In the midst of these labours, which all passed under his inspection, he carried his views from Kamschatka to the most eastern limits of his empire, and caused two forts to be built in these regions, which were so long unknown to the rest of the world. In the meantime, a body of engineers, who were draughted from the marine academy established in 1715, were sent to make the tour of the empire, in order to form exact charts thereof, and lay before mankind the immense extent of country which he had civilized and enriched. CHAP. XXXI. Of the trade of Russia. The Russian trade without doors was in a manner annihilated before the reign of Peter. He restored it anew, after his accession to the throne. It is notorious, that the current of trade has undergone several changes in the world. The south part of Russia was before the time of Tamerlane, the staple of Greece, and even of the Indies; and the Genoese were the principal factors. The Tanais and the Boristhenes were loaded with the productions of Asia: but when Tamerlane, towards the end of the fourteenth century, had conquered the Taurican Chersonesus, afterwards called Crimea or Crim Tartary, and when the Turks became masters of Azoph, this great branch of trade was totally destroyed. Peter formed the design of reviving it, by getting possession of Azoph; but the unfortunate campaign of Pruth wrested this city out of his hands, and with it all his views on the Black Sea: nevertheless he had it still in his power to open as extensive a road to commerce through the Caspian Sea. The English who, in the end of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth century, had opened a trade to Archangel, had endeavoured to do the same likewise by the Caspian Sea, but failed in all their attempts for this purpose. It has been already observed, that the father of Peter the Great caused a ship to be built in Holland, to trade from Astracan to the coast of Persia. This vessel was burnt by the rebel Stenkorazin, which put an immediate stop to any views of trading on a fair footing with the Persians. The Armenians, who are the factors of that part of Asia, were received by Peter the Great into Astracan; every thing was obliged to pass through their hands, and they reaped all the advantage of that trade; as is the case with the Indian traders, and the Banians, and with the Turks, as well as several nations in Christendom, and the Jews: for those who have only one way of living, are generally very expert in that art on which they depend for a support; and others pay a voluntary tribute to that knowledge in which they know themselves deficient. Peter had already found a remedy for this inconvenience, in the treaty which he made with the sophi of Persia, by which all the silk, which was not used for the manufactories in that kingdom, was to be delivered to the Armenians of Astracan, and by them to be transported into Russia.