244 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



ambition. The only tiling wliich supported me in this contest was the conscientious 

 nssiirance of havin<jf strictly fultillod my duty. I signified to the crew, in writing, 

 that my ill-liealth obliged me to return to Oniialaska. The moment I signed the 

 p;iper was the most painful in my life, for witli this stroke of the pen I gave up the 

 ardent and long-cherished wish of my heart. (Vol. ii, p. 176 ) 



We liave little more to offer on this unsuccessful voyage; but it 

 appears to us that its abrupt abandonment was hardly justified under 

 the circumstances stated. It would not be tolerated in England that 

 the ill-health of the commanding officer should be urged as a plea for 

 giving up an enterprise of moment, while there remained another officer 

 on board fit to succeed him. But the great error, in our opinion, was 

 committed in the first attempt. Had Kotzebue fortunately pushed on 

 to the northward the preceding year, when the sea was i^erfectly open, 

 and before his people had tasted the soft luxuries of the coral islands, 

 he would unquestionably have succeeded in solving the problem as to 

 the extreme north-west point of America, as Baron Wrangel has done 

 that of the north east point of Asia, and this would have been some- 

 thing; but we rather suspect that when the physician warned him 

 against ajtproacliing the ice, the caution was not wholly disin- 

 25 terested on his part, and that the officers and men, like the suc- 

 cessors of the immortal Cook, had come to the conclusion that 

 "the longest way about was tlie nearest way home." 



We cannot close this article withtnit animadverting on the careless 

 manner in which the "Voyage" has been "done into English." The 

 naturalist, Chamisso, in seeming anticipation of what would happen, 

 has entered his caveat against "translations of which he cannot judge," 

 and "recognizes only the German text." In truth, he will find here 

 more than enough to justify his precautions. The present translator 

 joins to a style at once bald and incorrect a deplorable ignorance of his 

 subject; hence the volume abounds in errors of the grossest kind. 

 Many of them may unquestionably be attributed to the undue haste 

 with which the work was produced; but surely it can never be wortii 

 the while of any respectable publisher to run a race with the Bridge 

 Street press, the monthly crudities of which, though they may precede, 

 cannot ])ossibly supei'sede, translations made by c iictent persons, 

 and brought out in a manner correspondent to the merit of the original 

 works. 



20 No. 4. 



[Extract from tlio "North American lloview" of October 1822.] 



Ml<:8.SAGE FROM THE PrE.SIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TRANSMITTING THE INFOR- 

 MATION REQUIRED 1?Y A Re.SOLUTION OF THE HOUSE OF ReP1{ESENTATIVES OF 



THE 16th February last, in Relation to Claims set up by Foreign Gov- 

 ernments TO TERRirORY OF THE UNITED STATES UPON THE PACIFIC OCKAN, 



North of the 42nd Degree of Latitude, &c. April 17, 1822. 



The measures lately adopted by the Russian Government, in relation 

 to the north-western coast of the American Continent, are of so extra- 

 ordinary a character tluit we cannot refrain from examining the subject, 

 and offering such comments as it naturally demands. We are sensible 

 that a discussion relative to a country so remote, having within its 

 limits but few objects to excite the curiosity, and only connected with 

 the civili/.ed world by an extremely limited commerce, might not ordi- 

 narily awalccn muih general interest. But it is also well known that 

 particular causes have heretofore drawn to it the attention both of 



