INTRODUCTION i. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 30 Sep 2021 at 18:51:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000007184 INTRODUCTION THE year 1739 marks an epoch in the history of the diplomatic relations between England and Russia. It was at that period" that the long estrangement which had existed between them since the quarrel of Peter the Great and George I. was terminated by negotiations which led to a definite treaty of alliance. It was then that it became the 'Northern System' of Great Britain to look upon the yet untried forces of Russia as a possible counter- poise to the preponderance of France, who, from her intrigues in Sweden and the Empire, her rivalry in our eastern and western colonies, and finally her secret alliance with Spain, was become a serious danger both to England and Hanover upon the Continent. In the Empire she had, by a system of subsidies among the minor States, acquired an influence which seemed to threaten that of Austria herself. In the North, she was aiming at the confedera- tion of Denmark and Sweden against the power of Russia and Austria, whose long alliance it was her interest to dissolve.1 Her subsidies to Sweden, by which she held almost undivided sway in that distracted and impoverished kingdom, were a standing 1 The alliance between Eussia and Austria dates from the Treaty of Vienna (1726), when Catherine I. purchased the support of Austria for her son-in-law, the Duke oi Holstein, by her guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction. B 2 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 30 Sep 2021 at 18:51:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000007184 4 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND RUSSIA menace both to our Baltic trade and to the safety of Hanover. And thus the Hanoverian Kings of England were not behindhand with their subjects in a hearty hatred and fear of France, whose ambition was as much a danger to the Electorate as to the colonial empire of Great Britain. The effect of this new French policy, the details of which belong to the diplomatic history of Southern Europe, was to produce a fundamental change in the policy of England towards Russia. In her the Government of George II. began to see an ally whose interests were opposed at every turn to those of France. In the long struggle with Austria, which had for more than a century been the basis of the whole system of her diplomacy, France had long sought to make a barrier against t|ie encroach- ments of her enemy by a system of alliances with the minor States of the North.1 Sweden, the natural opponent of Austria in the Diet of the Empire and the chief of the Protestant party as opposed to the Austrian Catholics, had been subsidised by France since the victories of Gustavus Adolphus had made his kingdom a power in Europe. Poland and Turkey had been supported and strengthened by her against their border foe. These Powers were in truth the ' natural allies' of France, for the greater part of her commercial prosperity depended upon her trade in the Levant; and the Porte was besides so formidable an enemy to Austria upon her southern border that the Most Christian King, though his religion had never allowed him to ally himself formally with an infidel, had constantly found his interests coincide with those of the Turks. Poland was less directly useful to the French system, but it was of the first importance that, lying as she did in the very centre of the contending interests of the two Powers, Austria should not have the chief voice in her divided counsels. But in all these States, which France had aimed at using as a 1 For the detailed history of the relations of Prance with these three States, see Becueil des Instructions donnies aux Ambassadeurs : Bussie,i. Introduction, pp. v. and xi. et seq. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 30 Sep 2021 at 18:51:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000007184 ' NORTHERN SYSTEM ' OF ENGLAND IN 1739 5 barrier against Austria, it was inevitable that she should come into collision with Eussia. For it was to the interest of Eussia as well as of Austria to hold Turkey at bay, and to drive her from her outposts upon the Danube and the Black Sea. It was the object of Eussia as well as of Austria to lessen the power of Sweden in the Empire and upon the Baltic, and to retain Poland as their ally and barrier against the Turk. Thus in almost every case it was the policy of Eussia to weaken the allies of France, and to become everywhere, as the Due de Choiseul called her later, ' the enemy of the friends of France and the friend of her foes.' The English Government were therefore by this time fully convinced that if they were to combat successfully the influence of France in the North, it was to Eussia they must look for an ally, and in 1738 the signs of a possible reconciliation between the two Powers who had hitherto been so divided quickened the desire of England for a Eussian alliance. In that year a Eussian ambas- sador was once more despatched to Versailles, and in 1739 M. de la Chetardie was accredited to St. Petersburg. These events were immediately followed by a proposal on the part of the Government of George II. for a defensive alliance with Eussia.1 Henceforth the desire to make terms with Eussia is marked in the instructions given to the ambassadors,2 who were now regularly despatched from the Court of London to that of St. Petersburg. ' The liberties and security of England depend upon the balance of power, which is endangered by the ambition and intrigues of France. There is no other Power in Europe which can be of so much use to us as Eussia.' These are the con- siderations which are impressed upon Mr. Finch, who in 1740 1 Harrington to Eondeau, February 17, 1739, E.O. Russia, vol. 32. See for this ' Notes on the Diplomatic Correspondence between England and Eussia in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,' in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, N. S. vol. xiv. 2 See, inter alia, Newcastle's despatch of June 23, 1741, E.O. Russia, vol. 37. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 30 Sep 2021 at 18:51:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000007184 6 DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND RUSSIA was despatched as Envoy Extraordinary to St. Petersburg. He is to convince the Russian Court that Russia as well as England has everything to fear from France, who was intriguing in Den- mark and Sweden to induce those Powers to combine against her. She was tempting Sweden with a promise of Livonia, and Prussia with Oourland, and was besides, no doubt, the author of the treaty about to be concluded between Turkey and Sweden.1 If Austria, already shaken by the Polish war, should be further enfeebled by the desertion of Russia, the balance of power in Europe would be seriously endangered. The remedy proposed was an Anglo-Russian alliance, combined with common action in the affairs of Sweden, which might outbid the subsidies and outwit the influence of France.2 At that period the rule of the descendants of the elder brother of Peter the Great, who had at first shared his throne, was becoming hateful to the Russian nation on account of the foreign connec- tions in which their marriages with the Princes of the Empire had involved the Government. The Regent, Duchess of Brunswick, a daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg, was in truth a German, in spite of her half-Russian descent, and so too was her infant son, the Czar Ivan. By November 1741 Finch was describing the formation of a ' Russian party' and the growing ambition of the Princess Elizabeth, who had hitherto lived in apparent indifference to politics and absorbed in a life of ignoble dissipation and pleasure. Through all this, however, she had preserved a great influence by her beauty and popular manners, and more especially among the men and officers of the Preobrasinsky Guards. To their barracks she drove on the morning of November 26, 1741, accompanied by Michael Woronzow, afterwards Grand Chancellor under Cathe- rine II., and by M. de Lestocq, her French physician. At the 1 That concluded at Constantinople, July 1740, through the mediation of the French ambassador (see Recueil des Instructions donnies aux Ambassadeurs: Rustic, i. 375 and ii. 572). 2 Instructions to Pinch, B.O. Russia, February 29, 1740, vol. 33. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.226, on 30 Sep 2021 at 18:51:51, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2042171000007184 DYNASTIC CHANGES IN RUSSIA 7 head of 300 Grenadiers she rode to the Royal Palace, seized upon Ivan and his infant sister in their cradles, took prisoner the Duke of Brunswick and his Regent Duchess, arrested Munnich and Ostermann, and once more a Russian princess of the blood of Peter the Great was established upon the throne of Russia.1 The downfall of the Brunswick family was complete.