 Recalled early in 1788, he was in the following August nominated envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg, a post which he held for nearly twelve years.Whitworth was well received by Catherine II, who was then at war with Turkey, but the harmony between the two countries was disturbed during the winter of 1790–1 by William Pitt's subscription to the view of the Prussian government that the three allies (Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands) could not with impunity allow the balance of power in Eastern Europe to be disturbed.Pitt hoped by a menace of sending a British fleet to the Baltic to constrain Russia to make restitution of its chief conquest, Oczakow and the adjoining territory as far as the Dniester, and thus to realise his idea of confining the ambition of Russia in the south-east as well as that of France in the north-west portion of Europe.