I shall undertake to advise you strongly not to remain in Allegheny Town. A letter which I have received from Dr. Yates confirms me in this opinion. I am glad to find this seems to be your own determination. There are but two brothers of us and you ought to use every precaution to preserve your health consistent with your duty......
My health is good, thank God, and I trust it may so continue with His blessing until we shall all once more meet again. With much love to mother and the rest of the family, I remain
Your affectionate brother,
James Buchanan.
CHAPTER VIII.
1832–1833.
NEGOTIATION OF TREATIES—COUNT NESSELRODE—HIS CHARACTERISTIC MANAGEMENT OF OPPOSING COLLEAGUES—THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS—HIS SUDDEN ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS CONSENT TO A COMMERCIAL TREATY—WHY NO TREATY CONCERNING MARITIME RIGHTS WAS MADE—RUSSIAN COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE AMERICAN PRESS—BARON SACKEN’S IMPRUDENT NOTE—BUCHANAN SKILFULLY EXONERATES HIS GOVERNMENT—SENSITIVENESS OF THE EMPEROR ON THE SUBJECT OF POLAND.
The serious business of negotiation began soon after Mr. Buchanan’s arrival in St. Petersburg. He was charged with the duty of proposing a commercial treaty with Russia, and also a treaty respecting maritime rights. It would be impossible to attempt to carry my readers through the maze of notes, protocols, and despatches which resulted in the successful accomplishment of the main object of this mission. A brief account of the principal persons concerned in the negotiation, and a narrative of its general course, together with a few of its most striking incidents, will perhaps be interesting.
At the head of the Russian chancery at this time was Count Nesselrode, the great minister, who, in 1814, as the plenipotentiary of the Emperor Alexander, signed the treaty between the Allied Powers and Napoleon, which wrested from the latter the empire of France and the kingdom of Italy, and confined his dominion to the island of Elba. Nesselrode, too, in the same capacity, along with Lord Castelreagh and Prince Talleyrand, concluded the second treaty of Paris between the Allied Powers and France, after the final overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo, the treaty which restored the Bourbons to their throne. This distinguished person was the son of a nobleman of German descent, who had been in the service of the Empress Catharine II., and therefore, as well on account of the traditions of his house, as of his remarkable abilities and erudition, he must have been an interesting person to meet. He was, with all his practical astuteness, a man of moderate and rational views. He appears to have taken kindly to Mr. Buchanan from the first; but he was not predisposed to a commercial treaty with the United States, and, indeed, he had not bestowed much attention upon the subject. It had not been his habit, or the habit of any of the Russian statesmen, during the long wars in which Russia had been engaged prior to the year 1815, to look much beyond the confines of Europe and those portions of the East which were involved in the European system. Still, however, Count Nesselrode was open to conviction upon the importance of a commercial treaty with the United States; and it will appear in the sequel that the treaty was at length carried in the cabinet, against strenuous opposition, by his very dexterous management, seconded by Mr. Buchanan’s skilful course and ample knowledge of the subject.
Baron Krudener, who was at this time the Russian Minister at Washington, but who was at home on leave of absence when Mr. Buchanan came to St. Petersburg, was opposed to all commercial treaties. So was Count Cancrene, the minister of finance. He was an embodiment of the old traditionary policy of Russia, which did not favor close or special commercial alliances. From the time of the Empress Catharine, the relations between Russia and this country had always been friendly; but there had been no treaties concluded between the two countries, since the Government of this Union had taken its present form, down to the year 1824. The convention negotiated in that year by Mr. Middleton, and ratified in 1825, was quite inadequate to reach the various interests of trade that had since grown up, and was still less adapted to promote an increase of the commerce between Russia and the United States. To make a treaty which would answer these great purposes; establish the principle that would entitle either party to require an equal participation in the favors extended to other nations; provide for the residence and functions of consuls and vice-consuls; regulate the rates of duties to be levied oil the merchandise of each country by the other, so far as to prevent undue discrimination in favor of the products of other countries; and fix the succession of the personal estates of citizens or subjects of either country dying in the territories of the other; all this constituted a task to be committed on our side to able hands, considering the obstacles that had to be removed. Mr. Buchanan was at the age of thirty-eight, when he undertook this labor. Although he was without official experience in diplomacy, I think it evident that he had been a student of the diplomatic history of his own country and of public law to a considerable extent; and what he did not know of the trade between Russia and the United States before he left home, he made himself master of soon after he arrived at St. Petersburg. He spoke of himself in a letter quoted in the last chapter, as a tyro in diplomacy, with no weapons but a little practical common sense, knowledge, and downright honesty, with which to encounter the most adroit and skilful politicians in the world. It will be seen that he found the encounter a hard one. But his manners were conciliatory; his tact was never at fault, so far as I can discover; and it is evident that he was a favorite in all the circles of Russian society into which he entered. He found that his weapons, good sense, knowledge of his subject, and a certain honest tenacity of purpose, were sufficient for all the demands of his position. When he first reached St. Petersburg, his knowledge of the French language was quite imperfect, but he soon acquired sufficient facility in speaking it for the ordinary purposes of conversation. Count Nesselrode did not speak English well, but he could converse in that language, although he did not like to trust himself to it entirely. Mr. Buchanan’s French was perhaps rather better than the count’s English. They do not seem in their intercourse to have used an interpreter, but in one or the other language they got on together very well.
After Mr. Buchanan’s arrival and the necessary formalities had been gone through according to the rigid etiquette of the Russian court, he wrote privately to General Jackson on the 22d of June (1832) in regard to the prospects of his mission, as follows: