72 the petition may have been designed to create a Swedish alternative to the Russian position or a Swedish retreat in case the Russian reformproject did not get off the ground, or it may even have been designed as a precautionary measure to cover his activities in the event of his visiting Stockholmin the service of the Russian tsar. Whatever the original motive for filing the petition, once he arrived in Stockholm Pick would be able to refer to his petition as the direct reason for his visit to the Swedish capital. His purported, or real, desire to re-enter Swedish service would also explain his interest in the Swedish administration during such a visit; before assuming the position of commissary in the kommerskollegium, for which he had applied, he would have to improve his knowledge of the organizational structure and operating procedures of the Swedish collegial administration. In his curriculum vitae. Pick, who came from Hamburg, stated that he had spent his youth “bei der Peder” and that he had first visited Stockholmin 1699 at the age of twenty. At the outbreak of the Great Northern War in 1700, he had gone to Livonia and entered the service of a recruited regiment under the command of Colonel Magnus Wilhelm von Nieroth.^'*^ Paradoxically, von Nieroth and Pick would soon meet again in the Russian service, and even in the same administrative organ, for in 1717 Peter named both men to positions of responsibility in the kamer-kollegium, von Nieroth as vice president and Pick as councillor.^'*- Pick advanced to the position of regimental quartermaster in 1704 and continued in that position until 1710, during which time he had opportunities to visit Stockholm on regimental business on two separate occasions. In 1710 he left Livonia for Germany where, as he put it, he sought “eine convenable Civil-emploij. tions from high-ranking Swedish officials addressed to the governments of Pomerania and Bremen, then under Swedish rule. Pick noted in his curriclum vitae that “wie man die erfolgte betriibte Begebenheiten in Pommern- und Bremenschen schon damahls vorauss sehen könte, so zwang mich meines Hauses Zustandt sofort den Gottorpischen Hoff zu suchen.” There Pick was promised a position as soon as there was a vacancy, but the promise was not kept, according to Pick, “immermaassen ich insonderheit von dem damahligen Premier Ministre den Herrn Baron Göertzen, von anfang her, mit sehr ungutigen Augen angesehen worden.” Instead, Pick was offered the position of burgomaster in the small city of Eckernförde in Schleswig “unter den leeren Titul eines commissarii,” a position Adam Levenhaupt, Karl XII:s officerare (2 v., Stockholm, 1920—1921), II, 477. Sec p. 158. The material in this and the following paragraph is taken from RA, Biographica F: 7, Heinrich Pick. In spite of a number of recommenda- ” 143
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