[CHAP. XXXI.]
Of the trade of Russia.
The Russian trade without doors was in a manner annihilated before the reign of Peter. He restored it anew, after his accession to the throne. It is notorious, that the current of trade has undergone several changes in the world. The south part of Russia was before the time of Tamerlane, the staple of Greece, and even of the Indies; and the Genoese were the principal factors. The Tanais and the Boristhenes were loaded with the productions of Asia: but when Tamerlane, towards the end of the fourteenth century, had conquered the Taurican Chersonesus, afterwards called Crimea or Crim Tartary, and when the Turks became masters of Azoph, this great branch of trade was totally destroyed. Peter formed the design of reviving it, by getting possession of Azoph; but the unfortunate campaign of Pruth wrested this city out of his hands, and with it all his views on the Black Sea: nevertheless he had it still in his power to open as extensive a road to commerce through the Caspian Sea. The English who, in the end of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth century, had opened a trade to Archangel, had endeavoured to do the same likewise by the Caspian Sea, but failed in all their attempts for this purpose.
It has been already observed, that the father of Peter the Great caused a ship to be built in Holland, to trade from Astracan to the coast of Persia. This vessel was burnt by the rebel Stenkorazin, which put an immediate stop to any views of trading on a fair footing with the Persians. The Armenians, who are the factors of that part of Asia, were received by Peter the Great into Astracan; every thing was obliged to pass through their hands, and they reaped all the advantage of that trade; as is the case with the Indian traders, and the Banians, and with the Turks, as well as several nations in Christendom, and the Jews: for those who have only one way of living, are generally very expert in that art on which they depend for a support; and others pay a voluntary tribute to that knowledge in which they know themselves deficient.
Peter had already found a remedy for this inconvenience, in the treaty which he made with the sophi of Persia, by which all the silk, which was not used for the manufactories in that kingdom, was to be delivered to the Armenians of Astracan, and by them to be transported into Russia.
The troubles which arose in Persia soon overturned this arrangement; and in the course of this history, we shall see how the sha, or emperor of Persia, Hussein, when persecuted by the rebels, implored the assistance of Peter; and how that monarch, after having supported a difficult war against the Turks and the Swedes, entered Persia, and subjected three of its provinces. But to return to the article of trade.
Of the Trade with China.
The undertaking of establishing a trade with China seemed to promise the greatest advantages. Two vast empires, bordering on each other, and each reciprocally possessing what the other stood in need of, seemed to be both under the happy necessity of opening a useful correspondence, especially after the treaty of peace, so solemnly ratified between these two empires in the year 1689, according to our way of reckoning.
The first foundation of this trade had been laid in the year 1653. There was at that time two companies of Siberian and Bukarian families settled in Siberia. Their caravans travelled through the Calmuck plains; after they had crossed the deserts of Chinese Tartary, and made a considerable profit by their trade; but the troubles which happened in the country of the Calmucks, and the disputes between the Russians and the Chinese, in regard to the frontiers, put a stop to this commerce.
After the peace of 1689, it was natural for the two great nations to fix on some neutral place, whither all the goods should be carried. The Siberians, like all other nations, stood more in need of the Chinese, than these latter did of them; accordingly permission was asked of the emperor of China, to send caravans to Pekin, which was readily granted. This happened in the beginning of the present century.