What your Lordship has been pleased to mention to me, of your intention to take the opinion of the Russia and Turkey Companies with regard to the Trade of the Black Sea, and the attention to that Matter which Your Lordship has recommended to me, and which I cannot but look upon as likely to be in some events of considerable importance to Great Britain makes me presume to submit to Your Lordship more fully than I have hitherto done, my Ideas upon that subject.

The opinion, I had the honour of giving your Lordship in mine No. 73 of last year, was founded upon a supposition, that this new channel of commerce would be open only to the Russians; and in that case I am still far from thinking it would be detrimental to us, even if it did not prove of some advantage. Whilst the liberty of navigating that sea is confined to the Russians, their inability of prosecuting any trade, without foreign assistance, would, it is natural to suppose, make them have recourse to us, and consequently throw whatever it was practicable to carry on into our hands; but the general opening of it, I apprehend, places this matter in a very different point of view. The local situation of France would in that case, give her great advantages over us for the exportation of Russian products for her own consumption, and she would become the carrier of them to Italy and Spain, and furnish the latter with naval stores, the Denmark for which is yearly increasing, at a much cheaper rate than they are hitherto supplied at by the Dutch. That she considers the opening this new channel as a point of great importance to her, is evident both from her endeavour to persuade the Porte to render the navigation free, and from her earnestness to engage this court in a Treaty of Commerce; I therefore humbly submit it to your Lordship, whether, though we should derive no other advantage from the navigation being limited to Russian ships, excluding so enterprising, and hitherto so successful, a rival, should not make us endeavour to have it so by strengthening that reluctance which appears in the Porte towards a general opening of the navigation; but though, my Lord I should flatter myself that our Turky Company might derive some benefit from it. Would they undertake to export in Russian ships the productions of this country to the different to the different parts of the Black Sea, to Constantinople, and the Archipelago, I have no doubt but this court would omit nothing, that depended upon them, in providing for their security etc. and if once a connection of this sort was formed, whether it was found hereafter to answer our expectations or not, it would at least have the good effect of furnishing those, who are well disposed to us here, a sufficient reason for not adopting any of those plausible plans, which it is very propable Monsr. De Guignie will come charged with, and which, from the inclination, as we have seen in the affair of Spanish Wines, the Empress has to open new channels of commerce, she might be inclined to listen to. It does not appear to me that the Russia Company, nor their factory here, could carry on this trade so much to advantage as the Turky Company; but as it is impossible at the place where I am, to obtain proper light and informations upon these subjects, what I have ventured to offer upon them is merely the result of my own reflections, and therefore submitted to your Lordship with the utmost deference. It may not be improper to mention, that I can perceive, this court is so much flattered with the idea of their exclusive privilege of the navigation, as to be desirous of its remaining so, though it is in my opinion, contrary to their interest in the present circumstances.

…

I have the honour to be with great respect

My Lord….

Gunning

The Earl of Suffolk