20 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA 



since. The cares of the Government then gravitated 

 around the Amur district, and the town of Nikolaevsk 

 was founded at the mouth of that river. ... 



The last episode in the history of that distant corner 

 of Asia was the defeat of the Anglo- French Beet off 

 Petropavlovsk. In 1854 news reached Kamchatka of 

 the rupture of diplomatic relations between Russia on 

 one side, and England and France on the other. The 

 Russian Consul in America gave notice to Zavoiko 

 that war was declared, and that Petropavlovsk harbour 

 was to be put in a state of defence. The Anglo-French 

 fleet, under Admirals Price and P^evrier-de-Pointe, 

 entered Avatcha Bay at the end of August of that 

 year; but after several attempts at landing the allied 

 troops were driven off with the loss of 450 men, killed 

 or drowned, 



A monument now stands on the santipit opposite 

 Petropa\'lovsk in memory of the affair of August, 1854. 

 Behind the village is a small enclosure, where three 

 crosses indicate the burial place of the Russians, Eng- 

 lish, and P^rench killed in action. In the spring of 

 1855 Zavoiko was energetically pushing on the works 

 of defence, in case of a second attack by the allied 

 forces, when orders arrived that all the available troops 

 should be concentrated in the Amur district, and that 

 the inhabitants of Petropavlovsk, if attacked, should 



