168 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Only dried sealskins are in demand at Irkutsk, and they must be 

 sent by way of Ayan. 



The board of administration therefore requests you to make arrange- 

 ments so that in future, until there is a possibility of increasing- the 

 demand for sealskins, about as many as 50,000 may be killed in the 

 colonies every year, of good quality as above directed, 43,000 of which 

 will be sent at the proper time to their destination and the remainder 

 kept in reserve at New Archangel for the contingency of a special 

 demand; and, in order that those stored may not be injured by lying 

 so long in the warehouses, you will make it a rule to ship them the fol- 

 lowing year to Eussia in exchange for the skins of the new catch which 

 will remain in the warehouses. Furthermore, you will endeavor, so 

 far as possible, to kill none of the small kinds of seal; but if it is im- 

 possible to avoid this, you are permitted to use them for clothing in the 

 colonies, taking special care that they are not sold to foreign vessels 

 undressed. In the opinion of the board of administration there will be 

 no difficulty in dressing them in the colonies, as there are many people 

 there in need of work, especially in the districts, to whom this would 

 furnish the means of earning something. 



At the same time, in order to find a market for small sealskins, the 

 board of administration requests you to endeavor to introduce the 

 use of them among the savages in the north, with whom they might 

 be exchanged for furs, the acquisition of which would be of great ad- 

 vantage to the company. In doing this we have chiefly in view the fact 

 that by this means the savages would accustom themselves to the use 

 of sealskins for their clothing, and thereby, so far as possible, the sale 

 of them to foreign vessels would be j>revented. 



V. Klupfel, ' 



Presiding Officer. 

 N. Tebenkof, 

 V. Zavoiko, 



Members. 



No. 26. 



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

 pany to Captain of the First Rank and Knight Stepan Vassilievitch 

 Voyevodshy, chief manager of the Russian American colonies. Writ- 

 ten from St. Petersbarg June 5, 1857. 



In reply to your excellency's dispatch No. 41, of March 9, with re- 

 gard to shipping furs to New York and Shanghai, the board of admin- 

 istration has the honor to inform you that the annual demand for seal- 

 skins in Eussia has now risen to 15,000, 5,000 of which are to be shipped 

 to Kiachta. Only 2,000 river-beaver skins are required for Kiachta ; the 

 remaining number of sealskins, say up to 12,000 and more, preferably 

 salted ones, which are valued more highly there, you are instructed to 

 send to New York to Messrs. Lobach & Shepler in the autumn, imme- 

 diately after the arrival of the vessels from the districts, without sub- 

 jecting them to any preparations at New Archangel, and leaving them 

 in the same condition and packed in the same way in which they are 

 received from the districts. 



With regard to the river -beaver skins the board of administration, 

 although it has received information that the beaver skins have now 



