Charles Whitworth, diplomat

[mildred_of_midgard]

Charles Whitworth was a British envoy in the first quarter of the 18th century, on whom I read a bio earlier this year. My write-ups were unfortunately scattered enough that there's no really good introduction. But below is what I've got.

The book in question is Charles Whitworth: Diplomat in the Age of Peter the Great, by Janet Hartley.


The book was very informative, somewhat dry, but definitely not the driest book ever. Reading between the lines, I imagine the author thinking, "Whitworth left a voluminous correspondence with ministers and fellow diplomats. Publishing that would be prohibitively difficult. So instead I'm going to publish as much as I possibly can in this volume."

The book is filled with sizable passages in 18th century spelling, and a large proportion of sentences has phrases or even just individual words in quotation marks, to show they were taken from the primary sources. Sometimes this practice reaches near absurd levels, e.g.:

The tobacco contractors, for their part, also had little choice but to express their 'surprise' at Whitworth’s actions but dismissing the incident as something in the 'past' and trusting that he would continue to serve their interests.

I question the value of the quotes there, especially 'past'. I feel like putting the main text in the author's words, with occasional block quotes from the primary sources, would have made the text more readable, compared to having the reader's eye constantly snag on random occurrences of "ye" (for "the") and "alleadged" and "Maty[Majesty's]". I'm all for primary sources, but writing 'past' instead of past reduces readability without giving me the benefit of confidence that the author didn't omit important context.

The book is definitely not bringing the gossipy sensationalism. The only things Whitworth ever really wrote about were work and his money woes. His marriage correspondence went like this: "Btw, I met a woman; she has a good nature, good sense, and some money. I'm definitely not marrying her for her looks, as you can judge when you meet her. I'm getting the wedding over with without ceremony or guests, so I can get back to work pronto." That's Whitworth for you.

Says the author:

In June 1721, he informed [a friend] of his wife's illness which 'goes very near to me' which is almost the closest he came to an expression of affection in writing.

So between that, the sheer amount of detail about things like the exact number of barrels of tar in individual contracts, and the lack of gossipy sensationalism, there will probably not be more write-ups forthcoming from me about this book any time soon. But it was definitely worth reading and will be valuable as a reference work. Especially as I pursue the Great Northern War more.

Many thanks to cahn for the book bribe that helped bring this down to an affordable price for me!

So then there was the time Whitworth destroyed a factory in Russia.


Why? Well, we need a little backstory for that.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Peter the Great had not yet turned things around for Russia. It was still seen as very much on the fringes of Europe, and barbarous. This means England saw it primarily in economic rather than political terms. So now let's talk about the economic relationship between Russia and England.

Imports: England gets the raw materials for its navy from Russian ports. Timber for their ships, hemp for their ropes, tar for sealing the boats. This is all pretty indispensable.

Exports: Historically England has imported woolen goods into Russia, but that hasn't been enough to offset the trade imbalance. Then, in 1697, Peter, now sole ruler of Russia, lifts the ban on the sale of tobacco in Russia. The English, with their massive slave-manned tobacco plantations in the colonies, see a major opportunity here.

Two problems: infighting among the English as to who gets to capitalize on this, and Russians smuggling tobacco in from places like Crimea, despite the English monopoly. (I have way simplified the details for you that the author did not simplify for me, you're welcome. ;))

The English decide to send an envoy to solve this problem. Note that the Russians are kind of annoyed at not being taken seriously politically, and the envoy--Whitworth--is annoyed that he's being treated as effectively a tobacco agent, when he wanted to do real diplomacy. He had opinions about how the ministers back home were dramatically underestimating the Russian problem, and would hold that opinion throughout his career.

After Poltava, when the Russians hand a decisive defeat to the Swedish superpower and put a definite cramp in the style of Charles XII's meteoric military career, England starts taking Russia more seriously. But right now, it's 1705, and all anyone cares about is selling tobacco in Russia.

In particular, right now, there are two Englishmen in Russia who are running a factory for processing tobacco. Their competitors, who have a contract to supply Russia with tobacco, are very much afraid that the locals will learn how to process tobacco, and then will be able to rely on tobacco smuggled from Crimea instead of buying it from England.

So Whitworth gets an order from the ministers in England to destroy all the equipment in the factory.

The clock is ticking, because Peter is about to head off to war, and Whitworth is going to have to follow him. So moving quickly, he maneuvers to get the two Englishmen sent away on some errand so that they'll be out of town when he does the dirty deed, and then he invades the factory by night. To quote from his dispatch:

We spent the best part of the night in destroying the severall instruments and materials, some whereof were so strong, that they oblidg’d us to make a great noise in pulling them to pieces. There were 11. barrils about a quarter full of the Tobacco-liquor in the severall degrees of preparation, which I caus’d to be let out, and destroy’d five parcells of ingredients, which are used in the Composition … I likewise broke the great spinning wheel, and above three score reels for rowling; I then destroy’d three Engines ready set up for cutting Tobacco … several large Engines for pressing the Tobacco into form have been pulled to pieces, their screws split, the wooden moles broke, the coper carried away, and about 20 fine sieves cut to pices, nor is the least thing left standing, except some great plain wooden presses, wherein they put the Tobacco after it is rolled and wetted … and some ordinary wooden tables and the very next day my servants burnt all the remains of the wood, which wee had broke, and my Smith is now working in my house on the rest of the Iron- and Coper-machines…

Comments the author: Such were the duties required of a diplomat to Russia at the beginning of the eighteenth century in order to serve the national interest.

So Whitworth's all happy. Mission accomplished.

Then, he gets another letter from London. (Remember, the mail takes weeks between London and St. Petersburg.) "Dear Whitworth, FYI, the debate about what to do about the tobacco situation is still ongoing at home. Please hold off on the destroying any factories till we reach an agreement. Cheers, your ministers."

Whitworth goes BALLISTIC. He is now not only terrified that he's made powerful enemies, he's convinced that he was set up to take the fall. He complains to a friend:

'It looks as if these orders had been given, in hopes I would not execute them, that then the blame of all might lye at my door'.

Comments the author: His suspicions were probably not unjustified. The various tobacco groups represented important business and political interests and it was not unreasonable to suppose that the government would be quite happy to let an inexperienced diplomat take the blame whilst distancing themselves from his actions.

Damage control ensues. He has to convince the tobacco contractors that he was just following orders, and that he put off following them as long as he could at his own risk, and that his own personal opinion was that this was a bad idea. He has to convince Peter the Great that this isn't a hostile act from England, and definitely doesn't mean England is withdrawing all specialists in all fields from Russia. He has to bribe a bunch of Russian ministers to make this all blow over.

Meanwhile, Peter is busy prosecuting a war and constantly disappearing on campaign, and Whitworth has to periodically go with him. At one point, he's nagging Peter in person about finally coming to an agreement about the tobacco trade, after years of not getting anywhere, and Peter responds in annoyance that God had given him 'twenty times more business than other people, but not twenty times the force and capacity to go through with it.'

Meanwhile, Whitworth is annoyed because no one back home is taking him seriously when he reports Russia is an actual threat and not just a tobacco market. Even in matters of trade, he thinks that the English are too concerned with short-term profits and not with long-term advantages of establishing solid relations with Russia.

Whitworth spends most of his career annoyed with the ministers back home as well as the people he has to negotiate with, as far as I can tell.

Some addenda:


Why do the English care so much about importing tobacco to Russia? Well, in the age of mercantilism, a country's economic success was measured by the amount its exports outstripped its imports. England needed its navy, the raw goods came from Russia, and so imports at the end of the seventeenth century. It exported woolen goods (lots of sheep in Britain), but these were luxury goods in Russia, and the market wasn't strong. So when the potential for a tobacco market opened in 1697, the English were interested enough to send an envoy just to work out the details.


I thought this bit was interesting, on why the Russian imports were so important:

It was generally accepted that the best timber for masts came from the port of Riga, which were transported there from Livonia and Russia (the firs which grew in climates with short hot summers and long cold winters retained more resin and were therefore more flexible than Scottish pines which grew more quickly).

selenak: I guess in our fictional 18th century envoys get together, we just have come across a new category to compete in: worst posting ever?


mildred_of_midgard: Oh, I imagine that would absolutely be a hot topic. I'm reading a biography of Charles Whitworth, British diplomat, and so far he's absolutely hated his Regensburg posting (too much ceremonial at the Imperial Diet; the city was occupied and Diet effectively imprisoned at the beginning of the Seven Years' War), and Moscow (forced intoxication by Peter the Great)!

Re forced intoxication, I give you these passages:

Even when Peter was accessible, Whitworth felt that his own inability to drink heavily would mean he would never become a close confidant of the Tsar. In 1705 he commented on Peter’s ‘robust constitution’ and confided that ‘I despair as much of being a great favourit, as I do of ever becoming a tollerable drinker'.

Nevertheless, Captain John Perry, the English shipbuilder and hydraulic engineer in Russian service, claimed that it was due to Whitworth’s protests that the custom of ensuring that ‘Visitants [were] drunk before they had parted’, to the extent of locking the gates and doors (‘and to set a Guard that no Man should go away before he had his Load’), came to an end, at least amongst foreigners.

I feel like FW-enforced intoxication was more ad hoc and less systematic!

Btw, I have to inform you that Whitworth took longer to start complaining about his Berlin posting than his other postings. The contenders were:

Regensburg: Meeting of the Imperial Diet. Nothing gets done because everyone is busy arguing about protocol. The Bavarians occupy the city at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession and basically keep the Diet ministers prisoner.

Russia: Barbaric, Peter makes you drink and only likes you if you can keep up with him, very cold and very far away, no civilized conversation, have to follow Peter into the field during the Great Northern War if you want to get anything done. Traveling through a devastated-by-war Lithuania is depressing. Traveling to or from Moscow or St. Petersburg will nearly kill you with the river crossing and all the other stuff (I thought of Suhm and how the trip there nearly killed him, and he was crossing rivers holding one kid on each hand).

The Hague: The Estates General are extremely reluctant to get any work done because they're always busy arguing with each other. All business has to be read aloud to the whole group, which means you can't keep anything secret. Extremely high cost of living.

Cambrai: Everyone is committed to not resolving any diplomatic disputes. The real action is happening in Paris and everyone here is out of the loop. Everyone is too busy arguing about protocol, visiting each other, holding processions, etc. Very expensive.

Berlin: Not as expensive as The Hague! (But more expensive than Regensburg.) Some work gets done! He actually likes it at first. But then Whitworth starts complaining. "I live here like a hermit... I have no conversation, and am heartily weary of the place, and shall be ten times more so when my business is over. Besides I am ill lodged and ill served..." (He then wants to go back the Hague, despite the expense, because at least there was decent conversation.)

I get the feeling the grass was always greener on the other side for some of these people.

Whitworth also plays an important role in the Rheinsberg posts on the Great Northern War and on Count Rottembourg.