We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
The precise nature of Russian-American diplomatic relations during the War for American Independence has always presented a problem for historians. On the one hand, the Declaration of Armed Neutrality by Catherine II in February 1780 seemed to represent an effort to limit British sovereignty on the seas, and news of its promulgation was greeted with enthusiasm in the struggling American colonies. But on the other hand, the reception by the Russian empress of Francis Dana, the American envoy (1781-83) sent to St. Petersburg in the aftermath of the declaration to obtain Russian aid, was far from hospitable, and was in part responsible for the strained diplomatic relations between the two nations for several years thereafter. This contradiction, more apparent than real, prompted Frank A. Golder, one of America's first historians of Russia, to call for more research in the area of Russian-American relations.
1. “Catherine II and the American Revolution,” American Historical Review, 21, no. 1 (October 1915).
2. Especially noteworthy is the monograph by Bolkhovitinov, N. N., Stanovlenie russko-amcrikanskikh Qtnoshenii, 1775-1815 (Moscow, 1966)Google Scholar; see also his“Russkaia diplomatiia i voina SShA za nezavisimost1 1775-1783 godov,” in Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 1, 1964; Shprygova, M. N.,“Voina Ameriki za nezavisimost’ v osveshchenii Moskovskikh vedomostei N. I. Novikova,” Nauchnye doklady vysshei shkoly: Istoricheskie nauki, no. 3, 1961 Google Scholar; and Startsev, A. I.,“Amerikanskii vopros i russkaia diplomatiia v gody SShA za nezavisimost',” in Beskrovny, L. G., ed., Mezhdunarodnye sviazi Rossii v XVII-XVIH w. (Moscow, 1966)Google Scholar.
3. Although there were no ministries yet at this time, Panin was first referred to as“minister of foreign affairs” (Ministr Inostrannykh Del) on October 3, 1773: see Chistovich, I. la., ed., Arkhiv Gosudarstvennogo Soveta, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1869), pt. 1, p. 260 Google Scholar. The title was evidently honorary, and bestowed in conjunction with the marriage of his pupil, the grand duke.
4. According to Bolkhovitinov,“From the very beginning Russia carefully avoided any interference in the conflict between England and her rebellious colonies, and strove to limit its mediation to European affairs” (Stanovlenie, p. 79). A recent study by an American historian, Morris, Richard B., approaches the mediation from the French and Austrian points of view: The Peacemakers (New York, 1965), pp. 159–72 Google Scholar.
5. Such was the description Catherine gave to A. A. Viazemsky of one of the factions he would have to contend with in his new position as procurator-general, 1764, in Sbomik Imperatorskago russkago istoricheskago obshchestva, 7 (St. Petersburg, 1871): 346 (hereafter cited as SIRIO). For a brief biography of Panin by Fonvizin, Denis (published anonymously) see Zhisn’ grafa Nikity Ivanovicha Panina (St. Petersburg, 1787)Google Scholar. We have no authoritative biography of Panin.
6. SIRIO, 7: 204-6; Raeff, Marc, Plans for Political Reform in Imperial Russia, 1730-1905 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966), pp. 53–68 Google Scholar.
7. According to Princess Dashkova,“My cousin [N. I. Panin] fondly imagined that his ward might govern according to the laws and the Constitution of Swedish monarchy“ ( Fitzlyon, Kyril, ed. and trans., The Memoirs of Princess Dashkova [London, 1958], p. 61)Google Scholar. For the“fundamental laws” themselves see the addendum to Shumigorsky, E. S., Imperator Pavel I: Zhisn’ i tsarstvovanie (St. Petersburg, 1907)Google Scholar.
8. The efforts by Sir James Harris to obtain Russian aid are described in detail by de Madariaga, Isabel in her Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780 (New Haven, 1961).Google Scholar
9. Bolkhovitinov, , Stanovlenie, pp. 50–52 Google Scholar.
10. Gunning to Suffolk, Oct. 17, 1774, in“Great Britain: Embassy to Russia, 1774- 1775,” in the manuscript collection of George Bancroft, housed in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library (collection hereafter cited as Bancroft MS.; the embassy involved and an identification date for the volume are cited when applicable). The dates cited are those of the manuscripts themselves. In the narration the Julian calendar (eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar in the eighteenth century) is used.
11. Gunning, July 28, 1775, SIRIO, 19 (St. Petersburg, 1876): 472-73.
12. Juigne to Vergennes, Sept. 20, 1776, Bancroft MS.“France-Russie.“
13. Report of October 1776, SIRIO, 145 (St. Petersburg, 1914): 243.
14. Chechulin's, N. D. Vneshniaia politika Rossii v nachale tsarstvovaniia Ekateriny II (St. Petersburg, 1896)Google Scholar must be used with extreme caution, as must Aleksandrov's, P. A. Sevemaia Sistema (Moscow, 1914)Google Scholar, which effectively refutes Chechulin's work, but which in turn is highly colored by an anti-Prussian bias. More satisfactory in dealing with the Northern System is Fritz Arnheim's“Beiträge zur Geschichte der nordischen Frage in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschajt, vols. 2, 3, 4, and 6 (1889-92); see also Brandt, Otto, Caspar von Saldern und die nordeuropäische Politik im Zeitalter Katharines II (Erlangen and Kiel, 1932)Google Scholar, and two articles by K. Rahbek-Schmidt:“The Treaty of Commerce Between Great Britain and Russia, 1766: A Study in the Development of Count Panin's Northern System,” in Scandoslavica, vol. 1 (1954), and“Wie ist Panins Plan zu einem Nordischen System entstanden?,” in Zeitschrift fiir Slavistik, vol. 2, bk. 3 (1957).
15. SIRIO, 145: 243-44; ibid., p. 339, for a report of Feb. 3, 1777, to the same effect.
16. Gted from the London Chronicle, June 17-19, 1777, in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 16 (1892): 463-65. An American spokesman at The Hague tried tp convince the Russian ambassador that this was not the case: Dumas to Franklin, Aug. 22, 1780, containing a report of his conversation with D. A. Golitsyn, in Franklin Papers, 39: 178, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. Francis Dana at St. Petersburg attempted to refute the same British contention; Wharton, Francis, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 6 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1889), 5: 323, 528-32, 780-81.Google Scholar
17. Fond 36 (Vorontsovykh), delo 546, list 63, in the Manuscript Division of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History (hereafter cited as LOU).
18. Fauchille, Paul, La Diplomatie jrangaise et la ligne des neutres de 1780 (Paris, 1893), p. 59 Google Scholar.
19. Labande, L. H., ed., Un Diplomat frangais à la cour de Catherine II: Journal intime du Chevalier de Corberon, 1 (Paris, 1901): xliii Google Scholar; Fauchille, , Diplomatie jrangaise, pp. 60–61 Google Scholar.
20. Vergennes dispatch of late 1776, cited in Meng, John J., The Comte de Vergennes: European Phases of His American Diplomacy (1774-1780) (Washington, D.C., 1932), p. 94 Google Scholar. For Francis Dana's proposed trade treaty of 1782, in which he raises all these points and counters British claims, see his“Plan of a Commercial Treaty Between Russia and the United States,” box 588 in the Dana Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; see also Wharton, , Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 5: 529–32Google Scholar.
21. Wittfooth to the Commerce College, May 12, 1778, in f. 276, d. 668, in the Central State Archives for Ancient Acts (TsGADA), Moscow. Accurate mention of the document may be found in Golder, Frank A., Guide to Materials for American History in Russian Archives, 1 (Washington, D.C., 1917): 137 Google Scholar; Wittfooth to the Commerce College, June 30, 1782, in f. 36, d. 554, 1. 84, in LOII. Wittfooth to Montmorin, May 26, 1787, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 121, fols. 35-36, in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris (cited in Leland, W., Meng, J. J., and Doysie, A., Guide to Materials for American History in the Libraries and Archives of France, 2 [Washington, D.C., 1943]: 789–90Google Scholar). Bolkhovitinov, , Stanovlenie, pp. 183–86Google Scholar; and Ulianitsky, V., Russkie Konsul'stva za granitseiu v XVIII veke, 1 (Moscow, 1899): 360–61Google Scholar.
22. Report of the Commerce College, Aug. 2, 1778, in f. 276, d. 668, 1. 4, TsGADA. Bolkhovitinov (Stanovlenie, p. 184) points out that one of the signers of the document is Alexander Radishchev.
23. Order of the empress to Panin, May 26, 1779; copies in f. 36, d. 1161, 1. 325, in LOII, and f. 222 (Paninykh), pachka V, ed. khr. 3, in the Manuscript Division, Lenin State Library, Moscow (GBL). Copies of the report of July 31, 1779, found here, and published in Bartenev, P. I., ed., Arkhiv Kniazia Vorontsova, 34 (Moscow, 1888): 388–405 Google Scholar.
24. Cayley to Shairp, Aug. 22 (N.S.), 1778, Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1774-1780.” For an order to a Russian naval captain concerning the menace, August 1777, see SIRIO, 145: 480.
25. Aug. 11, 1778, SIRIO, 23 (St. Petersburg, 1878): 96.
26. Obolensky, P,“O vooruzhennom morskom neitralitete,” Morskoi sbornik, 43, no. 9 (1859): 43, 52–56 Google Scholar; Politische Correspondens Friedrichs des Grossen, 43 (Berlin, 1933): 88, 91 (hereafter cited as PCFG); Fauchille, , Diplomatic frangaise, pp. 217-18, 245 Google Scholar; Harris to Suffolk, Aug. 24, 1778, in Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1774-1780.“
27. Third Earl of Malmesbury, ed., Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, 1 (London, 1844): 221; Aleksandrenko, V., Russkie diplomaticheskie agenty v Londone v XVIII veke, 1 (Warsaw, 1897): 314–15Google Scholar.
28. Fauchille, , Diplomatie frangaise, p. 333 Google Scholar; Aleksandrenko, , Russkie diplomaticheskie agenty, 1: 54 Google Scholar; Obolensky,“O … neitralitete,” pp. 88-90. The most complete history of the Armed Neutrality may be found in Madariaga, Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, supplemented by a provocative review of the book by Bolkhovitinov in Istoriia SSSR, 1964, no. 1, pp. 206-9.
29. The dispatch is published in Bolkhovitinov, Stanovlenie, pp. 72-73. C. F. W. Dumas, in a letter to Franklin, Mar. 2, 1782 (Sparks Manuscripts, vol. 74, fol. 180, cited by permission of the Harvard University Library), mentions that the dispatch was written by Golitsyn at the urging of the Dutch officials.
30. Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 308; see also Bezborodko to P. A. Rumiantsev, Apr. 23, 1789, in Starina i novizna, 3 (St. Petersburg, 1900): 221, 223-24; Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, pp. 171, 174 Google Scholar. For the empress's reactions to later claims that Frederick had originated the idea of the Armed Neutrality see Zapiski Imperatritsy Ekateriny Vtoroi (St. Petersburg, 1907), p. 699; the empress substantiates Bezborodko's assertion that the league was her own creation, and that Panin would have no part of it until after he saw what its effect would be.
31. Letter of gratitude from the empress to Panin, May 31, 1780, for his work on the Armed Neutrality, in f. 222, p. IV, ed. khr. 20, 1. 502, in GBL; Bartenev, , Arkhiv Kniasia Vorontsova, 13 (Moscow, 1879): 17 Google Scholar.
32. Vérac to Vergennes, Oct. 6, 1780, and Vergennes to Vérac, Oct. 12, 1780, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, docs. 15 and 9, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris.
33. Harris to William Eden, in Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 162.
34. Bancroft, George, History of the United States, 10 (Boston, 1874): 257 Google Scholar.
35. Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 208, 242, 255.
36. Mar. 4, 1779, f. 222, p. XV, ed. khr. 11, 11. 11-12, GBL; see also Bezborodko to Rumiantsev, Jan. 18, 1779, in Starina i novisna, 3: 197.
37. Corberon, Journal intime, 1: xlvi; and 2: 219; Doniol, H., Histoire de la participa Hon de la France à I'etablissement des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, 3 (Paris, 1888): 779–80Google Scholar; Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 245, 259; Harris to Stormount, Mar. 24, 1780, in Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1774-1780.“
38. Arkhiv Kniazia Vorontsova, 34: 405.
39. PCFG, 43: 106.
40. Corberon, Journal intime, 2: 256.
41. Vergennes to Corberon, Feb. 12, 1780, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 104, doc. 3; Obolensky,“O vooruzhennom morskom neitralitete,” Morskoi sbornik, 43, no. 10 (1859): 358-61; Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 289-90.
42. Corberon to Vergennes, May 23, 1780, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 104, doc. 24.
43. Sanktpeterburgskie vedomosii, Jan. 7, 1780, contains the report of a dispute between the state of Massachusetts and Congress, in which the former threatened to conclude a separate peace with Great Britain. The issue of Jan. 21, 1780, notes:“The Americans are already offering overtures for peace with England to the English General Clinton; for, finding themselves in desperate financial straits, they will not be able to prosecute the war with success next year.” It must be noted that most news of this sort originated in Great Britain.
44. Vergennes to Corberon, June 25, 1780, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 104, doc. 13; Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, pp. 225–26Google Scholar; Morris, , The Peacemakers, pp. 168-69, 500 Google Scholar. Among the papers found in Panin's possession at his death was a manuscript of several resolutions of the American colonies, undoubtedly those forwarded by Vergennes. Semennikov, V., Radishchev (Petrograd, 1923), p. 10 Google Scholar.
45. Bemis, S. F., The Hussey-Cumberland Mission and American Independence (Princeton, N.J., 1931), pp. 8-9, 172–73Google Scholar; Doniol, , Histoire, 3: 583, 622-23Google Scholar.
46. Vergennes to Corberon, Dec. 2, 1779, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol 103, doc. 34; Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, p. 142 Google Scholar.
47. Obolensky,“O vooruzhennom morskom neitralitete,” Morskoi sbornik, 43, no. 10 (1859): 361.
48. Collado, Danvila y, Reinado de Carlos III, 5 (Madrid, 1896): 339, 344–50Google Scholar. Through his charge at St. Petersburg, Vergennes had recommended that Panin approach the Spanish directly. Vergennes to Corberon, Feb. 12, 1780, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 104, doc. 3.
49. Report of Normandes, June 24, 1780, copy in vol. 95, bk. 1, fols. 145-154, in the Sparks Manuscripts, Harvard; a French copy of the same dispatch in vol. 80, bk. 5, fols. 15-21. Madariaga (Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, p. 226) cites a report from the British ambassador mentioning that Panin got together with the French and Spanish representatives over the dinner table to work out a mediation proposal favorable to the Bourbon powers. Such a claim would seem unfounded, for we find no confirmation in the reports of either the French ambassador or the chargé, and when Vergennes later referred to the Russian proposal he noted only the offer to Spain: Doniol, , Historie, 4 (Paris, 1890): 519 Google Scholar. The French chargé also seems to indicate ( Corberon, , Journal intime, 2: 320–21Google Scholar) that the official offer was made only to Spain, although, as we have seen, Panin on numerous occasions discussed the matter of the American settlement with the French chargé.
50. Vérac to Vergennes, Sept. 1, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, doc. 11; Corberon, , Journal intime, 2: 322–23Google Scholar; and the Prussian ambassador Goertz to Frederick II, Jan. 29, 1781, Bancroft MS.“Prussie-Russie, 1776-1782.“
51. Unlabeled draft in French in f. 222, p. IV, ed. khr. 1 (“Ukazy i pis'ma“), 11. 343- 44, GBL; see also Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, p. 245 Google Scholar.
52. Vérac to Vergennes, Sept. 1 and Nov. 14, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, docs. 11 and 20.
53. Vérac to Vergennes, Nov. 14, 1780, in ibid., doc. 20; A. Beer and J. Fiedler, eds., Joseph II und Graf Ludwig Cobensl: Ihr Briefwechsel (published as vol. 53 of Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, Vienna, 1901), p. 127Google Scholar.
54. Vérac to Vergennes, Oct. 11, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, doc. 16.
55. Catherine told Joseph II of Austria her wish“that the peace be made and that part of the colonies obtain liberty.” von Arneth, A. R., ed., Maria Theresa und Joseph II: Ihre Correspondents, 3 (Vienna, 1867): 252 Google Scholar. For a meeting between the empress and Harris on this subject see Malmesbury, Diaries, 1: 355.
56. Vérac to Vergennes, Oct. 11, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, doc. 16; see also Verac to Vergennes, Nov. 14, 1780, vol. 105, doc. 20.
57. Doniol, , Histoire, 3: 583n., 594–603 Google Scholar.
58. V6rac to Vergennes, Oct. 11, and Vergennes to Verac, Oct. 12 and 13, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, docs. 16, 9, and 10; Doniol, , Histoire, 4: 506-8, 518, and 5 (Paris, 1892): 521 Google Scholar.
59. “If some of the united provinces prefer to return to England's domination, the King's obligations would not be less intact, His Majesty's guarantee only extending to the state if these provinces are maintained at the peace treaty.” Vergennes to Vérac, Oct. 12, 1780, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 105, doc. 9; copy in f. 222, p. IV, ed. khr. 1, 11. 347-49, GBL; Vergennes,“Mémoire sur les modalités d'une trêve à conclure avec la Grande Bretagne,” in Correspondance Politique: fitats-Unis, vol. 15, fol. 275 (copy in the transcripts collection of the Library of Congress); see also Doniol, , Histoire, 4: 494-95, 520 Google Scholar. From the foregoing it should be clear that Doniol (4: 503-4) is unjustified in maintaining that Vergennes steadfastly opposed a truce and neutral mediation.
60. Doniol, , Histoire, 3: 613–15Google Scholar; Wharton, , Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 4: 476–78Google Scholar. John Adams, American agent at The Hague, however, never approved of any mediation; ibid., 4: 515, 560, 571-73.
61. Vergennes to Verac, Jan. 30, 1781, in Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 106, doc. 4.
62. Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, pp. 239 ffGoogle Scholar.
63. Stormount to Harris, Feb. 27, 1781, Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1781-1783.“
64. Verac to Vergennes, Jan. 22, 1781, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 106, doc. 6. The Prussian ambassador, one of Panin's closest confidants, noted that“The Russian Minister proposes as a basis for the settlement an armistice, during which time the powers would evacuate their respective conquests, and the Americans, province by province, would give their free declaration to Congress, and would negotiate with England concerning their principles in favor of independence.” Bancroft MS.“Prussie-Russie, 1776-1782.“
65. Report entitled“Sentiment personal de Son Excellence Monsieur le Comte de Panin sur le moyen term à proposer par les Puissances Médiatrices sur l'Article de l'lndépendance de l'Amérique,” contained in dispatch no. 5, Feb. 4, 1781, in 56 Russland II, Berichte, 1781, I-VI, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna.
66. Contained in a dispatch of June 22, 1781, ibid.
67. This is the title given to chapter 9 of R. B. Morris's The Peacemakers, an exhaustive study of the negotiations leading to the Peace of 1783.
68. According to Mikhail Fonvizin, the Decembrist nephew of Panin's secretary, the Panin brothers, Fonvizin, Repnin, and Dashkova conspired to overthrow the empress in the early 1770s and replace her with her son:“Zapiski Fonvizina, M. A.,” Russkaia starina, 42 (1884): 60–63Google Scholar. A contemporary Soviet literary historian, Makogonenko, G. P. (Denis Fonvizin: Tvorcheskii put’ [Moscow and Leningrad, 1961], pp. 151–63)Google Scholar, assumes that the narrative is correct, although he can offer no further substantiation. A highly unsatisfactory biography by Lebedev, P., Grafy Nikita i Petr Paniny (St. Petersburg, 1863)Google Scholar, uses as its central theme the notion that Panin was actively plotting against the empress. This view seems to me farfetched and unsubstantiated.
69. See chapter 2 of my Ph.D. dissertation,“Russian Court Politics and the Question of an Expansionist Foreign Policy Under Catherine II, 1762-1783” (Cornell University, 1967). Immediately after the coup d'état that placed Catherine II on the throne, Panin was quoted by the French ambassador as saying that Russian interests demanded that she occupy herself for many years only with the general re-establishment of all parts of the interior administration, that everything was in disorder. Bilbasov, V., Istoricheskie monografii, 3 (St. Petersburg, 1901): 202 Google Scholar.
70. For details of the alliance see Madariaga, I,“The Secret Austro-Russian Treaty of 1781,” Slavonic and East European Reviezv, vol. 38, no. 90 (1959)Google Scholar.
71. For the Greek Project see chapter 7 of my dissertation,“Russian Court Politics“; Edgar Hosch,“Das sogenannte ‘griechische Projekt’ Katharinas, II,” Jahrbiicher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 12 (1964)Google Scholar; Madariaga,“The Secret Austro-Russian Treaty,“ pp. 114-15. Though Soviet historians are apt to minimize the aggressive nature of Catherine's foreign policy in the second half of her reign, they are faced with Engels' ringing denunciation of Russian intentions; see Potemkin, V., ed., Istoriia diplomatii, 1 (Moscow, 1941): 290–91Google Scholar. The plan is outlined by the empress herself in a letter to Joseph II, September 1782, in von Arneth, A. R., ed., Joseph II und Katharina von Russland: Ihr Briefwechsel (Vienna, 1869), pp. 143–57 Google Scholar.
72. Dana to the President of Congress, Sept. 15, 1781, in Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 4: 714.
73. Dana waited for Potemkin to leave the capital before undertaking diplomatic action: personal inscription in the margin of a letter to Robert Livingston, Apr. 6, 1783,“Official Letters, 1782-1784,” p. 35, Dana Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; Ségur, P., Mémoires ou souvenirs et anecdotes, 2 (Paris, 1826): 281–82Google Scholar; Morris, , The Peacemakers, pp. 175–76Google Scholar. Potemkin even suspected American Tories, and would not allow them to settle in New Russia; see Aleksandrenko, , Russkie diplomaticheskie agenty, 2 (Warsaw, 1897): 226 Google Scholar.
74. Dana to Adams, Jan. 14, Oct. 20, 1782,“Letters from St. Petersburg,” pp. 8, 118, Dana Papers; Osterman to Golitsyn, July 4, 1782, addendum to Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1781-1783” (transcribed from the Russian archives by Eugene Schuyler, American consul to St. Petersburg just prior to the U.S. Civil War).
75. “Conversations Between Dana and ‘S, ’ Feb. 22, 1783,” in Dana Papers, 1783-1795;“List of Expenses Submitted to Congress,” in Dana Family Papers, 1762-1793.
76. For Dana's limited correspondence with the Russian government, see box 586, Dana Papers; a copy of transactions taken from the Russian archives in the Library of Congress is entitled“Précis sur les relations de la Cour Imperiale de Russie avec les fitats-Unis de l'Amérique sur le r£gne de l'lmpératrice Catherine II.” It was drawn up for Alexander Fs benefit to explain the difficulties of early Russian-American diplomatic relations.
77. Vérac, Mar. 1, 1782, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 108.
78. July 19, 1783, ibid., vol. Ill, doc. 21.
79. Arkhiv Kniazia Vorontsova, 13: 26; for a similar statement by the empress see Arneth, Joseph II Und Kathdrina von Russland, p. 161.
80. Madariaga, , Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality, p. 294 Google Scholar.
81. Original order, Oct. 19, 1781, f. 36, d. Ill (“Bumagi Bezborodko“), p. 4, LOIt.
82. Original order, Feb. 2, 1782, ibid., pp. 207-8.
83. Feb. 14, 1783, Bancroft MS.“Britain-Russia, 1781-1783.” Previously Harris had noted that“it is impossible that the Empress can sincerely wish to see peace restored between us and our enemies, since the success of her projects in the East necessarily depend on the House of Bourbon being fully employed with its own concerns; she therefore cannot be sincere in her measure as Mediatrix“; Harris to Lord Mountstuart, Oct. 14, 25, 1782, in Malmesbury, Diaries, 2: 5 (emphasis in the original). See page 23 for a comment on Potemkin's disappointment at news of the settlement.
84. Vérac to Vergennes, Feb. 11, 1783, Correspondance Politique: Russie, vol. 110. While in Vienna in 1781 the grand duke, bitterly opposed to the expansionist views of his mother, praised the Americans for their“internal force and national virtue” ( Morris, , The Peacemakers, p. 187)Google Scholar.
85. Cited in Zinkeisen, J. W., Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches in Europa, pt. 4 (Gotha, 1859), p. 354 Google Scholar; see also von Gortz, J. E., Historische und politische Denkzviirdigkeiten, 1 (Stuttgart, 1827): 326 Google Scholar. For the Austrian envoy's reaction see Fiedler, Beer and, Joseph II, pp. 414–15Google Scholar.
86. Catherine II to Joseph II, Apr. 7, 1783;“The position of the general affairs of Europe not being as favorable as it was a year ago for the execution of the grand design I then proposed to Your Majesty for the benefit of our monarchies, prudence would seem to limit them at the present moment to a plan less extensive and consequently less likely to excite the jealousy and activity of our respective neighbors” ( Arneth, , Joseph II und Katharina von Russland, p. 197Google Scholar); Zavadovsky, P. to Rumiantsev, 1783, Starina i novisna, 4 (1901): 278 Google Scholar; Malmesbury, , Diaries, 1: 488 Google Scholar; Beer and Fiedler, Joseph II, p. 409; Görtz, Denkzvürdigkeiten, 1: 214.
87. Drevniaia i novaia Rossiia, 2 (1876): 282.
88. Bemis, S. F., the foremost diplomatic historian of the American Revolution, is incorrect when he stresses Catherine's vanity as overriding Russian national interests (The Diplomacy of the American Revolution [Bloomington, 1957], p. 179 Google Scholar):“It would have been the Empress's best policy to allow France and England, natural defenders of the Turks, to bleed themselves white while she matured her undisguised projects for the domination of Constantinople… . A successful mediation between the western maritime belligerents might bring her the prestige of protector of all Europe. Attracted by such abstract and ephemeral prospects of glory, she ignored her real eastern interests sufficiently to attempt another European peace.” The reproach might apply to Panin, but not to the empress once the chance for a joint Austro-Russian division of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent. Even more misleading is Cresson, W. P., whose Francis Dana: A Puritan Diplomat at the Court of Catherine the Great (New York, 1930)Google Scholar accounts for Russian foreign policy by“favoritism and blackmail” (p. 183),“personal charms” (p. 184),“the pursuit of pleasure” (p. 211),“fickleness” (p. 223),“bewildering feminine deviations“ (p. 250), and so on. It should be added that Cresson's only reference point for Russian history is Kasimierz Waliszewski, an émigré Pole.
89. Dana, who made few enough acute observations while in St. Petersburg, defined the situation well—although misinterpreting the empress's expansionist policy as mere anti-Gallicanism—when he wrote:“The Russian ministers are in general Anti-Gallicans and have, since the exit of Count Panin, sought to divide or lessen the enemies of Great Britain. Hence the most extraordinary proceedings to bring, or rather to drive, the United Provinces into a separate peace with Great Britain … , and hence all the patient acquiescence in her attempt to make a particular peace with the United States… . I believe they would have been well pleased, not only that their partial mediation between Holland and Great Britain had succeeded, but that the United States, as an independent nation, had made their own peace with Great Britain, and left her to contend with the House of Bourbon alone” (Dana to Livingston, Oct. 14, 1782, in Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 5: 813-14). It might be added that Russian foreign policy displays much consistency in the last half of Catherine's reign. In 1791, for instance, the empress thought not of intervening in French affairs but of keeping the Prussians and Austrians busy with the French so that she might have a free hand to deal with the Turks:“I have many unfinished projects, and it is necessary that they [Prussia and Austria] be occupied and not hinder me.” Martens, F., Sobranie traktatov i konventsii, zakliuchennykh Rossieiu s inostrannymi dershavami, 2 (St. Petersburg, 1875): 196 Google Scholar.
