text:  We say difficult because the iron-bound exclusiveness and isolation of the commercial as well as of the political system of St Petersburg is sufficiently notorious; and it must have required no small exercise of sagacity and address to overcome the known disinclination of that Cabinet to any relaxation of the restrictive policy which as the Autocrat lately observed to a distinguished personage "had been handed down to him from his ancestors and was found to work well for the interests of his empire