When Peter the Great went to England in 1697, (working as a shipwright in the dockyards at Deptford), he paid a visit to William III, whom he had met before at the Hague. In taking his final leave Peter fumbled for a moment in his waistcoat pocket and drew therefrom a small parcel wrapped in a shabby scrap of dirty brown paper. This he pressed into the hand of King William. It contained a ruby worth fifty thousand dollars.

It was on this occasion, too, that Peter supposedly took from his pocket a small object wrapped in brown paper which he gave to the King as a token of friendship and appreciation. William unwrapped it, the story goes, and found a magnificent uncut diamond. Another account says that it was a huge, rough ruby fit to be “set upon the top of the Imperial Crown of England.”

On Peter's departure, the king made him a present of a ship, and, in return, received a ruby valued at £10,000, which is now in the imperial crown of England.