L29/559/46

Harris, St. Petersburg to Grantham (private) Mr Capper, an English merchant gives Harris the opportunity of writing to Grantham by a safe conveyance. Harris has no intelligence that he has not sent by post. Gives his private sentiments: The general political interests of Europe seem to mark out Austria as a rival and Prussia as a friend to France. It was the King of Prussia who induced the Empress to negate every proposal Britain made of alliance in 1778. He prevented her sending a fleet in August 1779 and it was he who taught the Empress to believe "we were haughty, cold & supercilious; That we treated her with less attention & respect than the Bourbons; That we oppressed her Trade, and were a selfish tyrannical Nation". He also attempted to make the Empress believe that Harris was an agent employed to burn the Russian Fleet. Harris has hinted all this to Count Goertz. Goertz has confessed that the first point in his instructions when he was sent to the Russian Court was to unite the Russian Court with that of France and "embroil it" with that of England. Harris suspects Goertz and his royal master are "playing false". The information Goertz has given Harris has been erroneous. The dispatches from Potsdam were drawn up in such a way "that they might as well read to the French Minister as to me; and it is against the Emperor and Austria alone that the King of Prussia declaims". There is mention in the dispatches of an alliance. The Russian court is closely united with that of Vienna. The two Imperial Sovereigns are "bent on a project...which will tighten this bond". This will break up the alliance between France and Austria and in the end "set those two Courts at variance - France and Austria at variance, Prussia & England must be in opposite interests". This event is so near that an alliance with Prussia must "become useless, almost as soon as it could be signed". Harris thinks Britain should keep aloof until the "connections of the two Imperial Courts manifest themselves more clearly".

18, 29 Jan 1783

From: 1778 To: 1783

item

Lucas,
Grantham, Thomas Robinson, 2nd Baron,
Harris, James,
Capper,
Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia,
Bourbon,
Goertz

political correspondence, ambassador, Foreign Secretary, letters, merchant, general royalty, naval ships, general trade & industry, agent, Austrians, Prussians, French, Russians, St.Petersburg, Europe, Austria, Prussia, France, Russia, Britain, England, Potsdam, Vienna