He Arranged That His Principal Minister Should Perform The Kotao To The Letter Of The Russian Emperor, While The Russian Envoy Rendered Him The Same Obeisance.

The audience then took place without further delay, and it was allowed on all hands that no foreign embassy had ever been received with greater honor in China than this.

Ismaloff returned to his master with the most roseate account of his reception and of the opening in China for Russian trade. A large and rich caravan was accordingly fitted out by Peter, to proceed to Pekin; but when it arrived it found a very different state of affairs from what Ismaloff had pictured. Kanghi lay on his death- bed, the anti-foreign ministers were supreme, declaring that "trade was a matter of little consequence, and regarded by them with contempt," and the Russians were ignominiously sent back to Siberia with the final declaration that such intercourse as was unavoidable must be restricted to the frontier. Thus summarily was ended Peter's dream of tapping the wealth of China.

Although Kanghi was not altogether free from domestic trouble, through the ambition of his many sons to succeed him, his life must on the whole be said to have passed along tranquilly enough apart from his cares of state. The public acts and magnificent exploits of his reign prove him to have been wise, courageous, and magnanimous, and his private life will bear the most searching examination, and only render his virtue the more conspicuous. He always showed a tender solicitude for the interests of his people, which was proved, among other things, by his giving up his annual tours through his dominions on account of the expense thrown on his subjects by the inevitable size of his retinue.

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Words from 74841 to 75133 of 191255