ABSTRACT
Service under Catherine II demanded an oath of allegiance expressing a readiness on Samuel Bentham's (SB's) part to defend Russia to the last drop of his blood. In return he received a commitment to state employment, he became a Russian citizen by adoption with rights to hold land as owner under the Crown, to manage the peasants the land contained, and to pursue the industrial and commercial opportunities that property provided. On the road south and west, SB formed a very strict intimacy with Potemkin's chief aide de camp, Jean Francois Ribeaupierre, also a Lieutenant Colonel, who was universally esteemed and in high favour with the Prince. SB accompanied Potemkin on the whole of his administrative tour of the new territories. SB had learned that Prince Potemkin had recently erected a tannery on his estate nearby and hired two Englishmen from Newcastle to make sole leather in the English manner.
