$56             TRAVELS   IK   RUSSIA.             B. &
a ftill mote flu&uatiftg ftate, it wilt probably con-
tinue, as long as the Turks retain the dominion
İf their own feas. For that jealous people will
either openly oppofe, or' clandeftinely obftruft,
the progrefs of the Ruffians, and will never rea-
dily give a free paffage through the Dardanelles
to a powerful rival, though they confented to
it in the humiliating peace of 1774. Perhaps
thefe claims, urged on one fide, and evaded on
the other, will engender perpetual diffentions,
and will not be finally terminated but by a feries
of obftinate and bloody wars. Meanwhile the
trade cannot for a confiderable period be ex-
ten five, which depends on fuch cafual circum-
ftances as the coalition and rupture of rival and
neighbouring powers.
The courfe of fubfequent events can alone
difcover, whether the pacification, figned on the
gth of January 1784, will be more permanent
than former treaties, or whether the fame caufe*
will not continue to produce the fame effe&s*
improvements of inland navigation, the produ&ions of the re-
moteft provinces are readily lent to the ports of the Baltic, with-
out raifmg the price too high. And as the goods which Ruffia
produces are either peculiar to this empire,, or fuch as other nations
tnuft purchafe, they cannot pafs through too many hands before
they are exported. To diminish, therefore, by facilitating their ex-
portation, the price of fuch goods which fhc already fells cheaper
tlmn other nations, would be to incur a manifeil lof$, and to gra-
tify t^e foreign trader at her own expence*
In