The Sun.
London, England, 1829-10-15 00:00:00

SATTiRDAY.--FIFTII DAY.

1n the expectation of witnessing the Novelty
perform its appointed task, the attendance of
company on the ground was more numerous to-
day than it had been on several of the preceding
(lays. Three times its own weight having been
attached to the engine, the machine commenced
its task, and performed it at the rate of 16 miles
in the hour. Mr. Stephenson's engine, the
Rocket, also exhibited to-day. Its tender was
completely detached from it, and the engine
alone shot along the road at the almost incre-
dible rate of 32 miles in the hour. So asto-
nishing was the celerity with which the engine,
without its apparatus, darted past the spectators,
that it could be compared to nothing but the ra-
pidity with which the swallow darts through the
air. Their astonishment was complete, every
one exclaiming involuntarily, " The power of
steam is unlimited !"

The experiments will be continued during the
present week.

ON THE TRADE TO THE BLACK SEA.

WRITTEN BY TIIE RUSSIAN COUNCILLOR OF COY

MERCER SICARD, RESIDENT AT ODESSA, AND PUB,

LISRED IN TIIE JOURNAL OF TIIAT CITY.
Fifty years ago the commercial world possessed
scarcely any information respecting the trade of the
Black Sea, and its geography was also very imper-
fectly known. Pevssonel in his Treatise, written in
1762, states that le had only been able to gather
some facts relative to the trade of that sea from
Turkish, Greek, and Armenian merchants, with
whom he had become acquainted at Smyrna and
Constantinople. Moreover, he did not find him-
self in a situation to finish his work, such as it was
finally published, until after his residence in the
Crimea, as French Consul with the Kahn of Tar-
tary. In the year 1770, a M. Anton Duvalz, of
Paris, projected a joint stock company for trading
on the Black Sea, but his plan failed for want of
local knowledge, as it also did in 1783, when he, for
the second time, attempted to carry it into effect.—
" The commercial intercourse of the several coun-
tries bounding this Sea," says Peyssonel, " is as
yet far from being sufficiently known, for the Porte
permits no foreign flag to enter it. This trade is
therefore covered with an obscurity which no
individual is capable of removing, and the very
confused ideas which prevail respecting it are to be
attributed to the reports of travellers, and the ex-
tremely limited knowledge of a few merchants,
who have had courage enough to engage in the
Black Sea, through the intervention of natives, in
whom they are necessarily compelled to confide."
Completely devoted to the subject, and enthusi-
astic in the prosecution of his views, Peysonell con-
ceived the plan of connecting France with the trade
of the Black Sea. For this purpose he proposed
to establish a French commercial house at Kaffa,
by which an intimate intercourse with the Crimea
might be formed. In the execution of his project he,
however, required several stipulations—namely, that
the head of the commercial house should be dexte-
rous and cautious; that he should speak the lan-
guage of the country, wear the oriental dress, and
follow all the oriental customs, in order that no
offence might be given to the natives; that lie
should select natives for factors, and place them
under the particular protection of the French Con-
sul residing with the Kahn; that he should avoid
warehousing foreign goods in Baktshiserai, the re-
sidence of the Kahn, lest the rapacity of his agents
should induce them to take possession of what arti-
cles they might fancy without paying for them, &c.
Under these preliminary conditions and precau-
tionary measures, accompanied by a multitude of
others of the same decription, Peyssonel contem
plated the bare possibility of forming a European
commercial establishment in the Crimea, as the part
of the coast of the Black Sea where the most civili-
zation, or, to speak more properly, the least bar-
barism existed. It must be confessed that greater
precautions could not be employed were it in the
present day proposed to set up a commercial factory
in Tombuctoo. Peyssonel also gives the following
picture of the navigation of this Sea :—" The danger-
ous navigation of the Black Sea," says he, " has not,
without reason, hitherto deterred merchants from mak-

ing shipments on it. This Sea, it is true, is very
stormy, and the harbours being few, no insurance
can be obtained; •so that the trader is obliged to
take all risks upon himself. The greatest risk, how-
ever, consists in the want of experience and skill on
the part of the mariners, and the awkward manner
in which the cargoes are stowed. The captains have
no charts, their compasses are wretched, and they have
no idea how to work a ship with an unfavourable
wind." He afterwards observes :—" Great efforts
have at different times been made to procure the
consent of the Porte to the free navigation of the
Black Sea. The late Marquis de Villeneuve ob-
tained a firman for sending two tartans through the
Bosphorus, but a change of ministry took place be-
fore there was time to act on the permission, and it
was withdrawn by the successor of the Grand
Vizier who had granted it."
I shall not stop here to examine the political cir-
cumstances under which the Tartars, Abases, and
other races of men with which the coasts of the
Black Sea are peopled, exist. They are all disci-
ples of that Koran which once threatened to extend
its dominion over the whole of Europe, and which
finally reduced the greater part of Asia and Africa
to barbarism. Sufficient information has been cd-
, leered respecting the character of these tribes. I
shall, however, mention one fact which is not so well
known, and which will afford an idea of the melan-
choly situation in which the inhabitants of the
south of Poland, bordering on Tartary, were placed
less than fifty years ago. Count Stanislaus Potocky,
on whose estate the little towns of Tultshin and
Uman now stand, was obliged, when he began to
build a mansion for his own residence in the former
place, to bring a number of troops from Great Po-
land, and maintain them at his own expence, to pro-
tect his labourers against the daily depredations of
the hordes with which those districts were then
over-run. The same state of things prevailed on
the whole coast of the Black Sea while it remained
under the exclusive dominion of the Turks, of whose
'patriarchial simplicity and generosity we have heard

so much. An entire sea, an immense territory, the
ancient communication between Europe and India,
were placed under interdict, and closed againt
every European nation. The whole of the south of
Europe, animated by the genius of Peter the Great,
sensibly felt the obstacles to its prosperity. In vain
were commerce and civilization summoned to that
quarter from different parts of Europe,—in vain
were numerous efforts made for that object. The
interposed Turks opposed every plan of improve.
ment with an obstinacy which injured themselves,
while Europe, silent and hopeless, submitted to this
state of things ! But, as Voltaire said, " Light comes
now from the north ;" an 4 it really is the north to
which the Black Sea is indebted for its freedom.
The convention of Kainardshi, concluded in the
year 1774, opened the navigation and all the ports
of the Black Sea to the Russians, who have since
gradually conquered the whole of its northern coast.
After the precedent set by Russia nearly all other
European States obtained, in course of time, the
privilege of a similar free navigation. If some excep-
tions still exist they are owing to that capricious
policy of the Porte which European subserviency
or apathy serves to" -confirm. There still are per-
sons who maintain that the possession of both the
shores of the Bosphorus carries with it a positive
right, which authorises the Porte to grant or re-
fuse a passage at pleasure, as if the water of the sea
with reference solely to its navigation, were not
common property. Certain portions may be ap-
propriated to fisheries, or other objects, but the
possessor of the land never can have the right of
prohibiting the free navigation of the surface of the
sea. This, however, is not the place for discussing
this question. Among the thousand reasons, there-
fore, which might be urged against this alleged
right, I confine myself with a reference to the au-
thority of Vote!, Book 1., chap. 23,# to this
observation, that as Russia has legitimately
recognized possessions on the coasts of the
Black Sea, no other power can have the
right to impugn her sovereignty, so far as to
deny her a passage to those coasts. The assump-
tion of such a right must necessarily be incompatible
with her sovereignty and an offence to the state.
Be this, however, as it may, it is matter of fact that
the portion of European trade which enjoys by
favour a free passage employs at present in the
Black Sea all the year round from 1,200 to 1,500
sail of shipping, the annual freight of which amounts
to 18,000,000 or 20,000,000 francs; that the fo-
reign trade, which consists chiefly of commissions
for foreigners and very little of transactions on Ras•
sian account, occasions an annual interchange of im-
ports and exports to the extent of more than

24,000,000 of rubles; that this maritime traffic

operates, besides, in a direct mariner to give increas-
ed occupation to the inland trade between the
south of Russia and Germany; that, finally, in con-
sequence of the migrations which are constantly
taking place to and from all points of the west,
multiplied commercial communications, relations of
friendship, and reciprocal wants, are created, which
cannot fail henceforth to unite the northern coasts
of the Black Sea by indissoluble bonds with wes-
tern Europe. On contemplating the rapid and ex-
tensive increase of navigation, commerce, and every
branch of active industry here exhibited, and the
regular stream of immigration from the west of Eu-
rope to the south of Russia, it is obvious that the
views of profit must be great,' and the impulse of
reciprocal wants powerful, to occasion this extraor-
dinary movement, wbith,-by its vibrations, brings silo—
many and such distant countries into contact. The
ports of the Mediteitanean lave now no communi-
cation with India; those of the coast of Barbary,
subjected to the unavoidable results of the arbitrary
government of their Deys, are little else than mere
lurking holes for pirates; the Archipelago is in a
state of poverty and confusion, and the whole of
Turkey is daily falling more and more into decay.
It is true that the sun of commerce has lately risen
on Egypt, but there it only shines on the personal
interests of one man, and consequently affords no
security for the future.

Under the Government, therefore, or rather un-
der the paternal protection of the Czars, the Black
Sea will henceforth be the goal to which the Medi-
terranean trade will flow; that trade will be directed
to this quarter with zeal and success, and to the
great advantage of all parties; the south of Europe
will be for ever secured against scarcity, for the
exchange of its productions for our corn and other
articles will take place with increasing facility. It
is already the mart whence the colonial produce ne-
cessary for our consumption is derived; and these
reciprocities, these beginnings of mercantile ex-
changes, and of all kinds of relations, must increase
and become more solid and extensive, as the popu-
lation of our immense territory is as yet far from
having reached one-tenth part of its natural propor-
tion ; and foreign trade will, as it hitherto always
has, in future experience a friendly reception, favour,
and protection, in the Russian ports of the Black
Sea. On the other hand, Russian Georgia already
presents a wide field for commercial enterprises, and
a new market for the most valuable productions of
Europe.

For a considerable number of years past Georgian
merchants have travelled through Germany to the
Leipzic fairs, where they are in the habit of laying
out several millions for manufactured goods. Their
purchases are transported overland to Odessa, where
they are shipped for Redout-Kale ; they are then
conveyed up the Phasis, and arrire at last at Tiflis,
whence they are distributed over different points of
the interior of Asia. Considerable parcels of Cham-
pagne, bought in France, or at second-hand at
Odessa, have already taken this course; but the
Georgian merchants are now making arrangements
for establishing a direct intercourse with London

and :Marseilles, where they will purchase the Eng-
lish and French articles suited to the Asiatic mar-

kets, and ship them direct for the mouth of the
Phasis. Two cargoes, worth from 30,000 to 40,000
ducats, purchased personally by Georgians in Mar-
seilles, are now at Constantinople, on their way to
Redout-Kale. Russia, ever disposed to protect
foreign trade, permits the free transit by land of
goods for Georgia, and, on their arrival there, levies
only an ad valorem duty of five per cent. To give
a ready welcome, encouragement, and protection to
trade, industry, and foreigners, is the system ob-
served by Russia in the government of her Asiatic
dominions.

Erivan, Nakitshevan, and Mount Ararat, anciently
the political and religious territory of the Asiatics,
now of the Armenians, who are united with Russia,
will become the central point of the resources and
the enterprises of that wealthy and eminently-indus-
trious people, who, delivered from Asiatic tyranny,
and placed under the protection of Russia, will at
length be able to spread themselves in security over
the whole of Asia, arid to find a suitable field of

operations for the employment of their capital and
their activity.

The picture of the commerce of the Black Sea,
under existing relations, which I have endeavoured
to sketch only by its more prominent traits, as
merely the principal facts are cited, differs in an ex-
• With respect to a strait, it may be observed, that if it
unite two seas, the navigation of which is common to all
or some nations, the nation which is in possession of the
strait cannot refuse passage to the others when that pas-
sage cannot endanger or injure it. If refused without a
justifiable ground, then those nations are deprived of an
advantage which nature has bestowed on them ; in a word,
such a passage is a remnant of the original common pro-
perty of mankind.