• No.62
p. 7-9
St. Petersbourg, August 1/12 1774
Earl of Suffolk

My Lord
….
The Conditions of the late Treaty of Peace have not yet been formally communicated to any of the Foreign ministers; they are however precisely such as I have already mentioned; and considering the critical and very embarrassed situation of this country at the moment in which it was made, they are such as could by no means be hoped for; yet in fact they are rather specious than productive of any solid advantage to Russia. The exportation of a small quantity of Iron and some salt, the latter from the Crimea, is the only immediate bbenfit that will accrue from the free navigation of the Black Sea. High insurance which is to be paid on account of the risk which must in general attend exportation by that channel, and in Russian ships, will more than overbalance the difference of freight through the Baltick and in foreign bottoms.
Two great points are however obtained; that of saving the Empress’s honour, which was hastily, and some people think imprudently, pledged to procure the independence of the Tartars; and that of making this peace without being beholden to the Court of Vienna or Berlin.
….

I have the honour to be with great respect
My Lord….
Gunning