20 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Circumstances which led up to Ukase of 1799. 



It will be couvenient at this i)oiut to consider the circum- 

 stances which led up to the Ukase of 1799, the terms of 

 that Ukase, and its effect. 

 Alaska, p. 305. As early as 1780, the idea had become dominant with 

 Grigor tShelikof, who had shortly before established the 

 first permanent Kussiaii colony at Kadiak, of creating? a 

 Company which should hold a mouoi)oly of trade in the 

 Eussian possessions on the I'acitic, and over all tliat part of 

 the American Continent to which Russian traders resorted. 

 Shelikof obtained but a partial success in the Charter issued 

 lor the United American Company-; but after his death at 

 ^^ibiii., pp. li'T- Irkutsk in 1795, his schemes were taken up by his son-in- 

 law Eezanof, who succeeded in carrying tliem to (;omple- 

 lion, and, in 1799, a Ukase was issued which granted the 

 wished-for exclusive privileges to the New IJussian-Ameri- 

 can Company. Before this time, in 1798, a consolidatic.'i 

 of the Shelikof Company with several smaller concerns had 

 been effected under the name of the United American Com- 

 pany; and at the date of the issuing of the Ukase there 

 were but two rival Companies of importance in the field, 

 the Shelikof or United American Company, and the Lebedef 

 Company, and thc^e engaged in active comijetition and 

 hostility. 



Bancroft sums uj) the situation about 1791 and 1792 in 

 the following Avords: 



Ibiil., pp. ;!:!H, Affairs were assniuing a serious aspect. Not only were the Shelikof 



339- men excluded from tlie greater i)art of the inlet [Cook Inlet], but 



they Avere ojiposed in their advance round Prince William Sound, 



which was also claimed by the Lebedef faction, though the Orekhof 



and other Companies were lijinting there 



23 Thus the history of Cook Inlet during the last decade of the 



eighteenth century is replete with romantic incidents — mid- 

 night raids, ambuscades, and open warfare — resembling the (h)ings 

 of mediieval raitbrifters, ratliei than the exploits of peaceal)le 



traders 



Robbery and brutal outrages continued to be the ordar of tlie day, 

 though now committed chiefly for the jiurpose of obtaining sole con- 

 trol of the inlet, to the neglect of legitimate pursuits. 



Again, in another place, the same author writes, with 

 regard especially to tlie i)osition of Baranoflf, (Tovernor of 

 Sitka, when he took chargeof the Shelikof Colony of Kadiak : 



Alaska, p. 32). Thus, on every sidt;, rival establishments and traders were draining 

 the country of the valuabh* staple upon whicli icsted tlu^ very exist- 

 ence of the scheme of colonization. To the east and north there were 

 Russians, but to the south-east the ships of Englishmen, Americans, 

 and Freuchuien were already traversing the tortuous channels of the 

 Alexander Arcliipelago, reaping rich harvests of sea-otter skins, in the 

 very region where Baranoff liad decided to extend Russian dominion 

 in connection witli Com]>any sway. 



Ibid., pp. :i()2, It was only in the Ititer years of tlie comiietition between 

 ' " the rival Kussiaii Companies that they began to assume 



hostile attitudes to one another. The growing ]>ower of 

 some of them favoured aggression, and the increasing 

 scarcity of the sea-otter, which was already beginning to 

 be felt, accentuated it. At first, and for numy years after 

 Beliring's initial voyage, the traders from Siberia were 

 sutiiciently occupied in turning to advantage their dealings 



