English Translation

34 --31 that promotes an alliance, but England. With genuine English tenacity, but with astonishing shortsightedness, England strives again and again for an alliance with Russia, without making itself clear to what extent such an alliance is also in the interest of the prospective partner. Katharina is very clever in exploiting the English tendency to go together with Russia for the benefit of her country, while England is not prepared to work for Russia. In the hope of the Russian alliance, however, it leaves Russia free to deal with Turkey, since it has no concerns in the eastern Mediterranean, apart from the bad Levant trade, and it is not forced to intervene in this area until Napoleon's Egyptian company. Since then, it has also been opposed to Russia's desire to expand towards the Mediterranean. However, it does not temporarily prevent Russia from undertaking further operations against Turkey, as far as they do not harm English trade in this area. Yes, England goes even further, After a word from the older Pitt of October 20, 1773, it is hoped in England that Turkey will tear the house Bourbon into its fall: "I trust the Ottoman will pull down the House of Bourbon in his fall."l) England is putting Katharina to supply the sailors who are now really creating and expanding the Russian fleet after Peter the Great laid the foundation for a Russian naval power. The fact that this always ensured a precise control role of the Russian seaarms is only noticeable on the margins. In Katharina's first Turkish war, the Russian fleet, on its journey around Europe, docks in the Mediterranean in English ports and finds there all the support it needs. The quite accepted state in which the Russian ships arrive in England reduces the fears that had arisen in the English people against the growth of the Russian naval power. At the important places of the Russia Navy are Englishmen, at their 1) Aleksandrenko 1, p.43, note 1; Gerhard, p.105, 352, note 231. 2) Stählin 2, p.509-5i0; about the Admiral Knowles cf. Catherine's letter to George 1II v.Jan.1774 by Aleksandrenko 2, p.183-184.