There are Russians settled upon all the principal islands between Oonalashka and Kamtschatka, for the sole purpose of collecting furs.  Their great object is the sea-beaver or otter.  I never heard them enquire after any other animal; though those, whose skins are of inferior value, are also made part of their cargoes.  I never thought to ask how long they have had a settlement upon Oonalashka, and the neighbouring isles; but to judge from the great subjection the natives are under, this cannot be of a very late date.[14] All these furriers are relieved, from time to time, by others.  Those we met with arrived here from Okotsk, in 1776, and are to return in 1781; so that their stay at the island will be four years at least.[15]

[Footnote 14:  The Russians began to frequent Oonalashka in 1762.  See Coxe’s Russian Discoveries, ch. viii. p. 80.—­D.]

[Footnote 15:  Captain Cook says nothing of the condition of these furriers, and probably indeed knew nothing of it.  According to Krusenstern, who cannot be supposed to seek for occasion to censure his countrymen, it is wretched in the extreme.  He himself admits that his transcript, though softened down from his original notes made at the time, will nevertheless expose him to the anger of a number of persons for whom, in other respects, he entertains the highest regard.  But one may question if any of the accounts that have been given of the African slave-trade produce greater horror than this modified description occasions.  The reader must not imagine that the physical difficulties of the climate constitute the misery of these deluded beings.  These are certainly very formidable, and of themselves present a sufficient barrier to the enjoyment of any thing bearing the shape of comfort.  But evils of another sort, arising from avarice and the abuse of power, are so galling, as would induce a man “to fly from even the most beautiful and the best-gifted country,” if his residence in it subjected him to their tyranny.  The agents of the Russian-American Company, as the reader will instantly divine, are chargeable with the enormous barbarity and injustice to which these remarks apply; and the fearless seaman does not scruple to expose them to public indignation, in consequence.  We shall communicate a few particulars, referring those who desire more information on the subject to the work itself.  The persons who engage in the Company’s service, we are informed, are vagabonds and adventurers,—­but not criminals, be it remembered,—­to whom the fabulous reports of the state of affluence to be easily attained, which are industriously circulated, operate as an incentive to sail to America in the condition of Promiischleniks, a word originally signifying any who carry on a trade, but here, as it is the only occupation, restricted to those who collect furs.  Their misery commences with their voyage, which is generally performed in vessels so exceedingly crowded, that a large proportion