urself,
which the duties of your station render necessary.

I am, Sir, &c.

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

St Petersburg, December 21st, 1782.

Sir,

I had the honor of your letter of the 18th of September, last week, in
which you acknowledge the receipt of mine of March 30th, but add, that
the one of March 5th has never reached you. I am at a loss how to
account for the failure of that, when a copy of it accompanied the
other.

I am glad to learn the observations I sent you upon the trade of this
empire, have been deemed at all pertinent, and have afforded any
useful hints, as well as that the state of its connexion with the
Porte, has not been wholly uninteresting. If you have received my
other letters in course, you will find I have not been silent upon the
particular subjects you mention, and upon which you want information,
nor altogether an idle spectator of events; although to this moment I
have not had any conferences with either of her Majesty's Ministers,
or taken any official step, yet I have constantly endeavored to clear
up all misrepresentations of every kind, of our enemies or others, in
a channel which I have reason to believe has had a good effect. I am
assured that all alarms about a dangerous concurrence in commerce,
which had been artfully raised to serve particular interests, are
perfectly quieted, and that it is now also believed, that a free and
direct commerce between this empire and America, will be highly
beneficial to the former. A sketch of the arguments made use of to
these ends, you will find in my preceding letters.

As to the great point of our independence, the armed neutrality sprung
out of it, and the propositions of the mediators, were built upon it.
These sentiments were expressed in my first letters from hence to the
President, have since been repeated in several of my letters to you,
and I have never seen occasion to change them. I have never troubled
the French Minister with any conversation upon the subject you allude
to, since that I first detailed to Congress, except when I thought
some important change had taken place in the state of affairs, such as
the capture of Lord Cornwallis and his army, when the Parliament
passed their several resolutions respecting the American war,
preceding the change of