ABSTRACT
The antagonism between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, though fundamentally arising from the causes enumerated by Mr. Otto Hoetzsch, was, in the eighteenth century, due more directly to the obstacles presented by Turkey to the realization of Russia's ambitions. In the opening phase of the American War of Independence the sympathies of the northern Powers, especially of Russia, were on the side of England. So far-reaching were the terms of the famous treaty that a distinguished English jurist once declared that all the great treaties concluded between the two Powers during the next half-century were only commentaries upon the text of Kutschuk-Kainardji. The terms of the Treaty of Kainardji, of the Convention Explicative of 1779 and of the Commercial Treaty of 1783 were confirmed; the Porte recovered the Principalities, but again on the specific condition that the stipulations contained in the preceding treaties were fulfilled.
