73 with which he was obviously dissatisfied. After the Swedish capitulation at Tönningen in 1713, Pick was unable to remain burgomaster in Eckernförde and was forced to leave that post by the Danes at the beginning of 1714. With this turn of events, Pick went to Stockholm to seek the help of Duke Karl Predrik of Holstein-Gottorp. Having obtained Karl Predrik’s promise that he would be reinstated as soon as the duke took over the government of Holstein, Pick returned to Eckernförde, where he was arrested by the Danes in the beginning of November 1714 and taken off to the fortress of Rendsburg. According to Pick’s own account, the grounds for his imprisonment were 1) that, as a highly suspected Swede, he had travelled to Stockholmwithout permission, 2) that before doing so he had stopped in Copenhagen “und fleissig mit Sr. Excellence dem Herrn Grafen Steinbock conversiret,” and 3) that he had, in Stockholm, informed on a Danish postmaster as being a spy. Pick informs us that the Danes kept himunder strict surveillance at Rendsburg for eight weeks before releasing him on bail. The accuracy of this statement, however, is subject to great doubt in view of the fact that Bruce made arrangements on December 3, 1714 for Pick to travel to St. Petersburg, that is, at a point in time when, according to his curriculum vitae. Pick still had four weeks left to spend as a Danish prisoner. While these two pieces of information contradict one another, Jacob Bruce’s letter to Aleksei Makarov must be assigned greater credence than Pick’s autobiographical sketch. In his petition to Charles XII, Pick consciously avoided any mention of the Russian attempts to recruit his services and camouflaged his activities at the end of 1714. Just when Pick arrived at St. Petersburg and received his assignment to travel to Sweden on Peter’s behalf cannot be determined exactly. The available Russian sources have nothing to say about how the contacts with Pick developed during 1715, and the first time we hear he is on his way to Sweden to study “the establishment of the economy in that country” is in the ukaz issued by Peter on December 13, 1715 to his ambassador at Copenhagen concerning aid for the secret agent on his way to Sweden.This ukaz provides further support for the notion that the Russians must have been in contact with Pick long before November 1715, when Weyde sent the letter cited by Pekarskii. It is unlikely that Peter would have entrusted such an important and expensive task to someone he had known less than a month. The tsar was always careful to screen his potential collaborators and civil servants before they were allowed to assume their positions. The evidence indicates that Pick, accompanied by his wife, travelled Sec above, p. 69.
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