Επιστολή Αρ. 11 του Richard Oakes προς τον William Eden στο Λονδίνο (Αγία Πετρούπολη, 28 Φεβρουαρίου/11 Μαρτίου 1777), με την οποία μεταξύ άλλων ενημερώνει το Λονδίνο για το σχέδιο της Αικατερίνης να στείλει εμπορικά πλοία στην Μαύρη Θάλασσα, που στην ουσία όμως θα χρησιμεύσουν για την συγκρότηση ενός ισχυρού ρωσικού πολεμικού στόλου στην Μαύρη Θάλασσα, τέτοιου που θα επιτρέψει μία επιτυχή επιχείρηση εναντίον της πρωτεύουσας της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας. Συγκεκριμένα, ο Oakes γράφει:

Though I am too well acquainted with the excellent discernment of the nobleman to whom my reports are submitted, to have much apprehension of misleading by reasoning of mine, yet I conceive it becomes me, with regard to the scene immediately before me, to deal as much in facts and as little in conjectures as possible. At the present moment, however, a too cautious silence would perhaps be reprehensive at least if we may depend upon advices from the ministers of other courts at Constantinople, which concur in justifying Monsr. Stakieff’s alarm.

The Russian ministry seem, notwithstanding as far as can be judged from every appearance and from the language held, to entertain little doubt of the differences being settled by negotiation; but I cannot help being of opinion, that though the clouds, which impend, may for the present blow over, the storm must burst are long. Besides the independence of Crimea, which must ever be the source and pretext of contention, the increasing the Russian naval strength on the Black Sea, and the attempt to carry frigates thither by way of the Bosphorus, give no unreasonable cause of alarm to the Turks. – The politic-commercial speculation of sending frigates as merchant-men to Constantinople was the joint scheme of the Procurator General and Count Ivan Czernichew against the opinion of Monsr. Panin; and it does not seem an improbable surmise, that the plan of this court was, and is, to establish such a superior marine on the Black Sea, as to be able, in case of a rupture, to give the first blow at the Capital of the Turkish dominions. Such a stroke was meditated in the course of the last war; and there can be but little doubt that it would have been successful had not the Empress been deceived in the report made to Her of the strength of Her fleet on the Danube; but it may be more chimerical at present that the Turks are more at leisure to guard against such an enterprise. […]