8 BERING'S FIRST EXPEDITION 



5. If there are no such naviga- Vice-Admiral Sievers has writ- 

 tors in our navy, a letter should be ten that he has among our men 

 dispatched at once to Holland that navigators who know the sea and 

 two men be sent who know the sea that he will send them without 

 in the north and as far as Japan. delay. 

 These men should come by the 

 admiralty post. 



December 23, 1724. 



Ukase to the Governor of Siberia, Prince Dolgorukov 6 



We are sending to Siberia Fleet-Captain Vitus Bering with assistants 

 to undertake a naval expedition and to carry out such instructions as he 

 has from us. When he comes to you and asks help of one kind and 

 another for the expedition you are to give it to him. 



January, 1725. 



Account of the Expedition 



On the strength of the recommendations of the Senate and the 

 Admiralty Council the tsar selected Vitus Bering 7 to lead the 

 expedition and gave him as lieutenants Martin Spanberg 8 and 

 Alexei Chirikov. In the early part of January, 1725, he also drew 

 up and signed the instructions; 9 but, owing to his failing health, 

 he had to leave the execution of them to his friend Count Aprak- 

 sin. 10 The death of Peter on January 28, 1725, did not in the least 



6 Archives of the Ministry of Marine: Papers of the Admiralty Council, 1724, 

 No. 29. 



7 Vitus Bering was born at Horsens, Denmark, in the year 1681. As soon as he 

 was old enough he went to sea and in 1703 made a voyage to the East Indies. In 

 1704 he joined the Russian navy with the rank of sub-lieutenant. He rose gradually 

 in the service, being made lieutenant in 1707, lieutenant-captain in 1710, captain 

 of the fourth rank in 1715, captain of the third rank in 1717, captain of the second 

 rank in 1720, and captain of the first rank in 1724, when he was put in charge of 

 the expedition. For a fuller account of Bering's life the reader is referred to Peter 

 Lauridsen's "Vitus Bering," transl. by J. E. Olson, Chicago, 1889. 



8 Spanberg was a Dane and Chirikov a Russian. 



9 Printed below, pp. 10-11, in Bering's report. 



10 Nartov's account of the last days of the monarch (Razskazi Nartova o Petre 

 Velikom, edited by L. N. Maikov, St. Petersburg, 1891, p. 99) shows how impor- 

 tant the latter regarded the expedition: 



"In the beginning of January, 1725, Peter was realizing that he had not long 

 to live, yet his unconquerable spirit was busily at work for the good of the coun- 

 try. With his own hand he drew up the instructions relative to the Kamchatka 

 expedition, which should determine the relation between Asia and America. 



