At first the Russian government seemed disposed to favour the establishment of all these great mercantile relations; but it did not long persist in its liberal course. It soon began to practise restrictive measures, thus paving the way for the grand system of proscription which it afterwards adopted. In the beginning of Alexander's reign the old trade with Persia still subsisted, and the Russians continued to buy cottons of excellent quality, at very low prices, in Mazanderan, a province situated on the Caspian.[22] The merchants used then to make their payments in ducats, that gold coinage being a sine qua non in all bargains. But the exportation of ducats was prohibited in 1812 and 1813, and thenceforth the Persians refused to trade, not choosing to accept silver coin. The English merchants, always prompt to seize advantageous opportunities, immediately entered the markets of Mazanderan, the cottons of which, purchased by them at low prices, reached Europe by way of the Persian Gulf. At first they paid in ducats; but England soon substituted for specie cloths, and all other kinds of goods suitable to the inhabitants of that part of Persia. It was especially during the war of 1813 that the English led the Persians to adopt their various manufactures. The stop put to the Russian trade opened the eyes of the ministry, who soon revoked the measure concerning ducats, but the mischief was done; commerce had already run into a new channel. Severe as was this lesson it produced no lasting effect. In order to favour a single Moscow manufacture, a duty equivalent to a prohibition was imposed on foreign velvets in transitu for Persia, and thenceforth an article for which there was so important a demand, ceased to be an item in the Russian traffic with Persia.
In 1821, the Russian government seemed to be disposed to wiser views, and allowed European goods free entrance into the ports of Georgia. Thereupon, a great transit trade rapidly sprang up between Turkey, Persia, and the great German fairs, by way of Radzivilov, Odessa, Redout Kaleh, and Tiflis. This new and very promising line of communication had but a brief duration, for ten years afterwards, Russia, in her infatuation, destroyed all these magnificent commercial elements, as we have already shown. She closed the Transcaucasian provinces against European goods, and thus gave an immediate impulse to the prosperity of her formidable competitors in Trebisond, which soon surpassed the establishments on the Persian Gulf, and became the principal port in Persia and the point of destination for English goods, to the annual value at present of more than two millions sterling.
The Trebisond route having been once adopted, the trade in drugs and dye-stuffs was likewise lost for Russia.
It is scarcely conceivable with what perverse obstinacy the Russian government has persisted in its course, in defiance of all warning; and whilst the people of Persia and Turkey in Asia, were forsaking their old commercial routes for new markets, Russia has gone on making her prohibitive system more and more stringent, even to the extent of excluding the common pottery, an immense quantity of which was formerly sent from Khiva and Bokhara to Astrakhan, for the use of the Tatars and Kalmucks.