186 VOYAGE OF MARTINEZ AND HARO. [1789. 



peninsula of Aliaska, to Unalashka, the largest of the Aleutian 

 Islands, where they arrived on the 30th of August. There they re- 

 mained until the 18th of September, receiving every attention from 

 the Russians belonging to the factory, and then sailed for the south. 

 In their voyage homeward, the vessels were separated : Haro reached 

 San Bias on the 22d of October ; Martinez did not enter that port 

 until the 5th of December, having put into Monterey for refresh- 

 ments.* 



The geographical observations made in this expedition were of 

 little value at the time ; and it would be needless to notice them 

 here, as the coasts to which they relate have been since completely 

 surveyed. Agreeably to the report presented by Martinez, on his 

 return to the viceroy of Mexico, the Russian establishments in Amer- 

 ica at that time were in number eight, all situated east of Prince 

 William's Sound, on which, however, one was then in progress; 

 and they contained, together, two hundred and fifty-two Russian 

 subjects, nearly all of whom were natives of Kamtchatka or Sibe- 

 ria. Martinez was, moreover, informed that two vessels had been 

 sent in that summer from Kodiak, to found a settlement at Nootka 

 Sound, and that two large ships were in preparation at Ochotsk, for 

 further operations of the same nature. The vessels sent from Ko- 

 diak were doubtless those which proceeded, under Ismyloff and 

 Betscharef, along the coast eastward to the foot of Mount St. Elias ; 

 the others were those intended for the expedition under Billings, 

 which was not begun until 1790. 



These accounts of the establishments and projects of the Rus- 

 sians were immediately communicated to the court of Madrid, 

 which addressed to the empress of Russia a remonstrance against 

 such encroachments of her subjects upon the territories of his Cath- 

 olic majesty. In the memorial conveying this remonstrance, it is to 

 be remarked that Prince William's Sound is assumed as separating 

 the dominions of the two sovereigns ; it being doubtless intended, 



* The preceding account of this voyage is derived from the journal of Martinez, 

 of which a copy, in manuscript, was obtained from the hydrographical office at 

 Madrid. 



The first notice of this expedition, published in Europe, was taken from a letter 

 written at San Bias, soon after the arrival of Haro at that port, in which it was said 

 that the Spaniards had found Russian establishments between the forty-ninth and 

 the fiftieth degrees of latitude, instead of beticecn the fifty-ninth and the sixtieth degrees , 

 and on this error, such as is daily committed by persons ignorant of nautical matters, 

 M. Poletica, the Russian envoy in the United States, endeavored, in 1822, to found a 

 claim for his sovereign to the whole of the American coasts and islands on the Pacific 

 north of the forty-ninth parallel. See hereafter, chap. xvi. 



