English Translation

In response to the English demands that no ship from another nation should be sent to Russia, the Czar writes to Elizabeth: "How can one use God's way, this already speaks with these words the basic idea of Katharina II. The British are outraged at this disadvantage. They consider themselves the explorers of the White Sea and the northern sea route to the Russian Empire. In their eyes this discovery is in no way behind the discoveries of the Portuguese on the Cape of Good Hope and on the way to India and the Italians and Spaniards west of Gibraltar, 2) In this sense Queen Elizabeth writes in 1587 to the Tsar Fedor Ivanovich and for the Moscovite company the only commercial right over the White Sea, even about Narva and Novgorod, since the English were the first to find the sea way to Russia with great losses and efforts. Other merchants, who had not suffered these losses and had not discovered the way, had no right to trade. When the English envoy Fletcher handed the letter to the tsar, he added that the English suffered great losses in this trade, but the Russians had great advantages. The English would have little advantage at all from trade with Russia compared to the profits they could make in trade with other countries nearer. Only out of attachment to the tsar do they take all these efforts and losses upon themselves.3) The English understand it already then, to imagine themselves as the noble, selfless human friends, who are unjustly oppressed by others - and to do their business. With the help of the privileges acquired by the Russian government they seek to eliminate the foreign competition, 1) Ključevskij, p.288. 2) The close traveler Hakluyt l598. at Kulišer, S.llgllg, Soradonin, Secinenle Džil'sa Flevčera "Of the RussinCommon Wealth" kak istoričeskij istočnik, pp.- Petersburg 189l, p.1. 3) Kulišen, p.1l9-120.