Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century

24 This letter, as well as other reports from British diplomats in Russia in 1736-39, was published, with the permission of the British Government, in full in Sbornik imperatorskogo rasshogo istoricheskogo obshchestvti (Records of the imperial Russian Historical Society), St. Petersburg, 1892, Vol. 80, pp. 13-19, from the original in the Public Record Office of Great Britain.

25 Marx is referring to the mediation offered by Britain and Holland in the Russo-Turkish war of 1735-39; it was rejected by Russia.

26 An allusion to the Union of Kalmar (1397-1523) — it personal union of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland) and Sweden (with Finland) tinder Danish kings. In the fifteenth century Sweden virtually withdrew from the union. Christian II of Denmark made an attempt to restore his rule over Sweden by staging a massacre in Stockholm in November 1520 (this came to be called “the blood-bath of Stockholm”). This caused a popular uprising led by Gustavus Eriksson (Gustavus Vasa) and as a result Sweden was restored as a state.

27 Marx is referring to a plan, drawn up by Russian diplomats in the 1760s, to unite the North-European states of Russia, Prussia, England, Denmark, Sweden and Poland. It came to be known as “the grand scheme uniting the Powers of the North” or the Northern Alliance, and was to be directed against France and Austria. Despite a number of treaties concluded by Russia (a defensive treaty with Prussia, 1764; a defensive treaty with Denmark, 1765; and a trade agreement with Great Britain, 1766), the project was not implemented because Prussia and England opposed it and Russia’s foreign policy underwent some changes after the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-74.

28 Presumably a reference to the preparation of the Russo-Prussian Treaty of Alliance which Peter III and Frederick II concluded on April 24 (May 5), 1762 during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63). Frederick II received back all of his lands which had been conquered by Russian troops. Sir George Macartney’s information was inaccurate: at that time Count Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin was relieved of his diplomatic duties.

29 Marx is quoting the words of Horace Walpole and the statements by the Earl of Sandwich and William Pitt the Younger mentioned below according to T. S. Hughes’ The History of England, from the Accession of George III, 1760, to the Accession of Queen Victoria, 1837 Third edition. London, 1846, Vol. 1, p. 183; Vol. If, pp. 146, 261; Vol. III, p. 124.

30 This letter was published in Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury; containing an account of his missions to the courts of Madrid, Frederick the Great, Catherine the Second, and the Hague, and his special missions to Berlin, Brunswick, and the French Republic. Edited by his grandson, the Third Earl. Vol. I, London, 1844, pp. 528-35.