English Translation

- 41 4h. But the tension is growing, and towards the end of Katharina's reg- eration it seems that there is a belligerent attack by the two great powers. The English-Russian opposition, which dominates the 19th century, is coming out sharply for the first time since I791, after it had already briefly occurred under Peter the Great. As we have just seen, England is afraid of Turkey's survival in relation to the growing success of the Russians, and the prospect of Russian extraction of new, so far Turkish areas on the Black Sea threatened to seriously damage the English trade concerns by the emigration of trade from the Baltic Sea to the Black sea. The idea that the fall of Constantinople would threaten the Middle East and Egypt, which at that time began to become a station on the way to India, sounds distant. England is therefore seeking to maintain the status quo. It makes the area of Ochakov demanded by Catherine to remain with Turkey a matter of English prestige and aims to prevent Russia from acquiring a naval base which could make it the master of Constantinople. The renewal of the English-Russian trade agreement failed in 1786 because England refused to include in it the clause of maritime neutrality created by Russia. England is now looking for new markets and sources of raw materials. In an effort to gain an independent position vis-à-vis Rufland and to be no longer dependent solely on that state in relation to the marine materials vital to British maritime rule, England is committed to Poland, which had been indifferent to it in 1788/89, and considers the re-use of Poland, however, nothing more than a new colony, with its defence possibilities it is quite unfavorably ordered.3) But as the only possibility to emerge from the l) Stählin 2. 680. 2) Gerhard S.298, 301; instruction to the English envoy Ewart of 20 July 1790 to Gerhard S.307, note 105. 3) The Englisch envoys Hailes in Warsaw on 27 March l789 to Gerhard pp. 303-304.