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Chapter 2

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The Determinative Period

The capital of the United States had been moved by 1800 from Philadelphia to its present location in Washington, D.C. The new capital city, however, was more of a concept than a reality. In 1790, George Washington had selected a sixty-nine-square-mile parcel of land that he persuaded Maryland and Virginia to cede (Virginia later reclaimed its part). Through the centre of the president’s dream capital flowed the Potomac River, referred to by First Nations people as “river of the swans.” These waters merged with the Anacostia River and then continued out through Chesapeake Bay to the shipping lanes of the Atlantic. Washington was a judicious selection of location, being halfway between Vermont and Georgia at the geographical centre of the thirteen colonies. That the selected site was within easy reach of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s beloved and impressive home, was serendipitous. Or was it?

The district was relatively unpopulated, holding just the villages of Georgetown, Carrollsburg, and Alexandria plus nineteen outlying farms belonging to wealthy landlords. “The Father of the Nation” was well pleased with the forested site and he plunged enthusiastically into planning for its future. He was determined to develop “… a federal city which is to become the capital of this vast empire, on such a scale as to leave room for that aggrandizement and embellishment which the increase of the wealth of the nation will permit it to pursue to any period however remote.”


Washington, D.C., c. 1803, showing a pastoral view with the President’s House, Gales’ House, and the Old Patent Office (later the New Post Office & Blodget’s Hotel) in the foreground.

Nicholas King, 1771–1812. Watercolour. Library of Congress.

Congress, however, was strongly divided over George Washington’s choice of site. As Thomas Jefferson observed, “This measure produced the most bitter and angry contests ever known in Congress, before or since the union of States.… The Eastern [New England] members threatened a secession and dissolution.” The northern states felt the location was too far south and the southern states deemed it too far north. Eventually, however, through Jefferson’s forceful persuasion, the legislators acquiesced and the bill creating the new capital was approved.

At the centre of the diamond-shaped territory, called the District of Columbia, plans for the nascent metropolis of Washington were laid out. To chart a municipal plan for the site, Washington called on Major Pierre L’Enfant, a Frenchman who during the revolutionary years had served in the colonial army as an engineer. Jefferson, a self-taught city planner from his earlier days in Europe, lent a guiding hand. L’Enfant drew up an elaborate plan, one that took its inspiration from the magnificent garden layout of Louis XIV’s Versailles. He envisioned broad avenues and a maze of geometrically designed streets intersecting one another at circles, where elaborate fountains and statuaries would be found.

When John Adams, the second president of the United States, took up residence in the nation’s capital in 1801, it bore no resemblance to L’Enfant’s plan. He and his beloved wife Abigail found the place primitive to say the least — full of tree stumps, shabby shacks, unfinished construction, and clouds of mosquitoes. The settlement numbered 3,210 inhabitants, excluding slaves.[1] Ringing the Capitol building was a handful of shops and boarding houses. In these establishments, “together around the common mess-table, kindred spirits” from the same section of country gathered — in caucus, really — to consider the bills of the day. Vice-President Jefferson moved into one such lodging and there he “lived in perfect equality with his fellow boarders and ate from a common table … always placing himself at the lowest and coldest end of the table at which a company of more than thirty sat down.”

From the Capitol, a muddy roadway ran through a thicket of trees, joining up to the White House: Pennsylvania Avenue. “The presidential palace,” reported an English visitor in 1803, “is without fence but a few broken rails upon which hang his excellency’s stockings and shirts to dry and his maid’s blue petticoat.” The residence stood in isolation, neighboured only by the Treasury, which housed various government departments. In a letter to her daughter, the first lady wrote,

Woods are all you see, from Baltimore until you reach the city, which is only so in name.… The river which runs up to Alexandria is in full view of my window and I see vessels as they pass and re-pass.

The House is on a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments.… There is not a single apartment finished.… We have not the least fence, yard or other convenience, without, and the great unfinished audience-room, I make a drying room of, to hang up the clothes.[2]

In addition to the river traffic, Abigail Adams delighted in observing the grazing cattle and the occasional partridge that chanced by.[3]

A hundred years earlier in Russia, Peter the Great, journeyed to the western edge of his empire — to the mouth of the Neva River at the shores of the Baltic Sea, a flat, wild, and swampy area with a network of islands among the river’s tributaries and feeding streams. But what he found pleased him. He ordered that a fortress be erected at the spot, a citadel that eventually would serve as the centrepiece of his empire’s new capital. If his tradition-bound Slavophile countrymen were to be dragged into Europe, ancient Moscow would have to be forsaken in favour of a new capital, one with access to the oceans — “a window to the west.” The new capital was a singularly unlikely place, in winter freezing winds blew in from the Gulf of Finland, and in spring the Neva backed up, often causing untoward floods. Thick mists habitually enshrouded the region and in summer, mosquitoes plagued the area. And to top it all off, it was uncertain whether the selected spot actually belonged to Russia or to Sweden. But none of this concerned the tsar. After all, he was “master of his country … he creates what he wills.” And so, it was done.

On May 16, 1703, Peter the Great turned the first shovel of excavation, heralding the start of the ambitious enterprise. A phalanx of carpenters and workmen scurried about to build the tsar’s quarters — the fortress would follow. Within three days, a three-room log cabin, fifty-five by twenty feet, stood ready for occupancy and Peter moved in. Five months later, the massive earth, timber, and stone fortress was well under construction. To finance the grandiose scheme, Peter not too subtly persuaded a half dozen of his closest, wealthiest friends to assume the cost and the supervision of building the six massive, grim bastions that form the basis of the fortification, today’s Peter and Paul Fortress.

Whereas the birthing of the U.S. capital was a painfully drawn out affair, the new Russian capital grew quickly. The fortress sprung up rapidly, and around it spread the city. That Peter’s capital was located at the edge of the empire, far from the country’s centre bothered him little. What mattered was its saltwater location. Within a decade, St. Petersburg had become a full-fledged city with wide boulevards and aristocratic mansions. Its population had sprung from nothing to one hundred thousand. But to develop this unique undertaking the cost by way of human suffering and loss of lives was horrendous. Scores of thousands of peasant labourers and craftsmen were conscripted from all parts of the country to work on St. Petersburg. The conditions under which they toiled were appalling and thousands died, not only from the physical hardships of their labours but also from malaria, dysentery, and scurvy. The actual number of deaths is unknown, but some have it as high as one hundred thousand. Truly, this was “a city built on bones.”

Washington and St. Petersburg — national capitals founded by two strong-willed heads of state, one answerable to the people through an elected congress, the other beholden to no one. One city endured a protracted birthing; the other became an “overnight wonder” — glaring contrasts in operational modes of democracy and autocracy.

No sooner had American independence been won than the Continental Congress set out to woo foreign states for diplomatic recognition of the newly formed nation. The first such state was Russia. In 1781, Francis Dana was dispatched to St. Petersburg to persuade Catherine — that “wise and virtuous Princess” — to recognize the republic. The Boston lawyer-turned-diplomat was at the time in Paris serving as secretary to John Adams, then the American envoy. An austere and puritanical individual, Dana possessed intelligence and was fervently dedicated to the advancement of his country. To accompany the envoy, Adams seconded his fourteen-year-old son, John Quincy Adams (forty years later, the sixth president of the United States). Not only was the charming, dark-eyed boy handsome and intelligent, but he was also uncommonly mature for his age. “A delightful child,” beamed Abigail Adams. “Master Johnny” was fluent in French, an essential skill that Dana lacked. It was a judicious appointment and the youngster acquitted himself with aplomb in the diplomatic discussions that later took place. The unlikely couple travelled the 1,200-mile distance in a modest post-chaise to St. Petersburg, a place few Americans had ever visited. The journey took over a month.


Marble Palace in St. Petersburg.

Joseph-Maria Charlemagne-Baudet, 1860.

On reaching the Russian capital, Dana and his young charge established themselves in a modestly priced inn rather than in the luxurious Hôtel de Paris that was favoured by visiting dignitaries. The two marvelled at the beauty of the elegant boulevards and squares, the colourful canals, and the imposing residences and churches. “The monumental city,” reported Dana, “far exceeds all my expectations; alone it is sufficient to immortalize the memory of Peter.” The two Americans were offered a tour of the Winter Palace, today’s Hermitage, a massive building that dominated the banks of the Neva. Dana and young John Quincy delighted in the expansive picture galleries, assembly rooms, card-playing salons, and, above all, the winter garden. This vast, glass-covered space of sweet aromas was a symphony of lush vegetation. The profusion of flowers, shrubs, and tropical trees blended together into an exotic forest of sorts, and among its branches frolicked colourful parrots and lively canaries, chattering and singing shrilly.

Catherine’s palms and parrots may have impressed Master Johnny but he was not much taken by her people. In a delightfully naive account, the fourteen-year-old records some impressions:

Upon the whole this nation is far from being civilized. Their customs, their dress and even their amusements are yet gross and barbarous. It is said that in some parts of the empire, the women think their husbands despise them or don’t love them, if they don’t thrash them now and then, but I do not give this as a fact. In St. Petersburg they have baths where they go pell-mell, men and women. They bathe themselves at first in warm water and from thence they plunge themselves into the snow and roll themselves in it. They accustom themselves to this from infancy and they think it preserves them from scurvy.

The city sported theatres, museums, a library, an art gallery, and even a zoo. Less than eighty years had passed since Peter’s initial turn of the shovel and within that brief time, the capital had bloomed spectacularly — “from nothing the thing sprung up with the rapidity of a mushroom,” as a Russian expression put it.


Catherine II (Catherine the Great).

George Edward Perine. Engraving, c. 1870. Library of Congress.

Dana and the young John Quincy Adams did not travel the vast distance from Paris to St. Petersburg merely to admire Catherine’s lush winter garden. They were there “to engage her Imperial Majesty to favor and support the sovereignty and independence of the United States,” as the orders read. In addition, Dana was to do what he could to stimulate trade between the two countries — in the charmingly archaic wording of his instructions, to establish a base for a “good understanding between both countries and for friendly intercourse to the mutual advantage of both nations.” Some historians carelessly refer to the envoy as having been America’s first minister to Russia — that is not so. The first minister of the United States was not Dana, but rather the same person with whom he had travelled, John Quincy Adams. At age twenty-eight, Adams was appointed to that post following Russian recognition of the new republic. At the time that the two Americans were in the Russian capital, Dana was merely an emissary of the Continental Congress, travelling with high hopes.

In sending Dana to Russia, the American leaders had taken a somewhat pretentious, perhaps wishful step. The mission was destined for failure, as anyone schooled in the rules of diplomacy and aware of great power interchange might have foretold. To begin with, the Russian foreign office was simply uninterested in exploring diplomatic relations with the United States; it had more pressing issues on the table. And then, the Continental Congress, having given Dana the mandate, offered him little encouragement or support, as there were greater, more urgent matters requiring attention.

The congressional emissary arrived in Russia with no official status; Dana was there “as a mere private gentleman” without formal credentials. Not only was he wanting credentials, but he was also lacking substantive financial backing — Dana had a paltry, miserly allowance. He could not afford lodgings worthy of his station, engage competent staff, adequately meet everyday expenses, or offer the exchange of precious gifts — jewelled snuff boxes, for example. “The diplomatic technique of the eighteenth century,” explains W.P. Cresson of the University of North Carolina, “reserved certain peculiar rewards. Accepted custom provided that costly gifts should be bestowed on foreign diplomats and the ministers of the European courts. These gratuities usually took the form of snuff boxes or objets d’art studded in such a manner as to make the removal of diamonds possible without difficulties.” For hapless Dana, all this was out of reach. During his twenty-five-month stay in St. Petersburg, a goodly portion of his own personal capital went to paying expenses. “I am sick, sick to the heart, of the delicacies and whims of European politics,” he complained bitterly.

To add to Dana’s frustration, he could not communicate effectively for lack of French, the language of the court and of St. Petersburg society. At first, he had the services of young John Quincy, but the boy was soon recalled to France to resume his studies. This left Dana in the hands of professional translators who more often than not were agents of foreign powers. Such were the travails of the deprived envoy. All the while His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg, the urbane and experienced Sir James Harris, was ensconced in his lavish, well-staffed quarters, meeting brilliant successes in advancing his country’s interests. (And, it may be added, stirring up every sort of mischief for the amateur American. Where a spoke could be put into Dana’s wheel, it was.)

Dana’s mission was doomed to failure from the moment of his arrival in Russia. Despite the vicissitudes of court life and a lack of overall success, however, Dana was bathed in admiration by St. Petersburg society — he was, after all, an American, and things American were novel and admirable. Dana formed a circle of friends from within the growing and influential opposition to autocracy, particularly from among the young crowd.

The four decades that followed the American Revolution were the determinative years in the formation of Russian-American concord. The period was one of booming commercial development both for the United States and for Russia, and within it the interests of the two countries intersected regularly. Boston at the time had not only grown into America’s largest city, but it had become the country’s commercial hub. The venturous merchants of Massachusetts met success after success in expanding their trade networks and rapidly acquired international reputations for astuteness, reliability, and honesty. It was Massachussetts where the great merchant families — the Peabodys, Cabots, Endicotts, Russells, and Derbys — were founding their dynasties. These entrepreneurs moved goods along a triangular pattern of sea lanes; from Boston they sailed their vessels to the West Indies where they discharged finished goods, such as shoes, clothing, printed books, kitchenware, and household items. They then loaded up with raw sugar, coffee, rum, rice, cacao, and citrus fruit, which they transported to the Baltic, initially selling to Sweden but subsequently to Russia. In exchange, the merchants acquired hemp, tallow, cordage, linens, flax, furs, and, above all, iron. These goods, together with other raw materials, were then brought to Boston to supply the manufacturing plants of Massachusetts.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, a lively commerce had blossomed between the United States and Russia. The first American ship to enter a Russian harbour was the square-rigged trading vessel Wolfe, owned by a prominent Boston merchant, Nicholas Boylston, who in 1763 brought to St. Petersburg a cargo of West Indian goods, principally sugar, rum, and indigo. There followed many more ships — rough estimates have it that as many as five hundred American vessels had called at the Russian port by 1800. The growth in trade was spectacular and by 1803, fully 15 percent of all Russian exports were flowing into the United States. Between 1806 and 1811, American exports to Russia grew from $12,407 to an astonishing $6,137,657.

Even the White House relied on Russian goods. “I wish you to purchase me a piece of Russian sheeting,” wrote Abigail Adams to her sister. “I have not half sheeting enough for these people, which is stout. I also want you to get me a piece of the plain Russian toweling. The sheeting and toweling take a receipt for as thus, ‘for the use of the Household of the President of the U.S.’” One student of Russian-American trade relations of the time puts it thus:

Young America, more than we have ever realized, was economically tied to Russia. By 1800, the average American blacksmith used either Swedish or Russian iron if called upon to make anything finer or stronger than horseshoes or andirons; and the American sailor, possibly the most important individual in our young economy, thought twice — and twice, again — before he took any craft without Russian rigging, cables, and sails beyond the harbor mouth. To an appreciable extent, the American economy survived and prospered because it had access to the unending labor and rough skill of the Russian muzhik [serf].[4]

During the period in question, the White House was occupied by a succession of four gifted and notable presidents, each serving two terms: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. (Our youthful John Quincy Adams, Dana’s protégé in St. Petersburg, became president in 1825.) Each one in his own way was a giant in American history and each played a significant role in the moulding of the young nation.

But on the global scene, towering over them all, was a supremely illustrious icon of history — Napoleon Bonaparte, a man of unfettered ambition and a genius for action and management. Born of a humble Corsican washerwoman, this lowly corporal of the French army shot up meteorically through the ranks and beyond, with such success that in a matter of a few short years, he found himself Emperor of France. Not only was Napoleon the ruler of that great country, but he also held sway over most of Europe. Through a series of conquests, alliances, and family marriages, Napoleon had dominion over virtually the entire continent by 1811. Only Britain to the west and Russia to the east remained outside his control.

In February of that year, the emperor made an unusually frank declaration to Duke of Otranto Joseph Fouché, the man who, as minister of police, really guaranteed the tranquility of France while his sovereign waged wars. “How can I help it if a great power drives me to become dictator of the world? … I have not yet fulfilled my mission, and I mean to end what I have begun. We need a European code of law, a European court of appeal, a uniform coinage, a common system of weights and measures. The same law must run throughout Europe. I shall fuse all nations into one.… This, my lord duke, is the only solution that pleases me.” First person singular aside, it was a statement of remarkable vision and uncanny prophecy.

Napoleon’s insatiable ambition plunged Europe into a series of wars and in the complex political maelstrom that resulted, Russia found itself drawn into the vortex. As for the United States, it, too, was unwillingly dragged into the fray, albeit more peripherally.

For Napoleon, dominion over the continent was one thing, but “to become dictator of the world” was quite another matter. For that to happen, Britain had to fall into his hamper, and so did Russia. The emperor at first turned his glance to the British, “this island of shopkeepers,” as he disdainfully labelled them — it was the British, after all, who had consistently thwarted him as far back as the 1798 Egyptian campaign. And now, with Admiral Nelson’s spectacular victory at Trafalgar, French naval power had effectively been broken. Britannia ruled the waves, as it continued to do throughout the nineteenth century. A maritime invasion of the United Kingdom was out of the question. The elaborate plans drawn up by Napoleon’s engineers for the digging of a tunnel under the channel were also dismissed.

Napoleon therefore decided to throttle his arch-enemy to death. “The shopkeepers” would be had by a destruction of their commerce — curb all trade and there would be no money and no political power. A series of decrees were promulgated in what became known as the continental system. The decrees effectively closed European ports to the importation of British and colonial goods; there would be no more markets for the islanders. There was no objection, however, to having the British buy continental goods, but for cash only. England’s gold reserves would thus be depleted and British traders and merchants would fall into ruin.

Napoleon’s ambitions, war-torn Europe, the continental system — all seemingly excluded the United States and Russia, and both countries strove hard to maintain a detached, disinterested posture. All to no avail, for diverse economic and political interests would soon force their involvement and the two nations found themselves entangled before long. As the continental system took hold, a complex series of declarations, reversals of alliances, treaties, embargoes, and armed threats took place. France, Britain, the United States, Russia, and other European powers all had to cope together with the confusion and discord seeded by Napoleon’s unfettered appetites. Suffice it to say that the continental system failed in its purpose, and in the events of the day Russia moved even closer to the United States. Although Tsar Alexander had not yet granted Russia’s full diplomatic recognition to the young nation, he did agree to receive officially an American emissary in 1803. Levett Harris, a Philadelphian, was appointed by President Jefferson to be consul in St. Petersburg, where he was greeted enthusiastically not only by the court but also by the populace. He reported:

The marks of friendship and attention which I received in the city were far beyond what I expected or deserved. I should say no more on this subject if I did not think that they were in many instances directed rather to the country to which I belong than to myself. At the fetes of the court I was put on a footing with the foreign ministers, and often, as an American traveler, I found myself more favored than if I had a diplomatic character.… The Emperor invited me to dine with him “en famille,” placed me next to him and conversed with me some time respecting America and France.

The wheels of early-nineteenth-century diplomacy turned slowly, particularly as they were often caught in the tumultuous events of the times: wars, treaties, and changing alliances. It was a full five years after Harris’s arrival in St. Petersburg that the tsar appointed an envoy to the United States. Andrei Dashkov, a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Commerce, was sent to Philadelphia as consul general with the additional and rather cumbersome title of chargé d’affaires near the Congress of the United States.

President Madison and Secretary of State Robert Smith awaited impatiently the arrival of the Russian and in 1808 received him cordially. During the meeting, Dashkov somewhat presumptuously made a request to address Congress, but it fell on deaf ears — a polite but firm no. The president, however, did take the occasion to invite him to the White House for an intimate family dinner, which the Russian accepted with alacrity. Word of the first lady’s penchant for hospitality and entertainment had even reached him in St. Petersburg.

Of all first ladies, Dolly Madison is the most notable of the White House douairières — even Jacqueline Kennedy was a shadow at her feet. This “fine, portly buxom dame” had laughing blue eyes, fair skin, black curls, and she radiated charm. Settling into the presidential residence was no problem for the first lady, inasmuch as she had over the years played hostess for the widowed Jefferson. At receptions, she invariably appeared dressed in an elegant, low-cut empire gown with a trademark turban headpiece, feathers and all. Her buffet tables were weighed down with elaborate dishes of every sort of food. “Lady Presidentess,” as she was lovingly called behind her back, rarely failed to serve an ice cream–filled pastry for dessert, a dish that became the vogue among the discriminating hostesses of the land. Unsurprisingly, Dashkov readily fell under her enchanting spell. Later, during the British invasion of Washington in 1814, Dolly hastily fled the White House in advance of the approaching redcoats — her husband was out of town at the time.[5] To her sister, she wrote a running account of what was happening:

The enemy seemed stronger than had at first been reported, and it might happen that they would reach the city with the intention of destroying it. I am accordingly ready for it; I have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage. Our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation … disaffection stalks around us. My friends and acquaintances are all gone … French John [a faithful servant] with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate and lay a train of powder which would blow up the British, should they enter our house.… Mr. Carroll has come to hasten my departure.… [but] I insisted on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured and it requires unscrewing from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these precious moments. I ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas to be taken out … the precious canvas is in the hands of two gentlemen from New York.… I must leave this house or the retreating army will make me a prisoner.

George Washington’s official, life-size portrait continues to hang today in the White House, in a rightful place of honour. Following the British withdrawal, Dolly Madison organized volunteers to clean the burned building and then worked for three years with Benjamin Latrobe in designing and building the residence of today.

A year after Dashkov’s arrival in the United States, John Quincy Adams, made his return trip to Russia, this time as the American minister — full diplomatic recognition had at last been extended. He held the appointment for six years, during which time he had “frequent and informal conversations” with Alexander. From the start, Adams was much impressed by his Russian hosts. “One of the first things that at once delights and surprises an American traveler here,” he wrote, “is the great respect entertained by the Emperor and Court for our national character.”

The St. Petersburg Connection

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