AMENDED TRANSLATIONS. 159 



No. 1G. 



Letter from the hoard of administration of the Russian American Com- 

 pany to Captain of the Imperial Navy of the Second Rank Alexander 

 Hitch Rudakof, acting chief manager. Written from St. Petersburg 

 March 20, 1853. 



From the dispatches of the board of administration, dated April 12 

 and November 16, 1851, Nos. 525 and 1478, and those of April 2, May 

 13, and September 25, 1852, Nos. 447, 682, and 1219, your excellency 

 will see that it has been one of the chief aims of the board of adminis- 

 tration to make the best x>ossible arrangement of the voyages of the 

 vessels of the colonial fleet, since of late that arrangement has been 

 made without sufficient reference to the true interests of the company, 

 and hence some vessels have frequently been kept lying idle in port, 

 and others have received such confused instructions that they would 

 often be unable to execute them all, or would return to New Archangel 

 at the very latest and most dangerous time of the year. 



Bearing in mind the fact that the approaching voyages of the colo- 

 nial fleet are well arranged, and that they are repeated every year 

 with only slight variations, the board of administration has found it 

 possible and expedient to establish a regular schedule for the voyages 

 of the colonial fleet, for the navigation of both the summer and winter 

 months, and to transmit it to the colonial government for its guidance 

 and execution, leaving it, however, to the discretion of the chief man- 

 ager of the colonies to deviate from this schedule on those occasions 

 when, owing to local and unforeseen circumstances, it appears to the 

 interest of the company to do so. 



In the performance of the voyages of 1853 in the colonies there will 

 be employed eight sailing vessels, of which the following are of the 

 first class: The Cesarevitch, the Nicholas I, the Kadiak, and the Shele- 

 koff; and the following of the second class: The Menshikoff, the Con- 

 stantine, the Okotsk, and the Tungus; and, as in exchange for the ship 

 Cesarevitch, which has to be sent back from the colonies in 1853, the 

 ship Sitka, of 700 tons, which is now beingbuilt, will enter into the com- 

 position of the colonial fleet of 1854 and will be sent to New Archangel 

 in 1853. In the establishment of constant communications around the 

 world the number of the company's vessels in the colonies will always 

 remain the same, that is to say, in the summer months, from April to 

 October^ there will be eight, and from October to April seven vessels, 

 without counting the whaling vessels, the number of which, by rough 

 estimate, will be increased to four. 



Hence the movements of the colonial fleet during the summer navi- 

 gation, beginning in 1854, may be arranged in the following manner: 



I. One vessel of the second class — for instance, the brig Constantine — 

 must be dispatched from Sitka about the middle of April with supplies 

 for the island of Atka, or Atta, and for the Kurile district, to bring 

 goods from those islands to Ayan, where the vessel must arrive not 

 later than the middle of July. By this same vessel there may be dis- 

 patched and landed the company's agents sent for inspection to Kam- 

 chatka, where the vessel can stop on its passage from the Atka dis- 

 trict to the Kurile district, without losing much time, at the most im- 

 portant period for the Kamchatka trade, the middle of May ; that is to 

 say, by the time of the arrival there of the vessel coming around the 

 world. 



On arriving at Ayan this vessel will be placed at the disposal of the 

 governor of the port of Ayan to maintain communication with Petrov- 

 sky, and in future, until a vessel has been built specially for that port, 



