November 2 1812: Diplomatic Dinner

On November 2 1812, John Quincy Adams, in St Petersburg has a nice diplomatic dinner with Count Romazoff. He then sits down between Count Maistre and Count Lowenhielm, and discuss "the American Indians, about creation, and about the desperate condition and almost certain ruin of the French Emperor and army." His diary entry reads:

November 2d. Dined at Count Romanzoff's with a diplomatic company—about forty-five persons. The Count told me before dinner that he believed the grant I had asked for Mr. Fulton would be made; that the Emperor had only thought proper to fix a different modification of time. Mr. Fulton asked an exclusive privilege for twenty years. But the grants of patents in America and in England were only for fourteen years, and the Emperor thought proper to allow one year more—the privilege therefore would be for fifteen years. At table I got between Count Maistre and Count Lowenhielm, and conversed about the American Indians, about creation, and about the desperate condition and almost certain ruin of the French Emperor and army. Baron Blome told me that the Swedish expedition against the island of Zealand was probably postponed, but they now threatened the invasion of Norway. Blome himself has yet the deportment of an assiduous courtier, and is treated in return with a coldness bordering, to say the least, upon incivility