Blackwell Reference Online

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Soviet historians describe the American “bourgeois” revolution as above all a war for national independence. That view prevailed also in the government of Catherine II (1762–96) and among those of her subjects who could follow public affairs. This is one reason for the tolerant, even benign, official and non-official reactions to American events. Others were their remoteness from Russia and the opportunities they presented to her diplomacy and trade. Although relations between Russia and Britain were friendly, the request George III made in 1775 for 20,000 Russian troops to be sent to America was refused by Catherine and her advisers. They had just put down the Pugachcv rebellion and ended a long war with Turkey, and were not averse to seeing Britain embroiled in a distant conflict which the Empress might arbitrate with benefit to her prestige and influence. It was a conflict, moreover, for which the intransigence of the English was blamed and which they were not believed certain to win. “Patient neutrality” was the course adopted while awaiting the outcome of the war and profiting from the increase in trade it brought. In 1780, patient neutrality turned into “armed neutrality.” Supported by other states whose vessels the British had seized, Russia declared that neutral ships might freely sail to belligerents' ports; that enemy goods in neutral ships, except war contraband, were ... log in or subscribe to read full text