BERING'S FIRST EXPEDITION. 7 



appears: '*AVe are old, miserable, and decrepit people, in 

 no way able to help ourselves. Our property consists of 

 the old dilapidated home and the furniture thereto be- 

 longing, which is of but little value.''' It was his share 

 of this inheritance, with accrued interest, all amount- 

 ing to 140 rigsdaler, that Vitus Bering later presented 

 to his native town to be used for the benefit of the 

 poor. 



From inclination, and forced by the circumstances of 

 his humble home, Bering went to sea, and on the long 

 expeditions that he made, he developed into an able sea- 

 man. From an East India expedition in 1703 he came to 

 Amsterdam, where he made the acquaintance of Admiral 

 Cruys, a native of Norway. Soon afterwards, at the age 

 of twenty-two, he joined a Russian fleet as a sub-lieuten- 

 ant. What Norwegian and Danish seamen accomplished 

 at this period in the service of Russia, has been almost 

 entirely forgotten. In the company of intelligent for- 

 eigners that Czar Peter employed for the transformiation 

 of his kingdom, the Danish-Norse contingent occupies a 

 prominent place. This is due principally to Peter him- 

 self, and was a result of his experiences in Holland. 

 After having, on his first extensive foreign trip, learned 

 the art of ship-building, — not in Zaandam, as it is usually 

 stated, but at the docks of the East India Company in 

 Amsterdam, — he was much dissatisfied with the emjoirical 

 method which the Hollanders, used, and he wrote to 

 Voronetz, his own ship-yard, that the Dutch ship-builders 

 there should no longer be permitted to work independ- 

 ently, but be placed under the supervision of Danes or 

 Englishmen. 



