There were, of course, the usual adventurous Americans in political difficulties, enterprising Americans in business difficulties, and pretended Americans attempting to secure immunity under the Stars and Stripes. The same ingenious efforts to prostitute American citizenship which I had seen during my former stay in Germany were just as constant in Russia. It was the same old story. Emigrants from the Russian Empire, most of them extremely undesirable, had gone to the United States; stayed just long enough to secure naturalization,--had, indeed, in some cases secured it fraudulently before they had stayed the full time; and then, having returned to Russia, were trying to exercise the rights and evade the duties of both countries. Many of these cases were exceedingly vexatious; and so, indeed, were some which were better founded. The great difficulty of a representative of the United States in Russia is, first, that the law of the empire is so complicated that,--to use the words of King James regarding Bacon's "Novum Organum,"--"Like the Peace of God, it passeth all understanding." It is made up of codes in part obsolete or obsolescent; ukases and counter-ukases; imperial directions and counter-directions; ministerial orders and counter-orders; police regulations and counter-regulations; with no end of suspensions, modifications, and exceptions. The second difficulty is the fact that the Buchanan treaty of 1832, which guaranteed, apparently, everything desirable to American citizens sojourning in the empire, has been gradually construed away until its tattered remnants are practically worthless. As the world has discovered, Russia's strong point is not adherence to her treaty promises. In this respect there is a great difference between Russia and Germany. With the latter we have made careful treaties, the laws are well known, and the American representative feels solid ground beneath his feet; but in Russia there is practically nothing of the kind, and the representative must rely on the main principles of international law, common sense, and his own powers of persuasion.