The progress of navigation, by the discovery of the route to India, and of America, gave a new spring to the mercantile spirit of the Europeans, lessening, in some degree, the regret which the loss of this an. cient seat of their prosperity had occasioned, and turning their thoughts to the means of restoring that advantage. It was not until the beginning of this century that Peter the First, desirous to create com merce, unknown in his vast empire, saw the immense advantage it would derive from the possession of some ports in the Black Sea: he succeeded in the acquisi. tion of Azof ; but the misfortunes which he met with afterwards, and the peace of Prouth, was the occa sion of his surrendering his conquests, and the advan tages that might have been derived from them. Ca. tharine the Second following the steps of this great legislator of Russia, had the glory of accomplishing the design his genius had conceived.
After two long wars, the Turks found themselves compelled to surrender to Russia a part of Lesser Tartary, and, at length, the Crimea ; to allow them to establish in that quarter a rtavy, and to permit their flag the free passage of the Dardanelles.
Austria, the ally of Russia, has partaken of this last advantage, and these two nations alone carried on the commerce, always inconsiderable for want of means and of concurrence, until the time when, after the conquest of Egypt, the French government ob tained, by its treaty of peace with the Porte, the free navigation of the Black Sea. It has been grant. ed with the like facility to the other principal powers of Europe in such an extent,- that the commerce of that sea may be considered to be absolutely free." It would appear, from the principal treaty be tween England and Turkey, that we had a com mercial footing in the Black Sea in the time of Queen Elizabeth or James I. In the time of Charles II. the conditions of alliance with England were re vised and amplified in 1661-2, by the Earl of Win chelsea, and afterwards in 1675 by Sir John.Finch. These treaties gave all the subjects and dependants of England permission to pass and repass with their merchandise into every part of the Ottoman do minions. All the particular privileges which be longed to the French, Venetian, or any other Chris tian nation, were conceded to the English. In 1799, the freedom of the Black Sea was again given to the English. On this occasion, Mr Smith observes, in the memorial which he presented to the Ottoman Porte, that, " by enabling the English navigator to penetrate the deep gulfs of the Black Sea, and thus rendering the 'remotest districts accessible to the English merchant, instead of the present languid routine of a single factory superintending two or three annual cargoes, assorted according to the limit ed consumption of the metropolis, with the refuse of which the provincial traders are scantily furnished at second and third hand, we shall see whole fleets la den with the richest productions of the Old and New World. British capital and credit would attract
flourishing establishments in the solitary harbours of Anatolia, from whence the adjacent cities would re ceive less indirect supplies, and where the landholders find more ready exchange for their produce. Sinope and Trebizond would again emulate the prosperity and population of Aleppo and Smyrna. The Abazes, Lazes, and other turbulent traders who inhabit the mountainous fastnesses, by mixing more frequently with their fellow subjects at these marts, could not fail to learn their real interest to be inseparable from the performance of their duty." The commerce of the Black Sea embraces, accord ing to Reuilly, that of the Crimea, that of the shores of the sea of Azof, and those of the Abazes ; that of Natolia, and of the Ottoman provinces of Asia, of Romelia, of Bulgaria, of Wallachia, and of Molda via, and, above that of Poland and Russia.
" The Crimea is advantageously situated for the purposes of commerce. That peninsula, surrounded by the Black Sea, and by the Sea of Azof, in which. the Don empties itself, is able to receive in its ports, principally in those of Kertch and of Caffa, the merchandises of the Indies, of Persia, and of Siberia, in the same manner as in the times of the Genoese. These merchandises, which consist in raw iron, cop per, spars, pitch, skins, can come from Siberia, by following the course of the Kama and of the Into Dubofka, or by crossing the isthmus 60 versts, which separate the Volga from the Don ; and by being chipped at Katchahnskaya, these merchandises come down by the Don to the sea of Azof, to be n• carried to Taganro, or directly to Kertsh or Caffa. Butter and fat come also by this route, and with considerable profit to the traders. The sailcloth of the interior part of Russia, the hemp, the linens, of which there are great abundance, above all in the de partments of Pcnza, of Nishnei-NovogorOd, and of 1Voronetz, have a short passage to make to come down by some lesser rivers to.the Don.