To make amends, or with a view of deriving greater advantages from this commerce, Tzar[103] Peter the Great commissioned, in 1692, Isbrand Ives, a Dutchman, in his service, to ask of the court of Pekin, the same privilege for caravans, which the late treaty granted to individuals. The result of the embassy corresponded with the desires of the court of Petersburg; the caravans were admitted; and as the court reserved to itself the exclusive right of sending them, it received the whole of the profit[104]. These journeys lasted three years; caravanseries, for the exchange of their commodities, were appointed for the Russian merchants who composed the caravans, and during their stay at Pekin their expences were discharged by the emperor. This calm did not long continue between the two powers. New troubles, occasioned by the misconduct, drunkenness, and insolent proceedings of some Russians, in the midst even of the Chinese capital, had nearly annihilated their commerce. The embassy of Ismaïloff saved it. By the skill of this negociator, captain of the guards to the Tzar, the disorders were stopped, and the complaints suppressed; security and confidence succeeded to this misunderstanding. To preserve this happy disposition, Laurent Lange remained at Pekin, under the denomination of agent to the Russian caravans. Upon, the departure of this resident, affairs continually declined and the enormities of the Russians increased. They excited the pride and distrust, natural to the Chinese. The refusal to deliver up a number of hordes of Mongouls, who were become tributary to the Tzar, completed the indignation of the emperor; every Russian was banished from his territories, and there was no longer any communication between the two nations. In 1727, count Ragouzinskoi, ambassador from Russia to the successor of the vindictive Kam-hi, effected the renewal of these commercial ties by a new treaty, that fixed irrevocably the bounds of each empire[105], and subjected the merchants to an invariable regulation, calculated for ever to remove all source of division. The court of Russia was permitted to send a caravan to Pekin once in three years, and the number of merchants was limited to two hundred. On their arrival at the frontiers of China, they were to inform the emperor, that a Chinese officer might be sent to escort them to the metropolis, where their expences would be defrayed during the time of their traffic. It was agreed also that the merchandize belonging to individuals should not pass the frontier, and that they should no longer enjoy the privilege of trading in any of the Chinese or Mongoul territories. Of consequence, two places were assigned them on the confines of Siberia, the one called _Kiakhta_, from a stream that waters the environs, the other _Zurukhaire_[106], situated on the left bank of the Argoun, and they were obliged to deposit their merchandize in the magazines of these two settlements.