It might be of consequence to me to have a copy of our treaty with Turkey.]
In haste, I am, with the greatest respect,
P. S. Please remember me to the members of your cabinet and also your family.
2d P. S. Captain Ramsay, for whom I had obtained a courier’s passport, will not go to-day; but I have fortunately just heard of a vessel about sailing for Boston, by which I send this.
At a little later period, Mr. Buchanan formally submitted to Count Nesselrode the propositions which he had been instructed to make as the basis of a commercial treaty, and those which related to the subject of maritime rights, or the rights of neutrals during war. Nothing definite was arrived at on either topic until the 8th-10th of October. On that day, Mr. Buchanan received a note from Count Nesselrode, requesting him to call at the Foreign Office on the succeeding Monday. What followed was certainly a most remarkable occurrence. The count began the conversation by asking whether the answer which he was about to make to the American propositions would be in time to reach Washington before the next meeting of Congress. Mr. Buchanan replied that it would not, but said that it might reach Washington within a fortnight after that period. The count then asked if the answer could be sent immediately. Mr. Buchanan replied that if, as he hoped, the answer should be favorable, he would take measures to send it at once. The count then stated reasons, which had led the emperor to decline the American proposition for concluding a treaty of commerce and navigation between the two countries, but made no allusion to the proposed treaty concerning maritime rights. Here there was a dilemma, for which Mr. Buchanan was not prepared by anything that had preceded; for although he was well aware of the interior opposition to a commercial treaty in the Russian cabinet, and was not very sanguine of success, he had placed his hopes on Count Nesselrode’s ability and disposition to overcome that opposition. That the emperor had come to an unfavorable decision, and that Count Nesselrode had been directed to communicate it, was rather an unexpected event. Nesselrode, however, contrived to make Mr. Buchanan understand that the emperor had yielded in this matter to the opinions of Count Cancrene, the minister of finance, and of M. de Blondorff, the minister of the interior, and that the result had not been in accordance with his, Nesselrode’s, judgment. Such an occurrence could hardly have taken place in an English cabinet, still less would it have been communicated to a foreign minister; but in Russia it was perhaps not uncommon for the prime minister to be overruled by his colleagues. But Count Nesselrode knew a way to get over all such difficulties; and he proceeded in a very characteristic manner to accomplish what he intended. He went over anew the whole ground, encouraging Mr. Buchanan to develop again the reasons which made a commercial treaty desirable for both countries and finally requested him to put them in the shape of a formal note. He then assumed a very confidential tone, which may be best described by Mr. Buchanan’s own account, given in his despatch of October 19–21, to the secretary of state.