CASPIAN SEA. 



milar expeditions were set on foot and conducted in- 

 to the same parts by other merchants. The last of 

 these waa that under Christopher Burroughs, which 

 was attended with many dangers, his ship being final- 

 ly shattered by the ice in the mouth of the Volga, 

 while the crew with difficulty escaped, and at length 

 arrived at Astracan. Hitherto this traffic had been 

 rhiefly confined to the ports of Tumen, Derbent, 

 Baku, and the coast of Ghilan ; and having been 

 much impeded by the banditti that frequent the shores 

 of the Caspian, as well as by the wars which then pre- 

 vailed between the Turks and the Persians, no Eng- 

 lish vessel during all that period, nor even for more 

 than a century afterwards, ever appeared upon that 

 sea. Indeed, for much the greater part of that time, 

 the trade may be considered to have been altogether 

 extinct ; and no idea ever appears to have been en- 

 tertained of its revival, till at length Peter I. having 

 subdued the northern provinces of Persia, endeavour- 

 ed to induce the English to engage anew in this com- 

 merce. The many unsuccessful attempts, however, 

 that had been made in that department since the 16th 

 century, and in which large sums had been lost, deter- 

 red them from entering into the views of that monarch ; 

 and so little, from various causes, chiefly the unwhole- 

 someness of their climate, appeared now to be the ad- 

 vantage of possessing provinces which, at the time 

 of their acquisition, seemed to promise very beneficial 

 results, that, in consideration of obtaining the liberty 

 of import and export duty free in all the harbours of 

 the Caspian, with some other minor advantages, the 

 empress Anne at length agreed to relinquish these 

 provinces to Nadir Shah. Russia then gained more 

 from them by trade, than before through the con- 

 quest and the possession of them ; encouraged by 

 which favourable appearance, as well as induced by 

 other considerations, Captain Elton, an Englishman 

 in the Russian service, renewed the project of insti- 

 tuting a British trade over the Caspian. Influenced 

 by his persuasion, the British merchant* of St Peters- 

 burg turned their attention to this commerce. A 

 vessel was built for the navigation of the Caspian. It 

 was loaded with the goods considered to be the best 

 adapted for the Persian market ; and in fine, a facto- 

 ry was established at Reshd, in the province of Ghi- 

 lan. Even, however, in the outset, the symptoms 

 appeared of an inauspicious jealousy, and a tendency 

 to disagreement among those who were to be con- 

 cerned in this traffic ; and eventually, in consequence 

 as well of disputes among the English themselves, as 

 between them and the Russians, and at the same 

 time, probably moved by views of ambition, Elton 

 entered into the service of Nadir Shah, and assisted 

 in constructing vessels, by means of which the Per- 

 sian court seems to have entertained the idea of esta- 

 blishing their own supremacy on this sea. This pro- 

 ceeding reasonably gave umbrage to the court or St 

 Petersburg, and Elizabeth, in 1746, withdrew her 

 permission to the English merchants of passing 

 through her dominions, on account of the Caspian 

 commerce. On the death of Nadir Shah, who had 

 for some time permitted the English to trade to Per- 

 sia, their factory was pillaged, and their commerce 

 annihilated. Elton, after various vicissitudes of for- 

 tune under those who, amidst the troubles which now 



began to prevail in this state, followed each other in 

 rapid succession as the heads of its government, at 

 length by a violent and premature death, paid the 

 forfeit, either of his imprudence or of his crimes. 

 The Russians, profiting by the loss of the English 

 in this quarter, received no small advantage from the 

 models which they left them, and from learning of 

 them in those parts, as they had before done io St 

 Petersburg, the use of the best materials for ship- 

 building. 



Considerably before this period, indeed, the natives 

 of that country had entered into, and were now pro- 

 ceeding with no very unequal steps in the track open- 

 ed by our merchants. Under Alexey Michaelovitch, 

 Astracan became the centre of the Persian trade, to 

 which place there resorted merchants from Buchana, 

 Crim Tartary, Persia, and even India. The vessels 

 of the Russians, as has been already remarked, being 

 rudely framed, without decks, and consequently ex- 

 posed to frequent shipwrecks, the czar drew from 

 Amsterdam several ship-builders, for the purpose of 

 constructing others more calculated to weather the 

 storms of the Caspian sea. His designs of improve- 

 ment, however, were frustrated, in consequence of 

 the rebellion of the Cossacks of the Don under Stenko 

 Razin, and the devastations occasioned by it ; and in 

 fine, the trade of Russia was for the present annihila- 

 ted. When this revolt was quelled, the greater part 

 of the commerce of the Caspian fell into the hands of 

 the Armenian merchants established in Astracan, who 

 settled factories in both the Russian and Persian ter- 

 ritories. During this whole period, neither the Rus- 

 sian nor the Armenian traders had, for the most part, 

 penetrated farther than Niezabad, and their chief set- 

 tlement was at Shamachie, till the year 1711> when 

 that town, having been taken by the Lesgees, the 

 factory was destroyed. In 1721, Peter 1. having ob- 

 tained, as has been stated, the cession of the provinces 

 of Dagestan, Shirvaxi, Ghilan, and Mazanderan, the 

 commerce was renewed.. He established a Russian 

 mercantile company trading to the Caspian, with a 

 capital of 400 achms, or shares, of the value each of 

 150 rubles, or 30. The chief settlements were 

 formed at Astracan and Kislar; but the right of pro- 

 perty in those distant provinces having been resigned 

 in the manner mentioned, the Russian merchants still 

 retaining their exclusive privilege, now obtained the 

 liberty of trading without payment of any duty to all 

 the havens of the Caspian, and were allowed to build 

 houses and magazines, subject to the single condition 

 of obedience to the laws of the country. The bene- 

 fit of the monopoly, with the other advantages enjoy- 

 ed by this company, were confirmed to them by Anne 

 and Elizabeth. Yet the commerce continued incon- 

 siderable till, in 1762, Catharine II. abolished their 

 exclusive privileges, and permitted for the future all 

 her subjects, without exception, to take part in the 

 Persian trade. On account of the numerous banditti 

 that infest the roads, she at the same time prohibited 

 the inland traffic from Kislar and the other Caspian 

 ports to Shamachie. For the benefit of the legiti- 

 mate and authorised trade, two Russian consuls have 

 their residence statedly at Baku and at Einzellee. 

 By degrees, the Russian trade on the Caspian rose to 

 considerable consequence; it has, however, been a 



