JAMES BAILLIE FRASER’S MEMORANDUM ON THE DANUBE-BLACK SEA CANAL (1837)
JAMES BAILLIE FRASER’S MEMORANDUM ON THE DANUBE-BLACK SEA CANAL (1837)

Summary/Abstract: James Baillie Fraser’s voyage through the Danubian Principalities, in 1836, in the company of three Persian princes travelling to Constantinople and further east, has been approached several times in the Romanian historiography. Much less known is the British writer’s travel in Ottoman Dobrudja, during his return trip from Constantinople to Bucharest, in February-March 1837, an intelligence-gathering mission he was entrusted by John Ponsonby, H.M. Ambassador in Turkey. Starting from these remarks, this paper aims to present, on the basis of Fraser’s travelogue, his itinerary through Dobrudja, his detailed description of Constanţa, as well as the diplomatic outcome of this detour – a confidential report sent to the Foreign Office on an important issue for the British Government at that time: the possibility of cutting a canal between the Danube and the Black Sea across Dobrudja.

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