Although believing strongly that the experience and expertise gained by young Russian officers serving with the British navy was ultimately of greater value than the presence of British officers serving in the Russian navy, Count Semen Vorontsov (the Russian ambassador in London during the last years of Catherine's reign) was more than ready to acknowledge the considerable contribution made by British officers. His statement that ‘notre service, depuis le chevalier Knowles et surtout par les soins de l'amiral Greigh, etait sur le pied anglais’, made in the wake of the Russian naval victories in 1788–91 over Swede and Turk, recognised, moreover, the crucial organisational and inspirational role that Knowles and Greig in particular had fulfilled. In less than 100 years a Russian navy had been created out of nothing and at virtually every stage in its evolution and in almost every aspect of its activities a British contribution was apparent.

One hundred years (plus a few months) separated the death of Admiral Samuel Greig in October 1788 from the discovery by the young Peter I in June 1688 of a dilapidated little boat on the Romanov estate of Izmailovo. This was the boat that was to be immortalised as ‘the grandfather of the Russian fleet’. Moreover, it was, according to the introduction that Peter himself wrote for the Naval Regulation (Morskoi ustav) of 1720, ‘an English boat’, possessing the wondrous advantages of sailing against the wind. Whether the boat was indeed English – and legend subsequently embroidered the account to suggest that it had been a gift from Elizabeth I to Ivan IV – or of English design cannot be established, but Peter's informant was Franz Timmermann, a Dutchman.