Thus passed away this woman, who, by constant intrigues and many wars, in spite of her wickedness, had well defended the confines of her empire, and above all she had destroyed the power of Poland by a second and third partition of this unhappy country, through playing by turns into the hands of France, Prussia and Austria. No sovereign since Ivan the Terrible had extended the frontier of the empire by such conquests. She had given for Russia her boundaries at the Niemen, the Dniester and the Black Sea.
During her reign, by her friendship for John Paul Jones, the American privateer, and through the connivance of Frederick of Prussia, she had encouraged the course of France toward the revolution of the British colonies in America, and thus, indirectly, aided the establishment of the government of the United States.
Thus, while for the most part we find her character only that which is detestable in personal and political morality, the people of this country cannot forget that perhaps she played an important part in the birth of this republic, which has stood for more than a century and a quarter as the type of personal, political and religious freedom throughout the world.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
