This book cannot pretend to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject with which it deals: the growth in Britain of knowledge of and ideas about Russia in the period from the voyage of Willoughby and Chancellor to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. More complete study of the pamphlets, periodicals, and correspondence of the seventeenth and above all the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries would undoubtedly produce additional evidence, though I doubt whether it would lead me to modify seriously the arguments I attempt to put forward. Nor is it a systematic account of the political and commercial relations between the two countries during these two and a half centuries. These have been touched on only so far as seemed necessary to indicate the background against which the British picture of Russia developed, and some knowledge of the more important political developments of the period has been taken for granted. I hope nevertheless that the book may be of interest, and not to historians alone, as a contribution to the study of a subject of some importance which has hitherto attracted comparatively little attention from scholars in Great Britain. In writing it I have inevitably incurred debts of gratitude to a number of people. Indirectly it owes its existence to Richard Pares, who ten years ago first encouraged me to become interested in the Russian language and Russian history. More immediately, I am indebted to Professor D. B. Horn, Dr. R. M. Hatton, Dr. L. S. Loewenson and Dr. G. H. Bolsover, all of whom have read it in whole or in part and suggested improvements. Above all I owe a debt to my wife, on whose time and patience I have made great claims. It is scarcely necessary to add that I alone am responsible for any errors or omissions the book may contain. Chapters Two and Nine have already appeared in a somewhat different form in the issues of the Slavonic and East European Review for December 1954 and June 1956. Parts of Chapter Three were used in an article published in the American Slavic and East European Review in April 1954. I must express my thanks to the editors and publishers of these periodicals for allowing me to make use of this material. The British discovery of Russia was thus a slow and uneven process. Not until the reign of Peter I did the country become an element of importance in the political outlook of the educated Englishman. Not until the 1790's did Anglo- Russian relations become the subject of sustained and thoughtful debate. From the days of Ivan {IV} to those of the French Revolution trade remained in the eyes of the majority of Englishmen the most important and most durable link between the two states. This somewhat narrow and matter-of-fact attitude meant that in the century and a half which followed the death of Elizabeth there was in Britain little disinterested curiosity about Russian affairs and little inclination to take an interest in them for their own sake. Signs of such a curiosity and such an interest can be seen from the visit of Peter I onwards, but not for another two generations do these feelings become sustained and important. Provided that hemp, masts, timber and other necessary imports continued to flow smoothly from St. Petersburg and Riga to British ports, and that Russia did not appear to threaten any important political interest of Great Britain, most people were prepared until very late in the eighteenth century to take the country for granted as a powerful but remote state on the periphery of Europe, not altogether uninteresting, but hardly worthy of the attention paid to France, Italy or the Netherlands. A political conflict between the two countries, a temporary disturbance to the flow of trade, a particularly spectacular internal upheaval in Russia, might for a moment ruffle this smooth surface of acceptance. But not until the 1790's were events able to provoke many people into asking really searching questions about the essential nature of Russia and her relationship to Europe. (Anderson's foreword and conclusion)