Henry Middleton and the Decembrist Revolt

HENRY MIDDLETON AND THE DECEMBRIST REVOLT PAUL BUSHKOVITCH Yale University When the rebellious officers and their troops came out onto the Senate Square around the "Bronze Horseman" in St. Petersburg on 14/26 December, 1825, to overthrow the tsar and establish a constitutional government, one of the eyewitnesses in the crowd was the ambassador of the United States of America, Henry Middleton. Middleton reported on the events and their consequences in some detail over the ensuing months, keeping the Secretary of State, Henry Clay, well in- formed. These reports, briefly summarized in the Papers of Henry Clay and published in excerpts by Marc Raeff in 1953, have never been published in full. They provide insight into the events, the actions of Nicholas I and his government, and Middleton's own attitudes. He was the representative of the world's only major republic at the time of Rus- sia's first attempt to construct a constitutional state and his background is reflected in his reports.1 Henry Middleton (1770-1846) had the distinction of serving longer (1820-1830) than any other American Ambassador to Russia. A South Carolina planter, he came from one of the families of seventeenth centu- ry settlers from Barbados, and his grandfather Henry and his father Arthur Middleton (1742-1787) both played important roles in the Amer- ican Revolution and South Carolina politics in the early republic. Arthur Middleton signed the Declaration of Independence for South Carolina, and his son served in the South Carolina legislature and as governor be- 131 fore entering the House of Representatives in 1814. Henry Middleton supported the Democratic-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson, and on the recommendation of his party's local leader, John C. Calhoun, President James Monroe sent him to St. Petersburg to represent the Unit- ed States. His main business in the Russian capital was the demarcation of US and Russian interests in the Pacific Northwest and to convince the tsar to help persuade Spain to let its colonies in the Western hemisphere gain their independence. He also involved himself in Russia's moves to- ward war with the Ottoman Empire over the Greek revolt, supporting the tsar in large part out of hostility to British support of the Turks. On his re- turn to America, he arrived just in time for the Nullification crisis in South Carolina, breaking with his erstwhile patron Calhoun to help form a Union party to attempt to prevent the secession of his native state. When this crisis passed, Middleton retired from politics.2 Middleton was no backwoods politician. His father Arthur had been at Cambridge and studied law at the Middle Temple, and after his father's early death Henry was educated by private tutors and spent much of his youth in England. There in 1794 he married Mary Helen Hering (1772-1850), the daughter of an English officer with Jamaican connections, Captain Julines Hering. His brother John Middleton (1785-1849) was something of an artist, publishing a book in England on Roman ruins with his own drawings. The family plantation, Middle- ton Place, on the Ashley River north of Charleston, was one of the most elegant of the South Carolina low country plantations. Henry was also one of the richest men in South Carolina as he owned several hundred slaves, putting him at the top of the plantation elite.3 In St. Petersburg Middleton was a diligent and intelligent diplo- mat, successful in most of his tasks, and reported on them regularly in his dispatches. While the dispatches themselves for the most part described his diplomatic activity, he also enclosed with them large amounts of general information on Russia, its army and its budget and other matters. He also seems to have had an active social life, and made important contacts. Mary Middleton was friends with Speranskii's daughter, Elizaveta Mikhailovna, who had an English mother who had died shortly after her birth. Elizaveta was raised to a large extent by her English grandmother, who had been living in Russia as governess to aristocratic families.4 Thus Mary Middleton found a personable young woman who spoke English for a companion, and Henry Middleton was often present at gatherings with Speranskii himself, returned from exile 132 and provincial governorships to the capital in 1821 and once again an important figure in the government. Speranskii in turn was on close terms with Count Karl Nesselrode, Russia's Foreign Minister from 1816 until 1856, with whom Middleton had continuous formal dealings. Finally, Middleton must have met the young official of the Russian- American Company, Kondratii Ryleev, the Decembrist poet.5 Middle- ton's own papers have not survived, but his daughter Eleanor (1804- 1827) kept a list of her and the family's social engagements for the years 1823-26. Aside from the diplomatic corps and her personal contacts, Eleanor recorded family dinners, excursions, and balls with the many of the Petersburg elite: Count D.A. Gur'ev (Minister of Finance and Nes- selrode's father-in-law), Murav'evs, Bakunins, Sablukovs, Miatlev (Ivan Petrovich?), Prince Kurakin, Count Jean Laval, Count Cherny- shev and Tatishchev (General A.I. Minister of War?), among others.^ The Middletons' Russian contacts included both the court elite and a i * ^ ife * Jk^t I / ri&H SU^I) I "A scene taken in St. Petersburg (or, how to waltz without advancing).' - Ink drawing found in the Middleton papers and presumed to have been made by one of Middleton's daughters. (DAMS 11330, Cadwalader Family Papers [1454] Box 546, Folder 6.) 133 broader group of the upper gentry. Henry Middleton was one of many ambassadors to the court of St. Petersburg, men who circulated (with their wives) among the ruling elite of the Russian state and society. He was not the only one with good connections. The French ambassador, Pierre-Louis-Auguste Ferron, count de La Ferronnays (1777-1842), enjoyed the friendship of Nicholas himself. The Austrian ambassador Count Ludwig von Lebzel- tern and Prince G.P. Trubetskoi, one of the leaders of the Northern So- ciety of Decembrists (see below) were married to sisters, and Trubet- skoi was even arrested at Lebzeltern's residence. The dispatches of Ferronnays and Lebzeltern have been long published in full. 7 The Mid- dletons knew Edward Cromwell Disbrowe (1790-1851), the British minister, and his wife Anne, as well as the ambassador, Percy Smythe, sixth Viscount Strangford (1780-1855).8 All these men and their wives were close observers of the court, government, and elite society, and regularly reported on government actions that were supposed to be secret, yet historians have paid little or no attention to them. As Middle- ton's dispatches also demonstrate, these sources deserve scrutiny. Middleton's dispatches to Washington from the time of Alexander I's death to the final sentences, execution, and exile of the Decembrists reflect the events as he perceived them.9 The first report described the succession issue created by Grand Duke Constantine's abdication, and the opinions of the Russian elite on Constantine and Nicholas. His dis- patch from the evening of 14 December was cautious, and even though he was an eyewitness to the events, he waited until 21 December/2 Jan- uary to make a full report. He enclosed the official description from the official Journal de Saint-Pétersbourg, but that account mainly described the actions of Nicholas and the government troops, while Mid- dleton devoted his attention to the actions of the rebels. He had a good idea of the general goals of the rebels, and clearly heard some account of the first depositions of the prisoners as the reference to Benjamin Constant demonstrates. His letter of 30 January/11 February refers to the commission examining the rebels, which was supposed to be secret. Middleton never names his sources, but his friendship with the Speran- skii family suggests one source. Speranskii was involved in the investi- gation behind the scenes and from 1 June served as the head of the spe- cial court that condemned the rebels. Middleton received his official information from Nesselrode, but it is not known if he also spoke with him informally. The reports of the other ambassadors describe the for- 134 mal audiences with the tsar, and some coincidences in information sug- gest that Middleton had talked with them as well. Middleton's views of the events are evident from his dispatches. Raeff, Harold Bergquist, and N. N. Bolkhovitinov each devoted a few pages to them, all concurring that he was uncomfortable or even un- sympathetic to the revolt.10 Compared to his fellow diplomats, howev- er, Middleton was quite positive. He did not, like La Ferronnays, speak of the "seduction of constitutional ideas" or the "frightful horrors" that would have resulted from an "infernal enterprise" of "horrible mad- ness" worse than that of Robespierre and Marat.11 Nor did he believe with Lebzeltern (and Metternich) that the revolt was part of a vast pan- European conspiracy, a contagion founded on irreligion.12 Lord Strang- ford thought the events of 14 December were a "horrible plot."13 They all realized almost immediately that it was not just another Russian palace coup but a struggle for liberty and a constitution, but Middleton found nothing terrible in that. His experiences were different, for he was the son of a revolutionary. He recognized that if successful, the revolt might lead to larger upheavals and a peasant revolt. As a wealthy South- ern planter he saw the dangers of instability, but then his father had been a leader, in South Carolina, of a constitutional revolution of slave own- ers that did not end in massive disorders or slave revolts.

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