Baron Krudener, who was at this time the Russian Minister at Washington, but who was at home on leave of absence when Mr. Buchanan came to St. Petersburg, was opposed to all commercial treaties. So was Count Cancrene, the minister of finance. He was an embodiment of the old traditionary policy of Russia, which did not favor close or special commercial alliances. From the time of the Empress Catharine, the relations between Russia and this country had always been friendly; but there had been no treaties concluded between the two countries, since the Government of this Union had taken its present form, down to the year 1824. The convention negotiated in that year by Mr. Middleton, and ratified in 1825, was quite inadequate to reach the various interests of trade that had since grown up, and was still less adapted to promote an increase of the commerce between Russia and the United States. To make a treaty which would answer these great purposes; establish the principle that would entitle either party to require an equal participation in the favors extended to other nations; provide for the residence and functions of consuls and vice-consuls; regulate the rates of duties to be levied oil the merchandise of each country by the other, so far as to prevent undue discrimination in favor of the products of other countries; and fix the succession of the personal estates of citizens or subjects of either country dying in the territories of the other; all this constituted a task to be committed on our side to able hands, considering the obstacles that had to be removed. Mr. Buchanan was at the age of thirty-eight, when he undertook this labor. Although he was without official experience in diplomacy, I think it evident that he had been a student of the diplomatic history of his own country and of public law to a considerable extent; and what he did not know of the trade between Russia and the United States before he left home, he made himself master of soon after he arrived at St. Petersburg. He spoke of himself in a letter quoted in the last chapter, as a tyro in diplomacy, with no weapons but a little practical common sense, knowledge, and downright honesty, with which to encounter the most adroit and skilful politicians in the world. It will be seen that he found the encounter a hard one. But his manners were conciliatory; his tact was never at fault, so far as I can discover; and it is evident that he was a favorite in all the circles of Russian society into which he entered. He found that his weapons, good sense, knowledge of his subject, and a certain honest tenacity of purpose, were sufficient for all the demands of his position. When he first reached St. Petersburg, his knowledge of the French language was quite imperfect, but he soon acquired sufficient facility in speaking it for the ordinary purposes of conversation. Count Nesselrode did not speak English well, but he could converse in that