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Sources:
"By the banks of the Neva: Chapters from lives and careers of....by Anthony Cross. Page 54. "The Russian Journal of Lady Londonderry 1836-37"
Turtle Bunbury's FAMILY HISTORY The Whishaws: From Rudheath to Russia. J. Whishaw 1992, p. 171:
"Despite the animosity between England and Russia in the Crimea, the Emperor [Czar] Nicholas took the English in St. Petersburg under his protection and indeed he frequently walked the quays of St. Petersburg........... England had effectively monopolized trade with Russia from the time of Ivan the Terrible and Queen Elizabeth through to the Crimean War." and ""The English colony (especially those in society) was a large one, and one could dine out practically every evening without meeting the same people twice. No English people living out of their own country could have lived happier or more jolly lives than we did...It was a bright and comparatively care-free life - visitors from the old country always carried away with them happy and perhaps somewhat envious recollections"
http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_whi...: In a footnote on page 267 "McSwiney was a popular member of the Petersburg community. Though of Irish extraction, he was regarded as an English gentleman, his sons went to a good Public School in England and he was often mentioned in the community records in affectionate and respectful terms." "McSwiney complained in a letter to the Russia Company that "my predecessors could keep carriage and horses, I cannot make the place pay my expenses, though I have neither horse nor carriage".
"Once Jim [Wishaw's] father invited Tsar Alexander* to a dinner party in Russia at which "a very witty and amusing Irishman" named McSwiney (the Cronstadt Chaplain) was also present. William was sure it would be "a case of 'pull devil, pull baker' as to which of the Reverend Gentlemen could tell the best yarn or sing the best song. As it turned out the evening was a complete failure for the two padres remained silent and merely glowered at each other!"
- ( Tsar Alexander II of Russia In 1867 sold Alaska to the United States for $7 million)
- Within above website is a pdf academic dissertation on English merchants in Imperial St. Petersburg, with many references to Rev. Herbert McSwiney. A couple of excerpts:
"Some of the Anglican Chaplains at Petersburg and Cronstadt during the nineteenth century, such as Law and McSwiney, espoused the merchant community's creeds and became long-term, supported and supportive members of the community. ............ McSwiney was supported against local diplomatic attack, as described in CHAPTER TEN. THEORY IN PRAXIS. CASE STUDY A:
THE RULING VALUES ARE THE VALUES OF THE DOMINANT.
................................ in 1857, with an appeal to the sympathies and liberality of the British Public for donations towards a suitable edifice properly fitted for Hospital purposes to be erected at Cronstadt for the care of the feverwracked and suffering English merchant seamen ......... This touching plea, which stemmed from the Revd. McSwiney (the Cronstadt Chaplain who preceded Arthur Riddle), and the British Consul-General, Charles Eastland de Michele, was forwarded to the Russia Company 12.2.1857 and also printed in The Times 12.3.1857, with the hope that it would tap into the same philanthropic vein that had brought assistance to the British soldiers of the Crimean war at Scutari and Smyrna."
"McSwiney, on the other hand, was goodhearted, true to the core, wholly incapable of meanness or dishonourable conduct, and these were the qualities which the sign of a gentleman was deemed to carry in local usage at least."