DIFFICULTIES 33 



Difficulties 



Not only at Okhotsk but elsewhere in Siberia the well-laid plans 

 of the Senate and the Admiralty College miscarried. Bering, 

 in place of being left free to look after the important work of 

 leader, had to tarry at Yakutsk and other such places to do the 

 work of a petty ofificer. He had to recruit men, requisition 

 horses and supplies, and start them towards Okhotsk. Either 

 the local authorities in Siberia could not or would not help him. 

 One blamed another; Bering's own officers sided sometimes 

 with one and sometimes with another; and as a result the mail 

 carriers, especially provided for the expedition, were loaded down 

 with charges and countercharges instead of reports of progress. 

 The authorities at the capital were naturally greatly displeased. 

 They tried to help Bering by relieving him of the control of the 

 scientists and of the work of supervising the Arctic explorations. 

 Notwithstanding this, month after month passed with compara- 

 tively little headway made. When the undertaking was planned 

 it was assumed that in four years Bering would be ready for sea. 

 According to Bering's own estimates the cost would be 10,000 

 to 12,000 rubles; but at the end of that period he was no farther 

 than Yakutsk and the cost had run up to 300,000 rubles. At the 

 capital there was considerable dissatisfaction, which the Admi- 

 ralty College was made to feel. In 1738 the Imperial Cabinet, 

 after taking into consideration the cost up to that time, the bur- 

 den it threw on the Siberian people, the little progress made, 

 asked the Admiralty College "to look into the Kamchatka 

 Expedition and see if it can be brought to a head, so that from 

 now on the treasury should not be emptied in vain."^^ 



The Admiralty had to throw the blame on somebody and, 

 justly or unjustly, blamed Bering and as leader held him respon- 

 sible and even went so far as to cut his pay in half from the 

 beginning of the year 1738 until July, 1740. Bering was caught 

 between two millstones which slowly but surely crushed him. 



'5 Opisanie Dyel Arkhiva Morskago Ministerstva, lo vols., St. Petersburg, 1877- 

 1906; reference in Vol. 7. p. 237. 



