English Translation

14 - ll - of course the English aversion to the growing Russian Baltic rule had to express itself. Around l703 the Russian envoy I-. Haag, Andrey Artamonovich Mat:eyev, reports to Peter the Great: "The view of the English and the Germans (i.e. the Dutch) is not to allow you to own a port on the Baltic Sea. They don't want to hear anything about such a neighborhood. Even if they make amiable faces, their hearts are to you (I to be insincere to you." They fear the destruction of English trade when Peter settles down in Livonia, and therefore incite Denmark against Russia, English merchants turn in a memorandum to Queen Anna; if the Russians have ports, they will trade on their own ships and thus damage the 2nd intermediate trade, which has so far been in English and Dutch hands. Nevertheless, in 1705, the English sent an extraordinary envoy, Whitworth, to Moscow for trade negotiations, which, however, did not produce any results. 3) Peter, for his part, commissioned his envoys, Matveyev, sent to England in 1706, to make clear to the English that good Russian ports on the Baltic Sea would also be beneficial to them: through them, the movement of goods could be handled more safely and 4) more quickly than via Arkhangelsk. Matveyev even tries to persuade Queen Anna to form an alliance against Sweden, but does not respond to these proposals and is increasingly taking the side of Russia's opponents. Under beautiful sayings it hides its uninterestingness at an alliance with Rupland, It sees in this country only a 6) object of economic exploitation, not a federal co-operative: 1) Solov'ev, Istorija Rossii, 15, Moskva l865, p.59. 2) In 1712. Brückner p.427. 3) Solov ́ev, p.20l. 4) Solov`ev, S.213. 5) Stählin, Geschichte Russlands, 2, Berlin 1930, pp.77. 6) Thus to read in the writing of Notovič, p.54 and 57, written in the spirit of the English-Russian covenant of l907.