“We Arrived Openly and Without any Disguise on this Coast…”: The Schooner “Vixen” Case in the Investigation Papers and British Press of the Late 1830s

In this article, the author examines the details of the detention of the British schooner “Vixen” on the north-east coast of the Black Sea in November 1836. Although the analysis of the Russian-British diplomatic controversy surrounding the incident has been undertaken in Russian historiography, it has not made use of original investigative material or official accounts of the perpetrators in the English-language press of the late 1830s. The use of historical computer reconstructions can significantly clarify both the “Vixen” Inquiry materials and correct the conclusions of some contemporary researchers who have addressed the political background of the incident. It also allowed the author to check the credibility of the investigative material collected between 1836 and 1837 as part of the original “Vixen” files. It also clarifies the political conclusions drawn by both Russian imperial authorities and British politicians, and corrects some of the assumptions of contemporary historians focused on examining the political repercussions of the case. The author also examines the conditions of the Russian blockade of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus at the end of the 1830s. This is consistent with the aim of the study, namely to recreate a complete picture of the capture of the schooner “Vixen”. The latter was beyond the scope of previous studies. The study is based on materials from the Russian Navy State Archives (RGA VMF), as well as publications in British, American, and Australian newspapers. The author used the memoirs of the owner of the “Vixen”, James Stanislaus Bell, and the captain of the Russian ship, N.P. Volf, as additional primary source material. The study corroborates the conclusions that the “Vixen” incident was a premeditated provocation, but disputes the popular perception that the ship was actually carrying a cargo of weapons and gunpowder, as insisted on by the Russian side. The breach of the blockade by “Vixen” was a clear reconnaissance operation, which allowed the British to observe not only the technical inferiority of Russian ships in terms of modern requirements, but also the excessive bureaucratisation of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet's management system. This gave British diplomacy, which had contested the terms of the Treaty of Adrianople, additional arguments for its diplomatic efforts.