162 ledyard's scheme for the fur trade. [1782. 



He and his followers are said to have exhibited the most barbarous 

 dispositions in their treatment of the natives on the coasts, whole 

 tribes of whom were put to death upon the slightest prospect of 

 advantage from their destruction, and often through mere wanton- 

 ness of cruelty. 



In 1787, the Russians made establishments, also, on the shores of 

 Cook's River ; and, in the following year, two vessels were sent 

 from Asia by the trading association, under Ismylof (one of the men 

 found by Cook at Unalashka) and Betscharef, who proceeded as 

 far east as the bay at the foot of Mount St. Elias, called Yakutat 

 by the natives, and Admiralty Bay by the English. It seems to 

 have also been the object of these traders to take possession of 

 Nootka Sound, in which, however, they were anticipated, as will 

 be shown in the ensuing chapter. 



The empress Catharine had likewise become anxious to acquire 

 glory by an expedition for discoveries in the North Pacific ; but, as 

 none of her subjects were qualified to conduct such an enterprise, 

 she engaged for the purpose Captain Billings, an Englishman, who 

 had accompanied Cook, as assistant astronomer, in his last voyage. 

 Under his direction, two ships were built at Petropawlowsk ; but 

 they could not be completed before 1790, when Billings began his 

 voyage, as will be hereafter related. 



Among other nations, the first attempt to engage in the direct 

 trade between the north-west coasts of America and China appears 

 to have been made by Mr. Bolts, an eminent English merchant, 

 residing at Trieste, who, in 1781, equipped a vessel for that pur- 

 pose, to be navigated under the imperial flag of Germany ; but he 

 was obliged, from some unknown cause, to abandon the under- 

 taking. 



A similar attempt was shortly after made, with no greater suc- 

 cess, in the United States of America. John Ledyard, who has 

 been already mentioned as one of the crew of Cook's ship during 

 the last voyage of that navigator, having deserted, or rather es- 

 caped, from a British frigate, in which he was serving against his 

 countrymen, near New York, in 1782, prevailed on the celebrated 

 merchant and financier, R,obert Morris, of Philadelphia, to fit out a 

 vessel, to be employed, under his direction, in the fur trade of the 

 North Pacific. The pecuniary embarrassments of Mr. Morris, 

 however, obliged him to abandon the enterprise before the vessel 

 was ready for sea ; and Ledyard, finding his efforts to procure 

 cooperation for that object unavailing in America, went to France in 



