298 APPENDIX TO CASE OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



Governor if they abuse, tlieir ])owev by afts of iujustice. The seat of Government 

 i8 on the harbour of 8t. Paul, which has a barrack, dilfereut store-liouses, several 

 respectable woodeu habitations, and a church, the only one to be found on the 

 coast. {Ihid. , i^. 2li.) 



From this time tlie Company seems to have established itself on the 

 coast. Lisiaiisky speaks of "a single lumting' party of 900 men, 

 gathered from difleicnt places, as Alaska, Kodiak, Kenay, Cook's 

 Inlet, and commanded by thirty-six 'toyoiis,' who are snbordinate to 

 the liussians in the service of the American Company, and receive 

 from them their orders." {Ibid., p. 153.) From another sonrce I iearu 

 that the iuhal)itants of Kodiak and of the Alentian Islands were 

 regarded as "immediate subjects of the Company," the males from 18 

 to 50 being- bound to serve it for a term of three years each. They 

 were employed in the chase. The po])ulation of Alaska and of the two 

 great bays, Cook's Inlet a^nd Prince William Sound, were also subject 

 to the Com]>aiiy; but they were held to a yearly tax in furs without 

 any regular service, and they could trade only with the Company; 

 otherwise they were iudependeut. This seems to have been 

 C2 before the division of the whole into districts, all under the 

 Comi)any, which, though i^rimarily for the business of the Com- 

 pany, may be regarded as so many distinct jurisdictions, each with 

 local i)owers of government. 



Among these were two districts which I mention only to put aside, 

 asnot iucluded iu the present cession: (1) The Kurile Islands, being 

 the group nestling near the coast of Japan, on the Asiatic side of the 

 dividing line between the two continents. (2) The Koss Settlement 

 in California, now abandoned. 



There remain five other districts: (1) The District of Atcha, with 

 the Bureau at this island, embracing the two western groups of the 

 Aleutians known as the Andreauowsky Islands and the Kat Islands, 

 and also the group about Behring's Islaud, which is not embraced in 

 the present cession. (2) The District of Ounalaska, with the Bureau 

 at this isLmd, enibracing the Fox Islands, the Peninsula of Alaska to 

 the meridian of the Shumagin Islands, including these and also the 

 Prybilov Islands to the north of the Peninsula. (3) The District of 

 Kodiak, embracing the Peninsula of Alaska east of the meridian of 

 the Shumagin Islands, and the coast westward to Mount St. Klias, 

 with the adjacent islands, in(;luding Kodiak, Cook's Inlet, and Prince 

 William Sound, then northward along the coast of Bristol Bay, and 

 the country watered by the IsTushagak and Kuskokwim liivers, all of 

 which is governed from Kodiak, with redoubts or i)alisaded stations at 

 Nushagak, Cook's Inlet, and Prince William Sound. (4) The Northern 

 District, embracing the country of the Kwichpak and of Norton's 

 Sound, under the direction of the commander of the redoubt at St. 

 Michael's; leaving the country northward, with the Islands St. Law- 

 rence and St. Mathews, not embraced in this district, but visited direct 

 from Sitka. (5) The District of Sitka, embracing the coast from Mount 

 St. Elias, where the Ivodiak district ends, southward to the latitude of 

 540 40', with the adjacent islands. But this district has been curtailed 

 by a lease of the liussian-Americau Company in 1839, for the space of 

 ten years, and subseqtiently renewed, iu which this Company, in con- 

 sideration of the annual i)ayment of 2,000 otter-skins of Columbia 

 Kiver, underlets to the Hudson Bay Company all its franchise for the 

 strip of continent betw(>en Ca])c S])encer at the north and the latitude 

 of 540 40', excluding the adjacent ishmds. 



The Central (JiovernnuMitor all these districts is at Sitka, from which 

 emanates all orders and instructions. Here also is the chief factory, 



