ABSTRACT
The emergence of Russia under Peter the Great was the first step towards an entirely new orientation of European politics, and initiated a new phase in the relations of Russia and Great Britain. Poland was still, as it had been for centuries, the great outpost of Catholicism in Eastern Europe, though supremacy in the Baltic had passed to Sweden. Turkey was naturally perturbed by the advance of Russia and England was prompted to stir up the Turks to attack the Russians, and frustrate the Tsar's ambition. The Tsar had sent several expeditions from 1715 onwards to explore the country and to investigate political and economic conditions in the district between the Black Sea and the Caspian. A more immediate result of the Treaty of Nystadt was to free Peter's hands for the execution of a project which for some time he had been contemplating—the restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne.
