17?!). THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 20.5 



next morning the tobacco was divided between the 

 crews of the two ships, three pounds being allotted 

 to every man that chewed or smoked tobacco, and 

 one pound to those that did not. 



I have before mentioned, that Major Behm had 

 resigned the command of Kamtschatka, and intended 

 to set out in a short time for Petersburg ; and he now 

 offered to charge himself with any dispatches we 

 might trust to his care. This was an opportunity not 

 to be neglected; and accordingly Captain Gierke 

 acquainted him, that he would take the liberty of 

 sending by him some papers relating to our voyage, 

 to be delivered to our ambassador at the Russian 

 court. Our first intentions were to send only a small 

 journal of our proceedings ; but afterward Captain 

 Clerke being persuaded that the whole account of 

 our discoveries might safely be trusted to a person 

 who had given such striking proofs both of his public 

 and private virtues ; and considering that we had a 

 very hazardous part of the voyage still to undertake, 

 determined to send, by him, the whole of the journal 

 of our late commander, with that part of his own, 

 which completed the period from Captain Cook's 

 death, till our arrival at Kamtschatka; together with 

 a chart of all our discoveries. Mr. Bayly and myself, 

 thought it also proper to send a general account of 

 our proceedings to the board of longitude; by which 

 precautions, if any misfortune had afterward befallen 

 us, the Admiralty would have been in possession of a 

 complete history of the principal facts of our voyage. 

 It was also determined, that a smaller packet should be 

 sent by an express fromOkotsk, which, the major said, 

 if he was fortunate in his passage to that port, would 

 reach Petersburg by December, and that he himself 

 should be there in February or March. 



During the three following days, the major was 

 entertained alternately in the two ships, in the best 

 manner we were able. On the 25th, he took his 

 leave, and was saluted with thirteen guns; and the 



