e Baltic, the British trade with Russia had
fallen off by L5,347. The general trade of England reaching in 1730 the
sum of L16,329,001, the Russian trade amounted not yet to 1/53rd of its
total value. Again, thirty years later, in 1760, the account between
Great Britain and Russia stands thus:

L
Import from Russia (in 1760) 536,504
Export to Russia 39,761
--------
Total L576,265

while the general trade of England amounted to L26,361,760. Comparing
these figures with those of 1706, we find that the total of the Russian
commerce, after nearly half a century, has increased by the trifling sum
of only L265,841. That England suffered positive loss by her new
commercial relations with Russia under Peter I. and Catherine I.
becomes evident on comparing, on the one side, the export and import
figures, and on the other, the sums expended on the frequent naval
expeditions to the Baltic which England undertook during the lifetime of
Charles XII., in order to break down his resistance to Russia, and,
after his death, on the professed necessity of checking the maritime
encroachments of Russia.

Another glance at the statistical data given for the years 1697, 1700,
1716, 1730, and 1760, will show that the British _export_ trade to
Russia was continually falling off, save in 1716, when Russia engrossed
the whole Swedish trade on the eastern coast of the Baltic and the Gulf
of Bothnia, and had not yet found the opportunity of subjecting it to
her own regulations. From L58,884, at which the British exports to
Russia stood during 1697-1700, when Russia was still precluded from the
Baltic, they had sunk to L46,275 in 1730, and to L39,761 in 1760,
showing a decrease of L19,123, or about 1/3rd of their original amount
in 1700. If, then, since, the absorption of the Swedish provinces by
Russia, the British market proved expanding for Russia raw produce, the
Russian market, on its side, proved straitening for British
manufacturers, a feature of that trade which could hardly recommend it
at a time when the Balance of Trade doctrine ruled supreme. To trace the
circumstances which produced the increase of the Anglo-Russian trade
under Catherine II. would lead us too far from the period we are
considering.

On the whole, then, we arrive at the following conclusions: During the
first sixty years of