th the other rations of Christendom was entirely
carried on at Archangel, a place which had been created and was
supported by adventurers from our island. In the days of the Tudors, a
ship from England, seeking a north east passage to the land of silk and
spice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt on the
shores of that dreary gulf had never before seen such a portent as a
vessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled in terror; and,
when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated themselves before the
chief of the strangers and kissed his feet. He succeeded in opening a
friendly communication with them; and from that time there had been a
regular commercial intercourse between our country and the subjects
of the Czar. A Russia Company was incorporated in London. An English
factory was built at Archangel. That factory was indeed, even in the
latter part of the seventeenth century, a rude and mean building. The
walls consisted of trees laid one upon another; and the roof was of
birch bark. This shelter, however, was sufficient in the long summer day
of the Arctic regions. Regularly at that season several English ships
cast anchor in the bay. A fair was held on the beach. Traders came from
a distance of many hundreds of miles to the only mart where they could
exchange hemp and tar, hides and tallow, wax and honey, the fur of the
sable and the wolverine, and the roe of the sturgeon of the Volga, for
Manchester stuffs, Sheffield knives, Birmingham buttons, sugar from
Jamaica and pepper from Malabar. The commerce in these articles was
open. But there was a secret traffic which was not less active or less
lucrative, though the Russian laws had made it punishable, and though
the Russian divines pronounced it damnable. In general the mandates of
princes and the lessons of priests were received by the Muscovite with
profound reverence. But the authority of his princes and of his priests
united could not keep him from tobacco. Pipes he could not obtain; but
a cow's horn perforated served his turn. From every Archangel fair rolls
of the best Virginia speedily found their way to Novgorod and Tobolsk.

The commercial intercourse between England and Russia made some
diplomatic intercourse necessary. The diplomatic intercourse however
was only occasional. The Czar had no permanent minister here. We had no
permanent minister at Moscow; and even at Archangel we had no consul.
Three or four times in a century ext