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Making and Learning the Rulesthe natural emporium for American trade with the Baltic andRussia. A large proportion of Russian goods coming into theUnited States in the eighties came through Britain or came inBritish bottoms. But a narrowfileof American vessels continuedto keep direct Russo-American trade alive, broaching tidesof competition every bit as challenging as those of the NorthAtlantic. These American ships never plied Russian waters ingreat numbers in the eighties, but as the decade passed theirnumber increased rather than decreased. 3Th e me n wh o manne d these ships performed the essential,but not necessarily profitable, task of pioneering the trade, ofdiscovering which mercantile houses were the most trustworthy,which goods were the easiest to peddle. These pioneersperformed this task so well that by 1790 the general outlines ofthe trade were already firmly sketched. For the next half centuryAmericans in the trade with Russia would follow thepatterns and techniques discovered by the McNeills andBuffingtons.The first task of these pathfinders had been to discoverproducts that would appeal to Russian tastes. John Paul Jones,no w in the service of Catherine the Great, wrote from her man ­of-war "Wolodimer" to the Marquis de La Fayette in 1788 thatthe United States could increase its trade with Russia byoffering whale oil, dried fish, spermaceti, and rice. 4 Luckily,American merchants relied on their ow n calculations ratherthan on the wisdom exchanged between such fierce andunbusiness-like warriors. O f Jones' list, only rice had a goodmarket in Russia.A solution to the problem of catering to the tastes of Russianshad already been reached on paper by Francis Dana. Ship47