King Charles was responding to a request from Czarina Catherine the Great to provide vocabularies of all the languages spoken in his realms, in order to develop a monumental dictionary of all the languages of the world. The dictionary was in fact published, but the compilers published it in alphabetical order, making it nearly impossible to consult.
To fulfill Catherine the Great's need for language information across her domains, King Charles gathered vocabulary data and intended to compile an extensive dictionary of world languages. Unfortunately, when the dictionary was released, it was arranged alphabetically, making it impractical to consult efficiently.