without aid from the co-religionists imagined by our author. Less foresight, however, was manifested in his over-hasty congratulations on the gain to British merchants likely to arise from the opening up of a route through Russia into the heart of the Persian empire. We must consider ourselves,' he says, 'extremely happy in having set on foot a trade through Russia into Persia by the Caspian Sea, by which the most lucrative part of the commerce of that empire will fall into our hands, and may be justly esteemed the fruits of our great naval power, and the effects of sending our squadrons into the Baltic, which gave the Court of Petersburg such an impression of our power to assist or distress them, as it is our interest to take care that time shall never efface.' Time's effacing fingers, however, have obliterated far deeper impressions than any that might have been made by the spirited conduct of a British Minister in the eighteenth century. Whatever share of the Persian trade is now enjoyed by this country is carried on through the Persian Gulf, the Caspian having become politically, as well as physically, a mare clausum. To the East India Company is due the merit of having, as it were, tapped Persia and the extreme eastern territories of the Turkish empire from the south, and thus in some degree revived the ancient commercial importance of Assyria and Mesopotamia. As the Russians bear down from the north, it becomes a matter of vital interest to Great Britain to establish a counterpoise in southern and western Asia, as the most efficient means of rescuing Persia from the state of vassalage and dependence on the Government of St Petersburg, into which she is rapidly descending. Strangely enough, it is to British capital and enterprise that Russia is primarily indebted for the possession of the Caspian, and for all the advantages resulting from that position. CHAPTER IX. THE RIVAL POWERS. COMMENCEMENT OF ANGLO-RUSSIAN TRADE-QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LETTER TO SHAH TAHMASP-CHRISTOPHER BURROUGH-EXPEDITION OF PRINCE BECKOVICH CHERKASSKY-JOHN ELTON-CAPTAIN WOODROOFE-JONAS VOINOVICH-RELATIONS HANWAY-COUNT THE first English expedition to Russia was undertaken in the reign of Edward VI., under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, who, together with the crew of the ill-named Bona Esperanza, was frozen to death off the coast of Lapland. Richard Chancelor was more successful. As captain of the good ship Edward Bonaventure, he discovered the Bay of Archangel, whence he proceeded to Moscow, and was received with great distinction by Ivan Vasilivich, commonly called Ivan the Terrible. This prince, in 1555, concluded a treaty with England, by which important privileges were conferred upon the merchants of that country, and in the following year a Russian ambassador was sent to London. In 1557, Anthony Jenkinson was despatched by the merchants of London, of the Moscovie Companie' to open up a direct trade route with Bokhara, in the hope of bartering English merchandise for the gorgeous silks that Samarkand supplies.' On his return voyage across the Caspian Sea, in 1560, the patriotic Englishman, as we have seen, hoisted the red cross of St George at the peak of his frail bark, the chief result of his hazardous journey being a sort of firman from the Sultan of Hircan (Hyrcania), or Shirvan, to establish a factory in his dominions. This Abdoollah Khan, whose name is corrupted into Obdolowcan, is described as 'a prince of a meane stature and of a fierce countenance,' parelled in gorgeous array, and fond of good living-140 dishes of meat and 150 dishes of desert constituting the menu of the banquet at which he entertained his guest from foreign parts. In 1561, Anthony Jenkinson had the honour of bearing a a letter from Queen Elizabeth to Shah Tahmas, or Tahmasp, of Persia, who is styled therein the great Sophie, Emperor of the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Hyrcanes, Carmanarians, Margians, &c., &c.' After praying for due protection to her envoy, Elizabeth remarks in the stiff and redundant phraseology of the day: 'If these holye duties of entertainment and sweete offices of naturall humanitie may be willingly concluded, sincerely embraced, and firmely observed, betweene us, and our realmes, and subjects, then wee doe hope that the Almightie God will bring it to passe that of these small beginnings greater moments of things shall hereafter spring, both to our furnitures and honors, and also to the great commodities and use of our peoples, so it will be knowen that neither the earth, the seas, nor the heavens have so much force to separate us as the godly disposition of natural humanitie and mutual benevolence have to joyne us strongly together.' Shah Tahmasp, however, cared little for naturall humanitie,' and treated the English ambassador with studied neglect. Before this, however, the western coast of the Caspian had fallen into the hands of the Turks, and trade in that quarter was completely suspended. In 1579, Christopher Burrough built a vessel on the Volga at Nijni Novgorod, and sailed in it to Baku. On his return voyage the ship was stranded off Nizabad, and a portion of the cargo thrown overboard and lost. At Derbend, Burrough disposed of his goods to the Turks and purchased another vessel which he loaded with raw silk, but before he could reach the Volga the winter had set in, and the ship was 'cut to pieces by the ice.' The cargo was taken out and put into a boat which, in a temporary thaw, floated out to sea, where it was again frozen up. The crew then abandoned the boat, and struck across over the ice, but lost their way and were nearly starved to death, besides being shot at with arrows by the Nogai Tatars. In the end the cargo was got to Astrakhan, and thus ended the British Caspian commerce.' In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, England enjoyed the exclusive privilege of importing foreign commodities into Russia. At that time, even during the continuance of hostilities, caravans-which Jonas Hanway asserts should be spelt 'kiervans'-passed unmolested between Turkey and Persia. After the suppression of Stenka Radzin's rebellion in 1671, and the recovery of Astrakhan from the Cossacks of the Ukraine, Russian and Armenian merchants procured English and Dutch cloths at Archangel, which they passed on into Persia from Astrakhan by means of wretched unseaworthy boats. A Russian factory was also established at Shirwan, but after the plunder of that province in 1721 by the Lesghians, the Russians 'almost quitted the field to the Armenians, who were more enterprising in commerce, as well as more resolute in defending their property.' Peter the Great reduced a portion of Ghilan in 1722, but the warm moist temperature, together with the abundance of fruit, rendered that province the grave of the Russians,' and it was evacuated under the Empress Anne. It was not so much the coasting trade of the Caspian that Peter was anxious to command, as the route to India, China, and above all to the gold mines of 'Little Bucharia,' the exist ence of which had been reported by Prince Gagarin, the Governor of Siberia. With this view he despatched in 1716 an expedition of 6000 men in sixty-nine vessels, under the leadership of the Circassian Prince Beckovich, to take possession of the eastern coast of that sea. Three forts were consequently erected: St Peter's on Cape Tup Karaghan, Fort Alexander in the Gulf of Bektirli Ishan, and a third on the Krasnovodsk promontory at the entrance of the Balkan Bay. In the following year, Prince Beckovich was sent with a force of only 3000 men against the Khan of Khiva. Marching across the Ust Urt plateau, the Prince defeated the Khivans in a pitched battle, whereupon the latter affected to tender their submission, and undertook to conduct the victors to the capital. Leading them through the most desolate tracts, they at length persuaded the Prince to break up his little army into detachments as more likely to obtain a sufficient supply of water for all. They then fell upon the scattered and exhausted troops and cut them to pieces. Prince Beckovich, it is said, refusing to kneel down, had his head hacked off with circumstances of great cruelty-it being even affirmed that he was flayed from his knees upwards, and his skin used to cover a drum. In any case, his head was stuffed with hay, and sent as a present to the ruler of Bokhara. This disaster checked the advance of Russia for a century, though the interval was usefully employed in consolidating her possessions and influence to the north of the Caspian. So far back as the early part of the 17th century, the Don Cossacks on the Yaik, or Ural, had sworn fealty to Michael Romanof, and in 1732, the Smaller Kirghiz Horde besought the Empress Anne to protect them from their violent neighbours, the Zungarians and Kalmuks. In consequence of that application, the towns of Orsk and Uralsk were connected by a line of fortified stations, and a solid foundation laid for an |