The exactions put in practice by prince Gagarin were of great prejudice to that trade, which had brought him so much riches; and, at length, they ended in his own destruction; for he was accused before the court of justice, established by the czar, and sentenced to lose his head, a year after the condemnation of the czarowitz, and the execution of all those who had been his accomplices.
About the same time, the emperor Camhi, perceiving his health to decay, and knowing, by experience, that the European mathematicians were much more learned in their art than those of his own nation, thought that the European physicians must also have more knowledge than those of Pekin, and therefore sent a message to the czar, by some ambassadors who were returning from China to Petersburg, requesting him to send him one of his physicians. There happened at that time to be an English surgeon at Petersburg, who offered to undertake the journey in that character; and accordingly set out in company with a new ambassador, and one Laurence Lange, who has left a description of that journey. This embassy was received, and all the expense of it defrayed with great pomp, by Camhi. The surgeon, at his arrival, found the emperor in perfect health, and gained the reputation of a most skilful physician. The caravans who followed this embassy made prodigious profits; but fresh excesses having been committed by this very caravan, the Chinese were so offended thereat, that they sent back Lange, who was at that time resident from the czar at the Chinese court, and with him all the Russian merchants established there.
The emperor Camhi dying, his son Yontchin, who had as great a share of wisdom, and more firmness than his father, and who drove the Jesuits out of his empire, as the czar had done from Russia in 1718, concluded a treaty with Peter, by which the Russian caravans were no more to trade on the frontiers of the two empires. There are only certain factors, dispatched in the name of the emperor or empress of Russia, and these have liberty to enter Pekin, where they are lodged in a vast house, which the emperor of China formerly assigned for the reception of the envoys from Corea: but it is a considerable time since either caravans or factors have been sent from Russia thither so that the trade is now in a declining way, but may possibly soon be revived.