His subsequent attempts to establish permanent commercial relations between the United States and Russia were favorably received by that government. The chancellor of the empire, Count Romanzoff, acknowledged the importance of a treaty between Russia and the United States, and intimated that the only obstacle was the convulsed state of opinion at that period throughout the commercial world, which was such that "it hardly seemed possible to agree to anything which had common sense in it." Count Romanzoff conducted towards Mr. Adams not only with official respect, but with cordiality. On one occasion he transmitted to him by his private secretary a work relative to an armed neutrality, which was preparing under his auspices for publication, requesting the American minister to make such observations upon it as he thought proper. The courteous manners of the Emperor Alexander, his apparent desire to conciliate the United States, and the personal intercourse to which he admitted its representative, were frequently acknowledged by Mr. Adams. In the midst of the splendor of the Russian Court, and the magnificent entertainments of its ministers and of resident plenipotentiaries, some of whom expended fifty thousand roubles a year, and the ambassador from the French emperor over four hundred thousand, he maintained the simplicity of style suited at once to his salary and to the character of the country he represented. Loans to an indefinite amount were proffered to him by mercantile houses. These he uniformly declined, though under circumstances of great temptation to accept them. "The opportunities," he wrote, "of thus anticipating my regular income, it is difficult to resist. But I am determined to do it. The whole of my life has been one continued experience of the difficulty of a man's adhering to the principle of living within his income; the first and most important principle of private economy. In this country beyond all others, and in my situation more than any other, the temptations to expense amount almost to compulsion. I have withstood them hitherto, and hope for firmness of character to withstand them in future."