e; and the effect of
his interposition was gratefully acknowledged by the Americans whose
property was liberated.

The residence of Mr. Adams in Russia was during an eventful period.
The Emperor Alexander was at first endeavoring to avoid a collision
with Bonaparte, by yielding to his policy; and afterwards, on his
invasion, was engaged in driving him out of Russia, bereft of his army
and continental influence. During these years the release or relief of
American vessels and seamen from the effects of the French emperor's
Berlin and Milan decrees, and from other seizures and sequestrations,
were the chief objects to which Mr. Adams directed his attention.

His subsequent attempts to establish permanent commercial relations
between the United States and Russia were favorably received by that
government. The chancellor of the empire, Count Romanzoff,
acknowledged the importance of a treaty between Russia and the United
States, and intimated that the only obstacle was the convulsed state
of opinion at that period throughout the commercial world, which was
such that "it hardly seemed possible to agree to anything which had
common sense in it." Count Romanzoff conducted towards Mr. Adams not
only with official respect, but with cordiality. On one occasion he
transmitted to him by his private secretary a work relative to an
armed neutrality, which was preparing under his auspices for
publication, requesting the American minister to make such
observations upon it as he thought proper.

The courteous manners of the Emperor Alexander, his apparent desire to
conciliate the United States, and the personal intercourse to which he
admitted its representative, were frequently acknowledged by Mr.
Adams. In the midst of the splendor of the Russian Court, and the
magnificent entertainments of its ministers and of resident
plenipotentiaries, some of whom expended fifty thousand roubles a
year, and the ambassador from the French emperor over four hundred
thousand, he maintained the simplicity of style suited at once to his
salary and to the character of the country he represented. Loans to an
indefinite amount were proffered to him by mercantile houses. These he
uniformly declined, though under circumstances of great temptation to
accept them. "The opportunities," he wrote, "of thus anticipating my
regular income, it is difficult to resist. But I am determined to do
it. The whole of my life has been one continued experience of the
dif