IIL] PROTECTION AND }TLITARY DESPOTISM. 401

Wstinetively carry their ideas of force and violence into 1847.
the civil policy of their governments. Free Trade is a Zr. 4.
Principle which recognises the paramount advantage of
dividual action. Military conquerors, on the contrary,
ust only to the organized efforts of bodies of men
directed by their own personal will.
Dined with Count Nesselrode, and sat beside Count
Kisseleft, one of the ablest of the ministers, having the
direction of the public domains. After dinner, other
Porsons of rank joined us in the drawing-room, and we
had 5 lively discussion upon Free Trade. Count Kisseleft
talked freely and without much knowledge of the quesdon,
 whilst Nesselrode sat quietly with the rest of the
“ompany listening to the controversy. My opponents were
Moderate in their pretensions, and made a stand only for
the protection of industries in their infancy. All parties
threw overboard cotton-spinning as an exotic which ought
“0t to be encouraged in Russia. A Free Trade debate in
Nesselrode’s drawing-room must ‘at least have been a
lovely.”
“St. Petersburgh, Sept. 23rd.—Called by invitation upon
Prince Oldenburgh, cousin of the Emperor, a man of amiable
“0d intelligent mind, a patron of schools and charies,
 Ho spoke with affection and admiration of England,
of itg people, their religous and moral character, their public
Spirit and domestic virtues. Speaking of Russia, he said
that its two greatest evils were corruption and drunkenness.
Was entertained at a public dinner by about two hundred
Merchants and others at the establishment of mineral waters
in one of the islands; a fine hall, prettily decorated, and
With a band of music in an adjoining room. After I had
Spoken, an Englishman named Hodgson, manager of
Loadey’s spinning-mill, who was formerly a Radical orator