Distrust of Russia intensified in 1792 when a new war broke out, the Polish-Russian War; the resulting capitulation of Polish forces leading to a second partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a large tranche of Poland’s eastern provinces now occupied by the Russian army. A complete liquidation of the Commonwealth, following an uprising against the occupiers, took place in 1795, known as the third partition, the remainder of Poland divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia. While these actions simply confirmed Tory politicians in their suspicions that Russia was seeking a continuous and unrestricted programme of expansion, the liquidation of Poland, at a time when there was a new and more egalitarian constitution with an effective constitutional monarchy, also angered the Whigs. Radical Whig MP Samuel Whitbread, for one, denounced the occupation as one that would return Poland to ‘feudal degradation and servility’ through Russia plundering an already ‘mutilated and oppressed country’. Yet, no action on this occasion was considered by the British government, for while Pitt might now have the support of the opposition, a war with Revolutionary France was stretching Britain’s naval resources to dangerous levels, making it even more imperative that Russia be maintained as an ally. In the war against Revolutionary France, which for Britain broke out in February 1793, the resources demanded from Russia in the form of naval stores were to reach unprecedented levels. It was a situation that the British government was forced to accept, having established no large-scale alternative supply source. In one other area Britain was to be helped by Russia; warships of the Imperial Navy worked alongside those of the Royal Navy in the home waters around the British Isles, and in so doing allowed British warships long at sea to be relieved and dry docked for critical repairs. In the Mediterranean, from 1798, warships of the British and Russian navies worked alongside each other, ensuring a joint supremacy in waters that might otherwise have been dominated by the French.