APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 231 



ritory is by tlie Peace Eiver, which, crossing the Eocky Mountains 

 from tlie westward in latitude 56° north and longitude 121° west, falls 

 into the Polar Sea by the Mackenzie Kiver. The country behind them 

 to the westward has been named by the settlers Kew Caledonia, and is 

 in extent, from north to south, about 500 miles, and from east to west 

 300 miles. It is described as very beautiful, abounding iu line forests, 

 rivers, and magnificent lakes, one of which is not less than 300 miles in 

 circumference, surrounded by picturesque mountains, clothed to their 

 very summits with timber trees of the largest dimensions. From this 

 lake a river falls to the westward into the Pacific, either into Port 

 Essington or Observatory Inlet, where Vancouver discovered the 

 mouths of two rivers, one in latitude 54° 15', the other in 54° 59'. In 

 the summer season it swarms with salmon, from which the natives 

 derive a considerable part of their subsistence. The North-west Com- 

 pany have a post on its borders in latitude 54° 30' north, longitude 125° 

 west, distant about 180 miles from the "Observatory Inlet" of Van- 

 couver, the head of which lies in latitude 55° 15' north, longitude 120° 

 44' west, where bj' this time the United Comi^any of the North-west 

 and Hudson's Bay have, in all probability, formed an establishment, 

 and thus opened a direct communication between the Atlantic and the 

 Pacific, the whole way by water, with the exception of a very few miles 

 across the higli lands which divide the sources of the rivers and give 

 them opposite directions. 



Thus, then, it is obvious that, as we have actual possession of the 6 

 degrees of coast usurped by Eussia in her recent manifesto, her claim 

 to this part is perfectly nugatory. Indeed, as we before observed, the 

 assumption must have been made in utter ignorance of the fact, which 

 is the less suri^rising, as this part of the world remains as yet a complete 

 blank on our best and latest charts. 



It is not easy to conjecture the precise object of Eussia in this intended 

 extension of territory on the Continent of North America, unless it be 

 to push along the northern coast as far as Mackenzie's Eiver, which, 

 running at the feet of the Eocky Mountains to the east, would, with the 

 Pacific on the west, afford two esrcellent barriers to a territory of at 

 least 70,000 square miles, or one-half nearly of all that part of North 

 America in which the fur animals are found, and thus put the Euss- 

 American Com])any in possession of an almost exclusive monopoly of 

 the trade, as it is well known that, in a few years, the fur-bearing ani- 

 mals will all be destroyed on the eastern side of the Eocky Mountains. 

 In any other view of the subject, it is utterly incomi)rehensible that the 

 possession of one-tenth part of the habitable globe should not satisfy 

 the ambition, if ambition could ever be satisfied, of one man. 



But whatever the object of the Eussian Government may be in its 

 ex])editions and its Edicts, that of the voyage we are about to notice 

 was purely the promotion of physical science and geographical dis- 

 covery. We have more than once had occasion to mention, in terms of 

 admiration, the liberal support which an exalted individual of the Eus- 

 sian Empire has always been ready to give to every national scheme 

 for enlarging the sphere of human knowledge; by this munificent patron 

 the present expedition was fitted out. That it failed in the main point 

 was no fault of him who planned it. The commander was recommended 

 by Captain Krusenstern, than whom Eussia cannot boast an officer 

 more accomplished in every part of his profession ; and if, on his return, 

 he met, as we have heard, with a cool reception in the Imperial circles 

 of St. Petersburgh, it only proves that, amidst an affectation of disap- 

 pointment, they were not very sorry for the failure of a private enter- 



