Her attention will be turned to another quarter, and we may see a war break out against the Turks, in which the Emperor may be concerned likewise. Many movements tend to this end. An army of a hundred and sixty thousand Russians are ordered to assemble at Kersant, a new fortified village in New Russia, situated on the western side of the Dnieper or Borysthenes, at about fourteen leagues from Oczakow, a well fortified town of the Turks, famous in the war of 1736, situated at the mouth of the same river, and opposite to Kinburn, a port which Russia obtained at the last peace, but which is exposed to the sudden attacks of the Turks from Oczakow. Eighteen regiments, amounting to about twentyfive thousand men, have already arrived at Kersant, and the residue, or as great a part as can be collected, will be at that rendezvous in March next. The restoration of the deposed Khan of the Crimea is the declared object of this great force; but I am told that revolution has been effected by the intrigues of the Court of St Petersburg, to raise a pretext for this movement, and to cover the real object in view, and that the campaign next year will open with the siege of Oczakow. I pretend not to be certain about this particular information, but I give it to you as what appears to me not to be improbable.
The Russian Ministers are in general Ante-Gallicans, and have, since the exit of Count Panin, sought to divide or lessen the enemies of Great Britain. Hence the most extraordinary proceedings to bring or rather to drive the United Provinces into a separate peace with Great Britain, (which have not yet ceased,) and hence all the patient acquiescence in her attempt to make a particular peace with the United States, though repugnant to the propositions of the mediating Courts. I believe they would have been well pleased, not only that their partial mediation between Holland and Great Britain had succeeded, but that the United States as an independent nation had made their own peace with Great Britain, and left her to contend with the house of Bourbon alone. From this general sketch of their system, you may be enabled to account for many appearances.
I have the honor to be, &c.
FRANCIS DANA.
TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
St Petersburg, November 1st, 1782.
Sir,
Conceiving that the most, if not the only profitable connexion, we can form with this Empire, is of a commercial nature, I have, during my residence here, turned much of my attention to learn in what manner we can carry on a commerce with it, to our greatest benefit. In a former letter I acquainted you, that rice and indigo were the principal of our commodities adapted to this market; that it would be necessary, therefore, for us, in order to maintain any considerable commerce with this Empire, to do it by means of a circuitous navigation, and I pointed out a course which I thought practicable. That, however, would be absolutely annihilated, if the scheme, communicated in my letter of October 1st, should be carried into execution.
It was not on that account alone that I was led to consider that scheme in so serious a light. I found it a great obstacle in my way, counteracting our immediate views, and aiming a blow at our interests, in the only part where they were liable to, or might most easily be injured and wounded. I was of course an obstacle in the way of that, though at first without the least apprehension of its existence, and it must necessarily have been supposed, that I should be so. How far this may have influenced in certain matters, which I need not point out for your information, I will not take upon me to say. I hope it will not be thought I have already said too much upon it, or that I have been unreasonably alarmed about it. There is not, I believe, the least apprehension that I have come to the knowledge of it, or that I have been in the way of obtaining the least information of it. While things remain in this state, there will be no disagreeable consequences from it. In my last, I have added some circumstances for the explanation of this subject, as I thought it not advisable to say anything upon it in my letter of October 1st, lest it might tend to disclose it, if that letter should be intercepted at the office here. One channel of my correspondence has been lately discovered, and a letter written to me upon political subjects, was opened at the office, and sent to me slightly sealed, that I might know it had been opened there. Fortunately, it placed our affairs in a very favorable light, and can do us no injury, but will serve to confirm the representation I have constantly made of them.