Commerce. advantage enjoyed by virtue of this treaty, is the privilege of paying the custom-house duties in the current money of Russia (paper as well as specie), which gives the English merchants an advantage of twelve per cent. over all other nations, who are obliged to pay these duties in rix-dollars species at a certain losing valuation. Russia has two trading companies, one for carrying on the herring fishery in the White Sea, and the N.W. American Company. A company has also been founded at Petersburg for saving the cargoes of vessels wrecked in the Gulf of Finland; and the fourth part of the property saved is adjudged to the company as salvage. Several ukases also prescribe to the inhabitants of the coasts the measures to be taken to assist the crews, and save the cargoes of the stranded vessels. The fisheries of Russia in the Baltic, though considerable as to produce, afford no export; the whole being consumed in the country, where the long religious fasts cause a great consumption of fish. The Russians of Archangel carry on a large cod fishery on the north coast of Lapland to the North Cape in open boats, and their larger vessels frequent the sounds on this coast as far as Tromsœ, and exchange meal with the Laplanders for fresh fish, which they salt in their vessels. The river fisheries, and particularly of the Wolga, afford caviar, isinglass, and some oil for external com merce. Under Under the immediate successors of Peter the Marine. Great the Russian navy was neglected, and had Russia. little more than a nominal existence. When Catharine II. mounted the throne, this ambitious and enlightened princess again invited English and other foreign ship-builders and officers to Petersburg; and among the English was Sir Charles Knowles, a captain in the British navy, who united the professional knowledge of the complete practical seaman to an intimate acquaintance with the theory of naval construction. Under his direction the Russian marine was soon put on a respectable footing, and many of the abuses in its civil administration corrected. Towards the end of Catharine's reign the marine again declined, but revived under Paul, who built many ships, and introduced several improvements into the administration. The Russian dominions afford every article necessary to the construction and equipment of a navy. At Cronstadt and Petersburg the ships are built of the oak of Kasan; the Ukraine and government of Moskow supply hemp; masts are procured from the vast pine forests of Novogorod, and from the Polish provinces; pitch and tar from Wyborg; iron and copper from Siberia. from Siberia. In spite of all these advantages the marine is far from having attained a height proportionate to the land forces of the empire. The want of ports on the ocean, and of colonies and fisheries abroad, as well as the state of vassalage of the peasantry, which binds them to the soil, are the chief causes that keep Marine. Russia. keep down the military marine, as well as the commercial, by preventing the formation of seamen. The government has, however, latterly done something towards forming national seamen, by obliging all Russian ships to have two-thirds of their crews natives; and binding the captains, under a penalty of 240 rubles, to bring back to port every Russian seaman he carries from it. There is, however, no restriction with respect to the countries of the captains and officers of merchant vessels; and the greater number of those in the Russian foreign traders are foreigners. It has also been latterly the custom to send young men, at the expense of the crown, into the English service to learn the profession, and they have been admitted into the British navy as volunteers. · In 1803 a school of naval architecture was founded at Petersburg, the expenses of which are paid by government, and amount to upwards of 200,000 rubles a year. There is also a similar institution at Nicolaef in the Black Sea. The palace of Oranienbaum has been appropriated for a naval academy, in which 600 cadets are educated at the expense of the crown. They are admitted at the age of five years, and remain till seventeen: during the last three years, they make an annual cruise in the Baltic, as far as Revel. There are also navigation schools at Riga, Archangel, and Irkutsk in Siberia, and a school for Baltic pilotage at Cronstadt. The Imperial marine is divided into four squa drons, stationed in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caspian, Caspian, and sea of Ochotsk. At the close of Russia. 1807, the different squadrons were composed as Marine. follows: Baltic flotilla...... 20 gallies... 25 floating batteries 81 gun boats... 16 yawls. Black Sea do..... 40 gun boats... 80 falconets. Caspian do..... 6 vessels carrying 70 guns. 36 guns. Ochotsk do..... 11 vessels The number of seamen and marines on the war establishment is 80,000; and the annual expense, one million and a half of rubles. The civil administration of the marine is lodged in a college of admiralty, consisting of a president, vice-president, and four admirals. The buildings of the admiralty are at Cronstadt. The pay of the Russian officers of the navy is: 3,600 |