John Deane had entered service in the Russian navy by 1714, the year of Hango Head. After the battle, the fortunes of foreign mercenaries were briefly favourable. Lieutenant Dunlop, an Irishman, was personally awarded 100 roubles by Peter the Great for volunteering to transport the tsar from ship to shore during a hard gale. Vice Admiral Cruys, who had been subject to a court martial the previous year, was recalled from exile in Kazan and made vice president of the College of Admiralty. Three Swedish vessels crewed by privateers were captured. Three ships arrived from England. But a 60-gun Russian warship exploded when it was struck by lightning during transportation across land. Unlike many of the tsar’s foreigners, John Deane did not fight at Hango Head.
When the apocalyptic Russian winter fell, the rivers would freeze, the new harbours would become unnavigable and campaigning would cease until the spring thaw. This was a time to repair ships, drill crew and experiment with innovations. It was also a time to tacitly admit error and remove failing technology. In early 1714 poorly-designed boarding bridges that had been attached to Russian warships were taken away. In February the boarding bridges were sent to the port of Archangel by sledge. John Deane had not fought at Hango Head because he was part of the retinue sent to Archangel. Among the others were a mixture of under officers, lieutenants and seamen. Waiting for them at Archangel were four newly constructed ships: the Uriel, the Salafiel, the Varakiel and the Egudal. John Deane was given command of the Egudal.
Deane spent most of 1715 in Archangel. Elsewhere the war could be measured in raids, skirmishes and building plans. The Swedes shelled Revel Bay. The Russians responded in kind. There was something of a manpower shortage among the Russians and ships lay in haven for the absence of competent sailors. Peter the Great made preparations to turn Rager-Wik into a haven. The Russians encountered an English and Dutch squadron under the command of Sir John Norris, a great friend to the Russians but not necessarily a military ally. Civilities were exchanged. The controversial Count de Buss, who had committed atrocities on Dutch flyboats carrying neutral flags, died and was replaced as rear admiral of the galleys by Captain Commodore Ismaivitz.
In September 1715 John Deane was ordered to sail the Egudal from Archangel to the Baltic. The captains of the Salafiel, the Varakiel and the Uriel would do the same. Accompanying them was a transport yacht given as a present to the tsar by William of Orange.
John Deane suffered an immediate setback. The Egudal sprang a leak. Deane was forced to return. The Uriel, the Salafiel and the Varakiel reached the safety of Norway and Copenhagen and wintered there. The royal yacht fared badly. Near the Swedish coast the yacht was cast away and lost. The Egudal was repaired and made seaworthy. John Deane set sail later than he would have liked. He set sail later than was reasonably safe to do so. Harsher than any New England winter, the Baltic elements were murderous at this time of year and Deane would pay the penalty in frozen flesh. As he sailed on, the furies of Boon Island raked his boat as the ice and the wind slaughtered his crew one by one. By the time he had delivered his vessel, half of his men were dead. But Deane was alive. For the second time he had proved that the cold could not kill him. His ship was intact. There would be no censure. He had obeyed orders under difficult conditions. This was Russia. The loss of life was just one of those things. Winter kills. John Deane had done nothing wrong. He would be allowed to progress.
The year 1716 began as the years always did, with promotions. But the initial military objective of the New Year was to coordinate the army and the navy. Part of the fleet was stationed at Revel. Under the command of the Dutchman Captain Commodore Sievers, as soon as the weather allowed, the Revel squadron was to meet up with the rest of the fleet and their Danish allies and sail to Copenhagen. The Russians and the Danish intended to advance together through Scania but the squadron discovered that the Swedish fleet was waiting near Copenhagen. Sievers and company returned to Revel. The Russian fleet that had been sailing in the North Sea gathered at Flekkero, Norway. John Deane sailed into Flekkero in April. Sievers arrived in May. Deane set sail for Copenhagen with the squadron on 27 May. Two days later the squadron met the British fleet, commanded by Sir John Norris. The combined force sailed to Copenhagen.
Rifts and fatal breaches of etiquette were rife in the Russian navy at this time. There was a mutiny about pay among seamen and under officers; eighty men deserted and fled to Holland. A Dutchman, Captain Black, saluted Sir John Norris by striking his pendent at the same time that the Englishman struck his own pendent. From a Russian perspective this was considered highly insulting to their English ally. In Holland it was not considered insulting at all. In Russia the insult carried the death sentence. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Captain Black was drunk when he committed his faux pas. Black was subject to a court martial. He escaped capital punishment but was confined at Revel where he drank himself to death.
The Dutch Captain Commodore Wybrant Scheltinga tried to tackle the partisanship that divided the fleet. Factions fell in behind two captains, the Norwegian Peter Bredale and the Russian Ivan Sinavin. John Deane favoured Bredale. Deane despised Sinavin calling him, ‘a sordid, drunken, ignorant fellow, a creature of the tsar’s, and therefore of great power misused by him, to the exposing of himself and his Prince’s service to ridicule.’ Deane’s assessment of Sinavin’s worth as a human being and an officer was typical of the escalating contempt in which he would come to hold most of the Russians he encountered and of the ambivalent attitude he felt towards the tsar that governed them.
On 7 July, Peter the Great arrived in person bringing with him thirty-seven galleys and a snow. On 20 July he took command as vice admiral. Since the battle of Polatva, the creaky alliance with Denmark had been somewhat refortified. Peter the Great entertained the king of Denmark and set his mind to reorganising the fleet. The tsar initiated something of a reshuffle among his officers. He was concerned about the polyglot nature of his fleet. He reassigned officers to ships best suited to their abilities. Once assigned, the captains would stay with the same ship, an antidote to the problems of negotiating the different languages and maritime cultures that made up the body of the fleet. He insisted that any commanders must have risen through the ranks and be skilled navigators familiar with the coasts. The Egudal was taken from John Deane and he was given a new vessel, a frigate. John Deane was now captain of the Samson.