For some time after these expeditions, by which Russia achieved the
palm of discovery, imperial enterprise in those seas slumbered. The
knowledge already acquired was continued and confirmed only by private
individuals, who were led there in quest of furs. In 1745 the Aleutian
Islands were discovered by an adventurer in search of sea-otters.
In successive voyages all these islands were visited for similar
purposes. Among these was Oonalaska, the principal of the group of Fox
Islands, constituting a continuation of the Aleutian Islands, whose
inhabitants and productions were minutely described. In 1768 private
enterprise was superseded by an expedition ordered by the Empress
Catharine, which, leaving Kamtchatka, explored this whole archipelago
and the peninsula of Alaska, which to the islanders stood for the whole
continent. Shortly afterwards, all these discoveries, beginning with
those of Behring and Tschirikoff, were verified by the great English
navigator, Captain Cook. In 1778 he sailed along the northwestern
coast, “near where Tschirikoff anchored in 1741”; then again in sight
of mountains “wholly covered with snow from the highest summit down
to the sea-coast,” with “the summit of an elevated mountain above the
horizon,” which he supposed to be the Mount St. Elias of Behring; then
by the very anchorage of Behring; then among the islands through which
Behring zigzagged, and along the coast by the island of St. Lawrence,
until arrested by ice. If any doubt existed with regard to Russian
discoveries, it was removed by the authentic report of this navigator,
who shed such a flood of light upon the geography of the whole region.
Such from the beginning is the title of Russia, dating at least from
1741. I have not stopped to quote volume and page, but I beg to be
understood as following approved authorities, and I refer especially
to the Russian work of Müller, already cited, on the “Voyages from
Asia to America,” the volume of Coxe on “Russian Discoveries,” with
its supplement on the “Comparative View of the Russian Discoveries,”
the volume of Sir John Barrow on “Voyages into the Arctic Regions,”
Burney’s “Northeastern Voyages,” and the third voyage of Captain Cook,
unhappily interrupted by his tragical death from the natives of the
Sandwich Islands, but not until after the exploration of this coast.
There were at least four other Russian expeditions, by which this title
was confirmed, if it needed any confirmation. The first was ordered by
the Empress Catharine, in 1785. It was under the command of Commodore
Billings, an Englishman in the service of Russia, and was narrated from
the original papers by Martin Sauer, secretary of the expedition. In
the instructions from the Admiralty at St. Petersburg the Commodore was
directed to take possession of “such coasts and islands as he shall
first discover, whether inhabited or not, that cannot be disputed,
and are not yet subject to any European power, with consent of the
inhabitants, if any”; and this was to be accomplished by setting up
“posts marked with the arms of Russia, with letters indicating the time
of discovery, a short account of the people, their voluntary submission
to the Russian sovereignty, and that this was done under the glorious
reign of the great Catharine the Second.”[3] The next was in 1803-6,
in the interest of the Russian American Company, with two ships, one
under the command of Captain Krusenstern, and the other of Captain
Lisiansky, of the Russian navy. It was the first Russian voyage round
the world, and lasted three years. During its progress, Lisiansky
visited the northwest coast of America, and especially Sitka and the
island of Kadiak. Still another enterprise, organized by the celebrated
minister Count Romanzoff, and at his expense, left Russia in 1815,
under the command of Lieutenant Kotzebue, an officer of the Russian
navy, and son of the German dramatist, whose assassination darkened the
return of the son from his long voyage. It is enough for the present
to say of this expedition that it has left its honorable traces on the
coast even as far as the Frozen Ocean. There remains the enterprise
of Lütke, at the time captain, and afterward admiral in the Russian
navy, which was a voyage of circumnavigation, embracing especially the
Russian possessions, commenced in 1826, and described in French with
instructive fulness. With him sailed the German naturalist Kittlitz,
who has done so much to illustrate the natural history of this region.