Up to the spring of the year 1791 Pitt had achieved a series of remarkable triumphs in his foreign policy. After lifting his country from the depths of penury and isolation, he seized favourable opportunities for checkmating French influence in Holland, and framing the Triple Alliance with that Republic and the Kingdom of Prussia. During the years 1788–90 this alliance gave the law to Europe. It rescued Gustavus III from ruin; it prescribed terms to Austria at the Conference of Reichenbach, and thereby saved the Turks from the gravest danger; it served to restore the ancient liberties of the Brabanters and Flemings; it enabled England to overawe Spain and win the coast of the present colony of British Columbia; last, but not least, Pitt, by singular skill, thwarted the dangerous schemes of the Prussian statesman Hertzberg at the expense of Poland.

Successes like these are apt to beget feelings of jealousy or fear; for gratitude rarely figures among the motives that determine the course of national policy. Certainly this is the case in the story now before us, which tells of a rebuff dealt to Pitt, the unweaving of his plans for the equitable pacification of Europe, and the formation of new groupings which leave Great Britain isolated and her statesmen discredited. The importance of the crisis, and the light which it throws on the peace-loving character of Pitt, warrant a closer examination of details than has yet been given to the subject. We must remember that at every emergency the British Foreign Office was directed by Pitt, not by its chief, the Duke of Leeds. This appears in a sentence of Ewart’s letter of 28th November 1790 to Lord Auckland—“I trust Mr. Pitt will write to your lordship himself in a satisfactory manner; and you know better than I do of what consequence the opinions of others are.” The imperious Minister was now to encounter a will as tough, and a pride as exacting, as his own. Catharine of Russia stood in his path, and defied him to apply to her his scheme of pacification, to which Leopold of Austria had yielded grudging assent.

There were several reasons why Pitt should expect from the Czarina a similar acquiescence. Her finances were utterly exhausted by four years of war. Her favourite, Prince Potemkin, had won victories; but he and his dependents had battened on the Treasury, and her triumph heralded the approach of bankruptcy. The plague was devastating her armies in the south; and even Russia seemed unable to endure the waste of another campaign. The Muscovites placed their hopes in a dash of their fleet on Constantinople; but how could that be effected if England sent a strong squadron into the Black Sea to help the Turks? And while she screened the Moslem capital, the presence of her warships in the Baltic must complete the ruin of the Baltic provinces. Two fifths of their exports by sea went to Great Britain; and they drew thence goods worth 7,308,000 roubles as against 2,278,000 from all other lands.962 The internal state of Russia also gave cause for concern. The extravagance and licentiousness of the Court, flaunted in face of struggling traders and half-starved peasants, were a perpetual challenge to discontent; and the best informed observers believed that, if Prussia and England held firm, the Empress must humble her pride and accept their terms. They were by no means extravagant. Russia was to give up the conquests of the present war, particularly the lands east of the Pruth, which were virtually in her hands; but she might retain the Crimea—the object for which the Sultan had cast down the gauntlet.

At the very time when the British demands were nearing the banks of the Neva, victory crowned the efforts of the Russians on the Lower Danube. Ismail, the stronghold which commanded the only available entrance into Turkey, now that the Austro-Turkish armistice kept Wallachia neutral, fell before the prowess of the assailants (22nd December 1790). After some successes against the Turkish flotilla and the batteries fringing the river banks, Potemkin began the siege of the city itself; but its deep fosse, fed from the Danube, and its double line of ramparts defied all his efforts. Then he bent his pride and sent for Suvóroff. The advent of “the little father” put new heart into the 31,000 besiegers.—“To-day for prayer: to-morrow for drill: the next day victory or a glorious death.”—By these words, and by the contagion of his enthusiasm, he worked his men up to a pitch of fury. Skill came to reinforce their fanaticism. By night a strong flotilla dropped down stream to assail the town on that side, while on the other six columns advanced stealthily against the walls. A sharp frost favoured the enterprise; and under cover of a misty dawn the assailants rushed forward at all possible points. The defenders met fury with fury. A long day of carnage ensued, the Moslems, men and women alike, fighting desperately for creed, country, life, and honour. At last Suvóroff’s reserves gained a foothold and overwhelmed the exhausted garrison. Then ensued a night of slaughter, plunder, and outrage. Some 30,000 Turks perished. The consequences of this victory were great. The hold of the Sultan on the Danube was loosened, while the Russians prepared to deal a blow at the heart of the Ottoman dominions. Thus, once again, the personality of Suvóroff proved to be worth an army. Indeed, it changed the course of history. For now, when the proud Empress held the keys of the Danube, how could she consent to give back to the infidels Suvóroff’s former conquest, Oczakoff? Diplomacy also furthered the aims of Catharine, and told against those of Pitt. Much depended on the good faith of Leopold II in keeping his promises to the Triple Alliance, pledged at the Conference of Reichenbach in July 1790. He had agreed to accept the status quo ante bellum as a basis of settlement for his disputes with the Belgians and for his war with Turkey. Now, nothing ought to have been simpler than the restoration of his conquests to the Porte, provided that the plenipotentiaries of the Powers, who met at Sistova late in 1790 to reduce them to treaty form, were inspired by good faith and pacific desires.

But distrust and intrigue soon enveloped in mystery phrases that were clear as day. The Turks opposed to the superior force of Austria all the chicanery of oriental delays. Their astrologers discovered that very many days were unsuitable for the conduct of business; and their envoys often fell ill. Hopes ran high at the Porte that England and Prussia would draw the sword against the Czarina. The Emperor Leopold and his equally wily Chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, also saw in delay an opportunity of wriggling out from the engagements so reluctantly made at Reichenbach.963 Scarcely was the ink of that compact dry before Kaunitz bemoaned to his envoy in London the lack of any conquests at the end of “a ruinously expensive war.” This magnanimity he ascribed to his desire to be again on good terms with England, despite her unjust treatment of a once valued ally. After these crocodile tears there came the significant suggestion—Would not England instruct her envoy to deal leniently with Austria in the ensuing negotiations with the Turks, and allow her to gain a few little advantages?964 Leopold also wrote to his offended ally, Catharine, assuring her that he would never really make peace with the Turks until she had secured from them conquests proportionate to the successes of her troops. Let Austria and Russia keep in close touch and form an eternal compact.965 Here, then, we probe one of the causes of the defiant rejection by Catharine of Pitt’s demand for the status quo. He believed, and very naturally, that the Austro-Russian alliance was wholly severed; while, in point of fact, Austria was secretly, but effectively, playing the game of her late ally.966

But there was another cause of his failure. The Semiramis of the North could at need abase her pride and clasp the hand of a hated foe. As we have seen, she had grasped that of Gustavus III; but only for the most potent of reasons. She saw in that vain and impulsive sovereign a convenient tool, who might serve her well in case of a British naval demonstration against Cronstadt. For some time the Swedish monarch held back his hand. Auckland wrote early in November 1790 that Gustavus either from vanity or from penury, might once more attack her; but the price which he asked from the Allies was enormous:—“I am assured on good authority that he talks of 10,000,000 rix dollars for the first campaign, and 7,000,000 for every succeeding one.”967 Rumour, then, saw in Gustavus not merely a knight errant, but a shrewd bargainer; and we now know that he had come to some secret understanding with Catharine. By methods not very unusual in that age, the British Embassy at Stockholm managed to procure and decipher a letter of the Swedish monarch to his envoy at London, Baron Nolcken, dated 7th December 1790. In it he expressed regret and annoyance that England still kept a large fleet ready for service in the Baltic, and urged Nolcken to point out that the British ships would find great difficulty in procuring provisions in that sea, as Sweden must refuse them.968 The experience of our sailors, especially in the years 1810–11, has since corroborated that statement.

This was not all. Gustavus was then revolving a grandiose project for the invasion of Normandy by Swedish and Russian troops, in order to crush the French Revolution. Catharine humoured the notion, more, it would seem, with the aim of protecting herself from British warships than of re-establishing Louis XVI;969 for, as was often to appear, her royalist heroics never led to definite action. To the Tancred of the North, however, her friendship seemed all important; and it was therefore possible that, in the interests of monarchy, he might add his fleet to hers. Pitt had cause to fear such a hostile combination; for on 11th February 1791 Ewart assured him that the Empress of Russia was convinced, “since her peace with Sweden, that no British fleet could operate in the Baltic with any success, and that the [British] Minister would risk the loss of his popularity by such an expedition.”970 Her surmise was to be justified by events. Nevertheless, Pitt cherished the hope of browbeating Russia; and, as the sequel will show, this would have given to the hard-pressed Poles a precious time of reprieve. For it was not so much Turkey as Poland whose fortunes were at stake. The events of the years 1791, 1792, virtually decided the doom of that interesting people, and opened to the Muscovites the way into the heart of Europe.

As we saw in Chapter XXIII, the Prusso-Polish treaty of 29th March 1790 spread dismay at Petersburg. But the lavish use of Russian gold among the ruck of the Polish nobles in the Diet at Warsaw soon strengthened the anti-Prussian prejudices of that impulsive and passionate body; and the insatiable land-hunger of Hertzberg ere long begot a feeling that the ally was the worst enemy. The feeling was not of recent growth. In the year 1775, that is, three years after the first partition of Poland, Prussia sought to strangle the export trade of that land by imposing heavy customs dues on all Polish products sent down the Vistula, a policy which caused an indignant patriot to declare their removal to be almost as vital as the recovery of Galicia to his country’s welfare.971 All the more did the Prussians persevere in their policy, which clearly involved the ruin of the trade of the free city of Danzig (a close ally of the Polish State) as a prelude to its annexation.972 Along with it they hoped to secure the cession of the Polish fortress and district of Thorn.

The Diet at Warsaw hotly resented this conduct, declaring that the loss of those much prized districts could be compensated by nothing less than the whole of Galicia. Accordingly, when Prussia began to bargain with Austria for the cession to Poland of only part of Galicia, the rage of the Poles knew no bounds; and, as we saw, the Court of Berlin finally fell back on Pitt’s policy of the status quo. Nevertheless, even after the settlement at Reichenbach, Frederick William and Hertzberg harked back to the former scheme, so that, at the end of the year 1790, the Poles decided to ask the British Government for advice and help. For this purpose they sent to London as special envoy Count Oginski, their Minister at The Hague. He had two interviews with Pitt, whom he describes as “very polite, speaking French with an English accent, but fluently enough and with marked precision.” At first Pitt let his visitor discourse at length, refrained from committing himself, and then suggested a second meeting. By that time he had before him several maps and a memorial from London merchants against throwing open the navigation of the Vistula, as it would end their special privileges. On this he remarked that merchants thought about nothing but trade, and launched into an argument on behalf of the advantages of the Prussian scheme, as providing Poland with what she most needed, a good commercial treaty with Prussia. He also showed to Oginski a letter of the King of Prussia in favour of that proposal. Turning to wider topics, he urged the Count to press on his people the need of better agriculture, an extended system of canals, and other means of transport and export. England, he said, needed Polish corn, timber, flax, and hemp, as a counterpoise to the Russian trade in those articles; and, as the fortunes of Poland, both political and commercial, touched us closely, the Prusso-Polish settlement must not be such as to harm our interests. He then charged Oginski to declare this to his Government, and expressed his intention of giving similar instructions to Hailes at Warsaw.973 That active and intelligent envoy had long been working, in consort with Ewart at Berlin, for the inclusion of Poland in the Anglo-Prussian compact, as a means of deadening the poison of Russian influence in the Republic; and in a pamphlet which he either wrote or inspired, he depicted in glowing colours the results attainable by “a grand federative chain (England, Holland, Prussia, Poland, and, perhaps, Sweden and Turkey) which would assure a long time of peace to our hemisphere.”974

Similar thoughts, though of a more practical trend, were shaping themselves in the mind of Pitt. The interview with Oginski and the reports from Berlin and Warsaw convinced him of the need of a compact with Poland and the Scandinavian States as a safeguard against Russia. Consequently the Foreign Office on 8th January 1791 despatched to Francis Jackson at Berlin (then acting as locum tenens for Ewart) instructions of far-reaching import. They set forth the reasons why England and Prussia should prepare the way for joint alliances, not only with Poland, but also with Denmark and Sweden, if that were possible. The Court of Berlin, it was hoped, might rise to the height of the situation and render possible so desirable a consummation.

At that time the fortunes of Poland appeared radiant with promise. Late in the year 1790 the Court of Warsaw sought to free itself from Prussian dictation and Muscovite intrigue by a compact with the Sultan which would assure a free exit for Polish products down the River Dniester (then in Turkish territory) to the Black Sea. Selim III welcomed an offer which promised to strengthen both lands against their common enemy, Russia; and it seemed likely that Poland would gain the right of navigation in the Black Sea for fifty of her ships. Had this come about, she would have lessened her dependence on Prussia in the Vistula valley, besides securing valuable markets in the Levant. But it was not to be. The Sultan, then in sore straits for the next campaign against Catharine, insisted that the Poles should declare war upon the Czarina whatever Frederick William might do, and thus ensured the failure of a compact which promised to range the two threatened States along with England and Prussia.975 If the Poles had had timely support from Berlin and London, there is little doubt that they would have clogged the efforts of Catharine, besides escaping from the tutelage of St. Petersburg. In that case the league outlined by Hailes and, in part at least, approved by Pitt would have come within the bounds of possibility. Other requisites were the abatement of Prusso-Polish jealousies, and the adoption of a sound and steady policy by Gustavus III. Such were the difficulties in the way of Pitt. It will ever redound to his honour that at this time of intrigue and rapine he sought to assure the union and the preservation of the lesser States.

Among the warping influences of the time not the least was the policy of Hertzberg. After the success of the Triple Alliance in compelling Austria to come to terms with Turkey, he pressed England to help in compelling the Czarina to adopt the same course; and, as he had recently supported Pitt in coercing Spain, the latter felt in honour bound to respond. But Hertzberg had long been shifting his ground. He valued the alliance with England and Holland chiefly because it secured Prussia’s western frontier and coast-line, thereby enabling her to play a bold game in the East, and to prepare to round off her then almost scattered domains in the valley of the Vistula. There the Polish districts around Danzig and Thorn ate into her lands and might even become a source of danger if that singular Republic once more passed under Muscovite control. We may freely admit that to a military State like Prussia the situation was annoying, and that Pitt himself, had he been in office in Berlin, would have sought to assure her eastern frontier by some plan of exchange. In truth, his despatches and his converse with Oginski show that he appreciated the difficulties of the Court of Berlin and tried to induce the Poles to cede Danzig (not Thorn) to Prussia in exchange for a good commercial treaty. It is therefore false to assert, as German writers have done, that he showed no regard for Prussian interests. Unfortunately his solution of the difficulty proved to be impracticable. Polish national sentiment was very susceptible on this point; and a special decree of the Warsaw Diet finally forbade any cession of the national territory, though (strictly speaking) Danzig was only allied to the Republic.

But long before the failure of Pitt’s well-meant attempt at compromise Hertzberg had been seeking to compass his aims by secret help from the Power which ostensibly he was about to coerce. Seeing that Pitt had thwarted his earlier schemes by the pacification of Reichenbach, he made covert advances to Russia, and that, too, at the time when Frederick William had expressly charged him to drop the Danzig-Thorn proposals. Opening his heart to the Russian envoy, Alopeus, he said that, if the Empress limited her claims to such a trifle (peu de chose) as Oczakoff and the land up to the Dniester, the two Powers could easily come to a friendly understanding, provided that Russia did not thwart the scheme just named. He then suggested that, as he was forbidden by the King to make that proposal, it would be well that it should come from St. Petersburg; in which case he would give it his hearty support. Indeed, he would find no difficulty in proving that the support of Russia and the gains aforesaid were far more desirable than the friendship of England, from whom Prussia had received nothing in return for all the services she had rendered.976 This is in germ the Second Partition of Poland. Betraying his own Sovereign and his allies, England and Poland, Hertzberg invited the Power which he was ostensibly threatening, to work her will on Turkey provided that she helped Prussia to secure the two coveted Polish districts. Even in that age of duplicity and violence conduct such as this bore the mark of infamy. It led to the fall of the schemer, but not until his treachery had sapped Pitt’s policy at the base.

As chance would have it, this insidious offer was made known at St. Petersburg on the very day when the British and Prussian envoys presented their demand for the restitution by Russia of all her recent conquests. The result can readily be imagined. Catharine, knowing the Prussian threats to be mere stage thunder, resolved to defy both Powers.977 To Whitworth the Russian Vice-Chancellor, Ostermann, behaved as much in sorrow as in anger. He complained of the unprecedentedly menacing tone adopted by the Allies. He declared that the Empress would never accept their terms, and would limit herself strictly to an acceptance of the good offices of England, “inasmuch as they may tend to procure for her the indemnity she requires—Oczakoff and its district.” Rather than forego this, she would commit her fortunes into the hand of Providence, braving all perils rather than tarnish the glory of a long and splendid reign by a craven surrender. Whitworth saw in this declaration a threat of war, but he little knew who was the special Providence of the situation. In fact he flattered himself that, despite the news of the capture of Ismail by the Russians, the Empress must give way under the pressure of the Triple Alliance. His verdict was as follows:

Whitworth’s forecast deserves to be borne in mind; for he, together with Ewart or Jackson at Berlin, and Hailes at Warsaw, was best qualified to judge of Russia’s power of resisting the British demands. Ewart, our able ambassador at Berlin, spent the winter of 1790–1 in England for the benefit of his health; and there are signs in his correspondence with Pitt that he fully explained to him and to other Ministers the importance of the issues at stake. He showed that, unless Turkey retained the Oczakoff district, both she and Poland would be liable to further encroachments from Russia. He declared that the British demand of a restitution of that district by Russia, sent off on 14th November, would be firmly supported at Berlin; and, he continued, “though the Empress of Russia may, and probably will, make some difficulties at first, there can be little doubt of her accepting the terms offered before the spring, since she never can venture to risk the consequences of a refusal.” Ewart, then, was more positive than Whitworth that Catharine would not risk a war with the Allies; and Pitt, with his sanguine spirit, doubtless had the same expectation. Ewart also opened up wide vistas in the diplomatic sphere. He advised Pitt to bring not only Turkey but also Poland into the Triple Alliance; for this step would at once overthrow the influence of the Bourbon Courts at Constantinople and that of Russia at Warsaw.979

Despite Grenville’s disapproval of the latter proposal, Pitt and Leeds decided to act on it; and, as we have seen, sent an offer of alliance to the Polish Court.980 The matter was of urgent importance; for rumours of Hertzberg’s underhand clutches at Danzig and Thorn had reached Warsaw and gave new strength to Muscovite intrigues. The prospect of an alliance with England was warmly welcomed by Polish patriots; and there is little doubt that, had Hertzberg loyally supported Pitt’s resolve to check the advance of Russia, a completely different turn would have been given to national developments in the East of Europe.

At the outset, the British Cabinet had reasons for trusting Hertzberg. Through the year 1790 he insisted on the need of strenuous action against Russia. It was his policy rather than that of Pitt, who at first took it up somewhat doubtfully. There is not a sentence in the British despatches which has a warlike ring. In the month of December the fleet was placed on a peace footing once more—a grave tactical error, for it lessened the effect of the British “Declaration” at St. Petersburg; and in the missive of 8th January to Jackson, the hope is distinctly expressed that war may be avoided. There were good grounds for such an expectation. Spain appeared to favour the cause of the Allies; and Leopold, at the end of a fruitless strife, might be expected to oppose the aggrandisement of Russia. Pitt therefore refused to prepare for war until the intentions of the doubtful States—Austria, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden—were better known.981

The horizon cleared but slowly. The Danish Court declared its intention of not breaking with the Empress, who had guaranteed to it the Duchy of Holstein. Austria, while assuring the Allies that she would not take up arms for Catharine, favoured her claims at the Conference of Sistova. As for Gustavus III, he seemed to be holding out for the highest bid for his alliance. In the middle of February he assured Liston (it was between the acts of the Opera) that he was not pledged to Russia, and might join the Allies on consideration of a subsidy of £1,500,000 for each campaign. Spain also balanced at times, as if her sole object were to restore her waning prestige; but on the whole she opposed the threatened entrance of Russia into Mediterranean politics, as France would probably have done had she been less torn by internal strifes.982

On the whole, then, the general situation favoured the Allies, provided that they were true to one another. But here lay the chief difficulty. The divergence of interests between the Maritime States and Prussia could be reconciled only by generous forbearance and whole-hearted good faith. Britons and Dutchmen wanted peace, provided that their navies and their commerce would not suffer from the stride of Russia southwards. The Court of Berlin cared less for commerce (except as a means of coercing Poland), but longed for a better frontier on the East. Unfortunately good faith was not then characteristic of Prussian policy. Jackson suspected Hertzberg of duplicity, but believed his power to be on the wane. Moreover, other counsellors, especially the latest favourite, Bischoffswerder, seemed true to the British alliance. The King probably intended to keep troth; but he either could not or did not prevent the secret intrigues of Hertzberg from undermining the efforts of the Allies both at Warsaw and St. Petersburg. One of the great mistakes of his reign was in not dismissing that statesman outright; but instead of that he merely ordered him once more to desist from his pet scheme, the acquisition of Danzig and Thorn.

The policy of the Court of Berlin now took one more turn underground. The King, weary of the haughty airs and restless ways of Hertzberg, and desirous of putting forth a feeler towards Vienna, sent Bischoffswerder on a secret mission to the Court of Vienna (February 1791). Hertzberg knew no more of its aims than did Frederick William of the intrigue of his Foreign Minister with the Russian Chancery. Thus Prussian policy was two-headed. The official head, while echoing the menacing tones of Pitt to Russia, secretly encouraged that Power to retain all its conquests, provided that Prussia acquired the two coveted towns on the Vistula; and Bischoffswerder sought to allure the Emperor. The King’s favourite (a poor Saxon nobleman who had won his way at Court by chameleonic subservience to all the royal moods) was charged to confer direct with Leopold, and to propose that the two States should mutually guarantee their present possessions and aim at excluding Russian influence from Poland. He was also to suggest the peaceable acquisition by Prussia of Danzig and Thorn in exchange for commercial privileges granted to the Poles.983 Leopold II smiled so graciously on these proposals as to elicit from the envoy the ecstatic description: “Quelle bonté; quelle clarté: et quelle sérénité!” This benignity enticed Bischoffswerder on to make the singular offer that, if the Emperor granted Prussia her heart’s desire, she on her side would not persist in applying the strict status quo against Austria at Sistova.

Even this enticing proposal did not dissolve either the hatred of Kaunitz for Prussia or the determination of Leopold to favour Catharine. Both the Emperor and his Chancellor saw that Prussia was seeking to set them against Russia; and policy prompted them to work for a war between those two Powers.984 No suspicion of these hidden motives ruffled the equanimity of the amateur diplomatist, who flattered himself that he had won over Leopold and assured the isolation of Russia. Full blown with pride he returned to Berlin, and advocated energetic measures against Russia, the result of which will appear in due course.985

We must now return to London in order to sift somewhat closely the evidence which came in from various quarters. In a question of so much importance and complexity, which influenced the fate of the East as well as the career of Pitt, we cannot proceed too cautiously; and the inductive method here attempted seems to be the only means of avoiding hasty decisions, and of re-constructing the history of the crisis.

The Dutch, as might be expected, were far less eager than Prussia for the humbling of Catharine’s pride, especially as they had recently lent her a considerable sum of money. Lord Auckland, our envoy at The Hague, entered into their views and set them forth with his usual ability. From the beginning of this question he opposed the energetic measures recommended by Ewart; and certain expressions in his letters smack of personal dislike to that ambassador.986 His position at The Hague kept him in touch with the British couriers passing through to the northern and eastern capitals; and his very voluminous papers (a small part only of which has seen the light) yield proofs of his activity in urging Pitt and the Duke of Leeds to patch matters up with Russia. In a letter of 2nd February 1791, to Huber, he deprecates any attempt to coerce Russia, even though it may be crowned by success:

In the following letter, dated The Hague, 7th March, he sought to win over Lord Grenville to his views:

Auckland’s chief opponent, Ewart, now had the ear of the Cabinet. On 8th March he frankly informed Auckland that his health had so far recovered as to permit him to return to Berlin; but he believed his duty to lie in London where he frequently saw the chief Ministers. He added that the meeting of the Cabinet, which was to decide as to the means of coercing Russia, would take place very shortly; further, that Ministers “have admitted my statement of facts to be just; so that the whole can be reduced to a simple calculation. I can venture to assure your Lordship in the most positive manner that nothing is to be apprehended from the present state of the Prussian Cabinet; and I will answer for its being much better than ever it was, provided we go on.”989 Clearly, then, Ewart had some difficulty in convincing Pitt and his colleagues that Russia would give way if the Allies showed a determined front.

Pitt himself was now beset by doubts whether the Oczakoff district was worth the risk of a war. As will shortly appear, Catharine had left the extent of her territorial demands discreetly vague, so that the Whigs were able to assert that Russia wanted merely the barren strip of land around Oczakoff. The town itself was held to be a valuable possession because it commanded the entrance to the large estuary called the Liman, which is formed by the Rivers Dnieper and Bug. Auckland, however, brought to judgement an able witness, a Dutch admiral, Kingsbergen, who, after serving in the Russian navy several years in those waters, declared that Oczakoff was of little importance either to the Turks or the Russians. Pitt took up this question with alacrity, and on 7th March wrote to Auckland for definite answers to these inquiries. Whether the Turks, if they resumed possession of Oczakoff, could hinder the junction of Russian squadrons sailing from Kherson and Sevastopol, and thereby hamper the preparations for an attack on Constantinople? Whether the retention of Oczakoff by Russia would not enable her to command the southern exit of Polish commerce, namely, down the River Dniester to the Black Sea? Also, whether Oczakoff could not be so strengthened (rumour described it as in part demolished) as once again to defy a Russian attack?990

To these searching questions Admiral Kingsbergen made the following replies. Oczakoff did not command the entrance to the Liman, as that was four cannon-shot wide, and the navigable channel was nearer to the Kinburn, or Russian, side than to Oczakoff. Neither of these places was a port; and the value of Kherson (the naval station on the Dnieper) was much overrated. Russia would do well to spend all her energies on Sevastopol or Balaclava, to which places she could easily bring all the naval stores from the Don or Dnieper district. Those ports would be the best starting points for an attack on Constantinople, which the Turks, even if masters of Oczakoff, could in no wise prevent. When he (Kingsbergen) in 1773 prepared a plan for attacking Constantinople he took little thought of the Turkish garrison at Oczakoff. Indeed that town must always be isolated and a source of expense, even of danger, to the Porte. The admiral felt unable to say whether the cession of Oczakoff and its district to Russia would adversely affect the trade of Poland to the Black Sea, and he opined that it would not much extend the power and population of Russia in the south.991

In this last conjecture the admiral was wholly wrong. We can now see that the acquisition by Russia of the valuable territory in question, on which now stands the port of Odessa, opened up to her almost boundless possibilities of controlling the Balkan Peninsula and of strangling Poland. On the naval matters referred to by Pitt, Kingsbergen’s answer bore the stamp of experience and authority. It proved that Oczakoff in itself was of little worth; but it did not prove that the whole district up to the Dniester was equally valueless.

We have proof of Pitt’s anxiety to probe this question thoroughly. In the Pitt MSS. is a long memorandum which aims at showing that the growth of Russia’s power and trade in the Baltic was to our advantage, as she supplied us with much needed naval stores, through a sea over which we could exercise some measure of control. But her progress to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean was greatly to be deprecated; for she would then furnish those stores to our rivals, France and Spain, through ports which were never blocked by ice. Further, if she gained the Oczakoff district, she could shut out the trade of the Poles from the Black Sea, while extending her own markets through the Levant and the Mediterranean, to our detriment. The prospects of her gaining Constantinople are also dwelt upon; and the conclusion of the anonymous writer is that we ought at all costs to hinder her southward march, even while we hailed her as a friend in the Baltic.992 Doubts of various kinds also beset the mind of the Duke of Leeds. On 11th March he wrote thus to Auckland:

Nothing is more singular in this letter than the confession of the Foreign Minister that he does not know exactly what extent of land the Empress demands—a matter infinitely favourable to the Opposition in Parliament. Certainly the Duke of Leeds and Whitworth had not manœuvred skilfully in leaving this all-important question in doubt.

To resume, then, we find that neither Pitt nor his colleague knew the extent of the Czarina’s demands, which, at the request of Prussia, they were about to oppose; that Leeds secretly doubted the wisdom of this policy; that Pitt found out by 19th March the comparative unimportance of Oczakoff itself, however valuable the whole territory might be to Polish merchants; that the Dutch were most reluctant to take any part in the dispute; that Austria was playing a dilatory and threatening game at Sistova; and last, but not least, that Prussian policy began to show signs of weakness and wavering.994

Now, the crux of the whole question was at Berlin. Jackson had not fathomed the depths of Hertzberg’s duplicity. He did not know of his having prompted Russia to suggest to Frederick William a secret bargain at the expense of Poland; but on 6th March he stated that Danzig and Thorn still held the first place in that statesman’s thoughts, despite the express veto of his master. The Prussian Minister sought to justify his behaviour by assuring Jackson that, in case of a war with Russia, Leopold would step in and dictate his terms to Prussia as a revenge for her treatment of him at Reichenbach. Accordingly, Hertzberg refused to take comfort from Jackson’s remark that the splendid army of Prussia (numbering 208,000 effectives) would be a match for the exhausted and badly led forces of the two Empires, distracted as they would be by the efforts of the Ottomans in the south. He also affected great concern lest England should play him false by sending only a small fleet into the Baltic. But Jackson saw, rightly enough, that the two phantoms, a triumphant Austria and a skeleton British fleet, were conjured up merely as an excuse for doubling back to the forbidden fruit—Danzig and Thorn. Hertzberg finally suggested the advisability of toning down the allied demands in order to mollify the Czarina.995 Thus the first suggestion to this effect came, not from Pitt or Auckland, but from the man who had first advised the use of coercive measures against Russia. Is it surprising, then, that up to 20th March 1791 Pitt declined to take any vigorous steps against Catharine? The whole trend of events prescribed caution and delay until the policy of Prussia showed signs of consistency and firmness. But now the whole situation was suddenly to change owing to causes which must be set forth in the following chapter.