At present, we have no interesting intelligence here. What may be the consequences of the measures taken by her Imperial Majesty to restore the deposed Khan of the Crimea, of whom I have made some particular mention in my letter of the 30th of March, is not easily foreseen. Whenever we shall receive any certain accounts from that quarter, I shall not fail to communicate them. In that same letter I gave you some account of the commerce of this country, and pointed out in what way I imagined we might take a part in it to our advantage. I enclosed you a printed list of the exports from hence for 1781. You will receive one with this also, which will serve to show the nature of them with more exactness than the quantity; for this is always considerably greater than those lists import it to be, because they are formed from the articles alleged by the merchants to be shipped, and for which they pay the duties, and they scarce ever report the whole to the custom house. To give you a more particular knowledge of the commerce of this country, I have sent you (with the dictionaries you wrote for) a small treatise upon the subject, which enters into mercantile details, and may be very serviceable to some of our merchants. It is in general well written, and is the only one I can learn which has been published upon it. Her Majesty, who seems to give great attention to the commerce of her empire, has since freed it in many instances from the restrictions imposed upon it. In particular, all kinds of military stores are now permitted to be exported by any one paying the duties, salt petre, rhubarb, &c. And the exploring and working of mines, have also been lately encouraged. Though there are vast mines in this empire, yet they were never worked upon till the time of Peter the Great. Before that period Russia imported all her iron, copper, lead, &c. principally from Sweden. At this day Russia exports as much iron (the exportation of copper is prohibited) as Sweden, that is, one year with another, about three millions of poods, a pood being forty pounds Russian, a little more than thirtysix pounds English. Some of the iron of Russia is at least as good as the best Swedish, particularly what is called old sable iron. We used to import considerable quantities of the Swedish, if I am not mistaken.