• No.73
p. 59-61
St. Petersbourg, September 16/27 1774
Earl of Suffolk

My Lord
….
As far as my knowledge of this country, and my notions of our Levant Trade enable me to judge, Your Lordship has very justly interpreted the Language some people now hold with respect to the effect of the late treaty of peace. The only disadvantages they can pretend will arise to our trade from the channel it has opened between this country and Turkey, are that the latter may not only be supplied from hence with some articles that interfere with the productions of Great Britain, but that they will be conveyed to them in Russian ships, which will in return import hither the productions of the Levant and of Italy. Could this possibility be the case, the present alarm would certainly be well founded: but as nothing less than a total change of the state of every thing in this Empire can bring it about, and as this must be, in the nature of things, at a very distant period, it, in my humble opinion, scarcely deserves any attention. It is true, that, while we were able to export any quantity of grain, the shortness of the navigation through the Black Sea might have rendered the competition of Russia in this article occasionally detrimental to us; but this in no very great degree, for many reasons that might be assigned. Turkey is not likely to take off any quantity of Russian iron, hemp or flax: Italy indeed may: but would it answer to the Russians to carry it thither in their own ships, without any freight back? – and what is that to be? – Silk, of one kind at least, they already import from Persia, at a very easy rate, and in greater quantities than they can work up, in return for a variety of articles they supply that country with; and the quantity of Italian or Turkish silk necessary to mix with it, is, I am informed, very inconsiderable. They have no fabrics in which any great quantity of cotton is necessary; and the establishment of such, or indeed of any kind of manufactory but coarse cloths and stuffs for home consumption, and coarse linens for foreign markets, is so contrary to every principle of sound policy, that there is scarcely a Russian so void of common sense as not to be sensible of it, and not to perceive that it is their true interest to give their whole attention to the increasing of the natural productions of their country. The other articles which they import from the Levant and Italy will come to them infinitely cheaper in our ships, than they would do in their own, on account of the great difference of insurance.
[ακολουθεί μία παρουσίαση των πιθανοτήτων περί αλλαγής δασμολογικής πολιτικής της Ρωσίας έναντι βρετανικών προϊόντων]
….

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