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$72 COXE’s TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.
leagues of amity and alliance ; but in effe&t he abolithed the company’s privileges the
year before that event. His indignation again{t the Englifh was only a political pre-
text; the real motive being derived from the offers of the Dutch to pay duties of ex-
port and import, to the amount of 15 per cent. if they were indulged with the liberty
of carrying on as free a trade as the Englifh. For not long afterwards, the Tzar fut-
fered William Prideaux, Cromwell’s agent, to refide at Archangel, and permitted the
Enelifh to renew their commerce in that port on the fame footing with other foreign-
ers *, It appears alfo, from Milton’s and Thurloe’s State Papers, that. the Tzar not
only received feveral letters from Cromwell, and returned anfwers; but, at the pro-
tector’s requelt, even agreed to admit his ambaflador at Mofcow. Inconfequence of this
permilhon, Richard Bradfhaw, Cromwell’s refident at Hamburgh, proceeded in his way
to Mofcow, as far as Mittau, where he was honourably entertained by the Duke of
Courland ; from which town feveral difpatches pafled between Bradfhaw and the Ruf-
fian chancellor, with refpect to the fuperfcription of the Protector’s letter to the Tzar,
which did not confer on that monarch all the titles he required. This feems to have
been merely a pretext, as Bradfhaw aflerts, to prolong the time; and in effeét he foon
afterwards returned to Hamburgh without having accomplifhed his intended embafly f.
Cromwell, however, gained a great point in opening the commerce of Archan-
gel to the Englifh; and although Alexey could not be induced to grant a free trade
into the interior parts of his dominions; yet this exclufion was not peculiar to the
Enelith ; for he equally prohibited all foreign traffic, except at Archangel j.
Soon after the Reftoration, Charles II. defirous of obtaining a renewal of the com-
pany’s privileges, difpatched the Earl of Carlifle to Mofcow, who was ordered to re-
prefent, that ‘ thefe very privileges were the bafis and foundation on which the amity
of the two crowns of England and Mufcovy were fuperftructed.” ‘The embafly failed
of fuccefs: the failure was imputed to the haughty deportment of the ambaflador,
who exprefled difguit at the bad accommodations in Ruffia, did not pay fufficient court
to the minifters and favourites of the Tzar, tendered repeated remoattrances in a manner
totally repugnant to the Ruffian cuftom, and, under a falfe notion of maintaining the
dignity of his fovereign, objected to the Ruffian ceremonial. It is much to be quef-
tioned, however, if the Earl of Carlifle had acted a lefs impolitic part, whether the
Ruffian court would have renewed the charter of the company in its full extent, par-
ticularly the exemption from duties of export and import; fince the Dutch readily
paid the cuftoms. The Earl of Carlifle could only obtain a permiflion that the, Englifh
fhould trade freely into the Ruffian dominions, but remain fubjeét to the duties of
export and impert. From that period the Britifh commerce has fuffered no inter-
ruption §.
Archangel continued the fole port for the exports and imports of Ruffia, until the
building of St. Peterfburgh, when Peter the Great removed the commerce of the
v
figures of the lion and unicorn, that this gateway had fome reference to the Englifh, although it was not
the ambaffador’s hotel, that being fituated near the church of St. Maximus, in another part of the Khi-
taigorod ; but it evidently appears, from an infeription over the gateway, that this building was not con-
verted into a printing-office on account of the execution of Charles. ‘lhe infeription denotes, that
Michael Feodorovitch, and his fon Alexéy, caufed thefe apartments and this gate to be con{truéted in the
printing-honfe, June soth 7152, or, according to our era, 1645: a plain proof that the eftablifhment of
the printing-houfe was prior, by at leaft three years, to the execution of Charles, and could have no re-
ference to that event. * Thurloe, vol. it) 55*—562.
+ See Milton’s Works, p. 1657. Thurloe, vol. ili. p.258, and vi. 408, 432, 439.
$ ‘Thurloe, vol: ii. po 598. § Except the fhort interval under Paul,
White
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