences and sad disorder of affairs, took upon himself the Office of a Mediator and decided the matter so well that the imprisoned Parties were set again at liberty. Yet they were no better treated [by the Ambassador] than before as to their Sustenance and Maintenance, whereas one Man might easily eat the Allowance he gave for 8. Meanwhile the Ambassador continued banqueting with those of his own Nation [Georgians], that an Ox a day would not have been too much, if it were not for variety and change of Diet. He bought 13 Kine [cows] which he sent out into the Field, and set me to look after them, but finding my elf at a loss for food, I assumed the liberty to tell his Excellency that he must please to send me something to eat in the Field. His answer was: "If you will have any thing, steal a cow from the Persians, and help your self so." But that Commission I took occasion to let alone, being sensible that my masters Order would not excuse me. Thus I suffered more hunger than in all my life, and sore against my will intimated the matter to my former Patron Hadsi Biram [Ḥājji Bayām], who gave me this reply, I told you of it before-hand, what a villain that Georgian is, That he was but a Christian in show, and far too base to be a Musulman. And certainly the Gentleman had good reason on his side: for this Ambassadour well knowing what Beer was brewed for him at the Court in Warsaw, dispatches his Brother to the King at Ispahan, to supplicate that they might both be circumcised, pretending that now knowing better things than he had hitherto done, therefore could not have Peace or Rest in Conscience, but continual Horror and Inquietude, if he were not admitted as a member in Mahometanism [Islam]. But they had such ample and clear Information at [the Safavid] Court of his Life and Behaviour, that they easily perceived upon what account he did it, and consequently declined his Request. Shortly after he also received a Mandate from Ispahan to depart immediately for Poland, which was acceptable news for the Polish Gentry, hoping at once to be rid of that Slavery and Misery they suffered. After my old Patron had discoursed me a little about this affair, took his leave of me, saying, "John, I am very sorry for your condition, please therefore come twice a day to my house and eat, or at what time you are hungry. I shall give my wife order, upon my Absence to give you food." These words were the sweetest music, I must confess, I heard in Persia; and certainly he. who was a Mahometan, far surpassed my Georgian Master in Charity, who had rather feed Dogs he kept for his pleasure, than Christian-strangers, even if these were his own Domestics.

[...]

On [April] 25 a Persian of reputed Sanctity was murdered by a Georgian after a very base degenerate manner. The Murderer was forthwith apprehended and brought before the Prince, where he was accused of the Fact, and consequently delivered to the nearest Allies of the Patient to use at their discretion, as is customary in Persia; for rarely it happens that either the King, Prince, Deputy or the Civil Magistracy take notice of such delinquencies, but turn over the Malefactor to the aggrieved Parties, who if they be Poor oftentimes sell their Vengeance for Money, after which the Law is silent. However in this case the Delinquent had not that Fortune because the Brother of the Murdered Party had neither Poverty nor Mercy, and as soon as permission was granted him, he caused two Men to hold [the Georgian] down while he had stabbed him with the same Weapon, saying, "Go, you drunken Dog, to the Devil to whom you belong;" for the Georgian was a drunken Fellow, and executed in the same fit of Drunkenness wherein he had so far mistaken himself, so that the Murder, Complaint and Execution were all done in the space of three Hours.