wool it is a great encouragement, and it is sold with great facility and for very good prices. This is a now very useful branch of commerce for our country, and particularly happy, as you take very little now of our productions; particularly there is no demand of iron and timber. Even copper has very little chance. The best articles for exportation are tallow and hemp.

I would be very happy to have your opinion about this last production. Some of our governments, when the land is very fat and good, continue its cultivation; but the land suffers great deal from it. Common manure does not correct it. What should be done in such instance? I hope, my dear Sir, you will be so kind to deliver me your opinion.

In the governments of Nigney, Nowgorod, Turnbost, Puna, Simbiron, Swintost and Veroney, the ground is so fat, so good, that we cannot use manure. I have tried it, and the consequence was, that the corn grows amazingly large, more in straw, and the grains are much fewer.

In all the governments the common manure, which is very abundant, has no employment, and is destroyed by fires. It is a pity that one cannot have so much in the neighbourhood of Moscow, where the land is wanting it very much, and produces very little, or rather nothing, without manure.

In some parts of the empire, where the population is very large, and it is want of land, I found great many establishments, quite new, of several kinds of manufactures, particularly of silk and cotton goods. These manufactures are upon a very small scale; but larger villages are full of metiers, which the villagers are establishing themselves, and without any assistance. So I have near Moscow, about sixty versts, a village of 800 peasants, when I found to my astonishment beautiful things, manufactured in silk, by the peasants, with their wives and daughters. For ten years it was perhaps two or three metiers; now they are more an hundred, and they find in Moscow and in this vicinity more purchasers as they want.

Countess Orloff sends you her best compliments as to your

ladies, to whom I hope you will remember me kindly. Her health is in general much better; but she has not yet recovered the use of her legs, which are still very obstinate. We are here on account of her health, and shall stay as long as she can bathe. Then we return to Paris, where we have spent last year. I hope the weather will permit us to stay in Brighton as long as December.

When you do me the honour to favour me with an answer, send it to Brighton, Relle, via France, and be so kind to give me your own direction. Have you not the intention to make a trip to London?

I am now collecting letters of eminent people, as politicians, warriors, and literatures or scientific people. Could you not procure some letters of your great Scotch people? I was so happy to have in my possession already letters from Hume and Robertson. I have letters of living English and French great people. great people. When you could procure me some of your dead and living men, you do me a great favour.

Adieu, my dear Sir John. Excuse my boldness, and believe me as truly and sincerely yours, &c.

ORLOFF.

In the last paragraph of the above letter, he expressed an anxiety to procure some letters of eminent Scotchmen; and, being a person who never spared any pains to accomplish any object he had undertaken, he resolved to set out for Edinburgh for that purpose. To my astonishment, therefore, late one evening, a gentleman entered my study, whom I recognised to be the Count. He said that he had come from Brighton to Edinburgh, on purpose to procure from me letters written by the great authors that Scotland had produced. It was impossible to refuse an application from an old friend, who had come from such a distance, for the sole object of making the request in person; and I accordingly presented him with some letters from Dr Adam Smith, and other distinguished Scotch

authors, which, he said, amply repaid him for the trouble he had taken.

4.-COUNT alexis orloff chesmeNSKOY.

Alexis, the third of the Orloff family, who got the title of Chesmenskoy, from his naval victory over the Turks at Chesme, was a very singular person. He was about 6 feet 2 inches in height, but so very large and bulky withal, that he looked much taller. He was perhaps the strongest man in Europe, being able to carry a soldier of a middling size in each hand, when his arms were extended; nor could two men, however strong, with the advantage of handkerchiefs to pull by, separate his knees if he put them together. He lived in a magnificent style, and was, on the whole, one of the most respectable characters to be met with in Russia. During my stay at Moscow I lived with him on the most intimate terms, and, so ardent was his friendship, that I scarcely know any one, on whose exertions, in any emergency, I could have more thoroughly depended.

The first communication I received from him was written in English, probably by some friend who understood that language.

DEAR BARONET,

Moscow, 4-16. May 1805.

I had the pleasure of receiving a letter from you some years ago, when I was in Germany, for which I am reprehensible of not having answered, and must therefore demand your indulgence. I have since been favoured with your much esteemed of the 3d of January last, inclosing a Sketch of your intended work on Longevity, translated in the French language, which I have perused with great satisfaction, and shall impatiently await the result thereof. I am extremely happy to learn that you are well, and have as yet faculties sufficient of undertaking a work of such an extent.

My daughter finds herself pretty well, thank God, and returns you her respectful acknowledgment for your kind remembrance. As for myself, have only to add, that the present state of my health is but changeable; still, in consideration of my years, think myself happy with the portion Providence is as yet pleased to bestow upon me, and do not repine. I heartily wish you all manner of prosperity, and hope to be frequently favoured with a few lines from you. In the meantime, remain respectfully, Dear Baronet, your sincere friend and most humble servant,

COMTE ALEXIS D'ORLOV CESMENSKOY.

P. S.-For to live long we ought to regulate ourselves accordingly.

Translation of a Letter from Count Alexis Orloff Chesmenskoy to Mr Smirnove, Chaplain to the Russian Embassy in London, regarding Sir John Sinclair's Inquiries as to the Management of Horses, and the Breeds of Sheep in Russia.

SIR,

Your letter, dated the 1st of November 1794, with the inclosed copy of Sir John Sinclair's, I had the pleasure to receive in due time, for which I return you my thanks. You apologize for giving me the trouble, by referring to Sir John Sinclair's letter to you. I can only say, that your compliance in executing his commission, does you honour as a Member of the Board, and to me it gives not the smallest trouble. I have perused your letter with great satisfaction, and although I am very fond of economical pursuits, yet I feel much the want of that knowledge which Sir John possesses. This gentleman, in his journey through Muscovy, afforded me the pleasure of his acquaintance; we conversed then upon a variety of subjects; but as I am not much acquainted with either the English or French languages, and as Sir John was not then much versed either in the Italian or German, it is possible that a mistake might have happened in the mean

ing of some expressions concerning the management of horses; for as we used to talk a great deal of them, I recollect to have related to Sir John, that our common horses, as well as those of the Kozaks, which are reared in the open deserts, suffer an amazing degree of cold, want of food, and other hardships, with surprising patience, and that they can take their rest, having no straw under them, without any inconvenience ; but that all our other horses are treated with more tenderness. Our stables and stalls are built in the same manner as those of other countries, but we do not manage our horses as they do in England, where they have their beds under them continually; but we put in the straw in the evening, and in the morning take it away. Likewise those who are fond of horses, do not keep them in very warm stables during the severity of the winter, that when they go out they might not be liable to catch cold so easily.

I have been favoured with several letters from Sir John Sinclair; with the last, I received a book and a drawing of a ram. In it he expressed a wish to know the different breeds of our rams. I acknowledge myself very guilty in not having hitherto sent him an answer. I beg of you to make my best excuses, and assure him that it is to me a very great satisfaction to have a share in his valuable friendship;—that I return him thanks for all his attentions, and entertain a perfect regard and esteem for his having undertaken a plan so salutary, and so useful to mankind, the fruits of which are by far the most advantageous of any that we can procure from the bowels of the earth.

To satisfy his curiosity about sheep, pray tell him, that those of Great Russia are of little value; they are small, and their wool is rough. Those of the Ukraine and Little Russia are better, larger, and their wool longer and somewhat softer. They are of different colours, in some places white, and in others black. We have a great many brought from Silesia, and a few from Spain. Those which were bred here from the Spanish, although their wool be still softer than that got from