On examining a general table of the exportation of Odessa, we see that during Napoleon's wars its commerce, completely stationary, did not exceed five or six millions of rubles. After the events of 1815, during the horrible dearth that afflicted all western Europe, the exports rose in 1817 to more than 38,000,000. In 1818 they fell without any transition to 20,000,000. During the war of 1828-29 they sank to 1,673,000. After the treaty of Adrianople, Southern Russia, being encumbered with an excess of produce, the exports again rose to 27,000,000. After this they varied from twenty to thirty, until 1839 when they reached the highest point they ever attained, namely, 48,000,000. We have already explained the causes of this factitious augmentation. From these data we see that the activity of the trade of Odessa has always arisen out of fortuitous circumstances, which are becoming more and more rare, and that it is by no means the result of the progressive development of agricultural resources: the country is, therefore, completely stationary.
It is also easy to convince ourselves, by simple comparison, that the commerce of Southern Russia is far from prosperous. In 1839, the most productive year, the custom-houses yield but 8,215,426 rubles; and ten seaports distributed over more than 400 leagues of coast, together with three land custom-houses, show on an average but from forty-five to fifty-five millions of exports, and hardly a third of that amount of imports; whilst Trebizond alone annually sends out more than 50,000,000 worth of English goods into the various adjoining countries.