The Russian Loan of 1855

In Economica for November, 1960, Mrs. Olive Anderson, in T he Russian Loan of 1855: An Example of Economic Liberalism? , has demolished the widely held myth that Russia floated a loan in London during the Crimean War with the permission of the British Government. Her careful documentation makes it clear that no such loan was floated in London, with or without Government permission. It also indicates that the acceptance of this myth by some historians of standing is probably due to a misinterpretation of a remark in a contemporary letter by Lord Clarendon, British Foreign Secretary: Only think of the Russian loan levied here ! In the ordinary way of business, too, so I don't see how it can be interfered with . Clarendon was referring not to the marketing of a Russian loan in London, but to the flow of gold from London to the Continent following the floating of a Russian loan in Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam. I am in agreement with Mrs. Anderson's account and her interpretation. However, there were other financial transactions involving England and Russia during the Crimean War that may easily have become confused, in the minds of both laymen and historians, with the idea that a Russian loan was floated in London. And regardless of the question whether these other transactions contributed to the origin and persistence of the myth of a Russian loan, they involved honouring financial obligations to an enemy in time of war that fits in with the traditional picture of mid-nineteenth century economic liberalism. This seems an appropriate occasion to set the record straight on these other transactions, and to suggest their probable relation to the myth of the Russian loan floated in London. These transactions were

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