Catharine the Second this power had
availed itself of the war against France in the west to carry out its
own projects of conquest in eastern Europe; and, as we have seen, Pitt
had watched its advance at the opening of the Revolution with far
greater dread than the movements in France. It was in fact the need
which the two German states felt of balancing the Russian annexations in
Poland by annexations of their own which had paralysed their armies on
the Rhine and saved France at the moment of her greatest danger in 1793.
It is probable that the Directory still counted on the persistence of
Russia in a similar policy, and believed that Catharine would see in
their attack on Egypt and the Turks only a fresh opportunity for
conquests on the Danube. But the sudden greatness of France had warned
Russia that its policy of selfishness had been carried too far. It had
allowed the Republic to tower into supremacy over the Continent, and if
once such a supremacy was firmly established it would prove a fatal
obstacle to the Russian advance. France would again, as under the
monarchy, aim at the restoration of Poland; she would again bar the way
to Constantinople; and her action would be backed by the weight of all
western Europe, which had been thrown into her scale by the policy of
the very state she defied. To avert such a result it was necessary to
restore that balance of the Continent by which France and the German
powers held one another in check; and with a view to this restoration
Russia suddenly declared itself an enemy of France. Catharine's
successor, the Czar Paul, set aside the overtures of the Directory. A
close alliance was formed with Austria, and while an Imperial army
gathered on the Bavarian frontier Russian troops hurried to the west.

[Sidenote: The Union with Ireland.]

The appearance of this new element in the struggle changed its whole
conditions; and it was with renewed hope that Pitt lavished subsidies on
the two allies at the close of 1798. But his preparations for the new
strife were far from being limited to efforts abroad. In England he had
found fresh resources in an Income-Tax, from which he anticipated an
annual return of ten millions. Heavy as the tax was, and it amounted to
ten per cent on all incomes above L200 a year, the dogged resolution of
the people to fight on was seen in the absence of all opposition to
this proposal. What was of even greater importance was to remove all
chance of fresh d