THE END OF THE RUSSIAN PROTECTORATE 399
In 1787, learning of Russia's international troubles, Stanislaw-August tried to
exploit the situation to Poland's advantage. Having invited the Empress
Catherine and Prince Potemkin to the royal palace at Kaniow on the Dnieper,
he proposed a straightforward political bargain. In return for a Russo-Polish
Alliance against the Turks, he pressed the Empress to allow him to expand the
Polish Army and to share in the expected profits of the Black Sea Trade. In the
expectation of a positive response, the Polish Sejm was ordered to assemble in
October 1788. The Empress's response, however, was negative. Assured that the
Republic's disaffected Hetmans, Branicki, Rzewuski, and Potocki, would sup-
port her Turkish campaigns unconditionally, the Empress saw no reason to
bother herself with the King's proposals. As always, Russia had nothing to gain
by condoning Polish reforms, and Poland had nothing to offer by way of induce-
ments. 'It is necessary to dismiss the personal concerns of the King and his
Ministers', Catherine wrote in a private letter, 'and to keep the constitution as
it is now. For truth to tell, there is no need or benefit for Russia in Poland becom-
ing more active.^16 A clearer appreciation of the political realities could not be
imagined. The British Minister in Warsaw, writing on 7 July 1788, reached the
same conclusions:
Since the Partition till this very day, Poland possesses neither her own history nor politi-
cally independent existence. Deprived of trade, having not a single external ally, pos-
sessing neither sufficient internal strength nor revenues enabling emancipation from
foreign rule, squeezed by three powerful monarchies on all sides, she seems to be waiting
in silence for a sentence that will bring about her emptiness ... This is the fate of a coun-
try which, under clever government, could easily rank among the first powers of Europe
...^17
The ultimate consequences of the King's demarche, though entirely logical,
were not foreseen at the time. The Polish Sejm, originally convoked to approve
the projected Russo-Polish Alliance, turned instead to the associated proposals
of Reform. An assembly which had served for decades as the conveyor-belt of
Russian policies seized its chance to act as the launching-pad of political libera-
tion. Whilst the Russian cat was away at the Turkish War, the Polish mice began
to play with fire. In the four years 1788-91, the reformers of the Sejm abolished
all those constraints, which had perpetuated the Republic's bondage. By so
doing, they undermined the foundations of the Russian protectorate in Poland,
and overturned the system which had prevailed ever since the baleful settlement
of 1717. It was inevitable that the Russian Government, and the Russians' Polish
clients, would intervene at the earliest opportunity - as they surely did. Thus,
the King's ingenuous attempt to organize a genuine alliance with Russia gave
rise to the Four Years' Sejm: the Sejm to the Constitution of 3 May; the
Constitution to the Confederation of Targowica; the Confederation to
the Russo-Polish War of 1791-2; the War to the Second Partition of 1793; the
Partition to Kosciuszko's National Rising of 1794; the Rising to the Third
Partition and the destruction of the state. In circumstances where the least