1799.] RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY ESTABLISHED. 269 



successful ; but when he ventured to extend the scale of his specu- 

 lations, by sending vessels laden with sandal-wood to Canton, he 

 was, as he asserted, always cheated by those to whom he committed 

 the management of the business. 



In California, the Franciscan missionaries were proceeding 

 steadily in their course, and the number of their converts was 

 daily increasing. The government appears to have been liberal in 

 the appropriation of funds for their use ; but, in Spanish America, a 

 long time always elapsed between the issue of an order for supplies 

 and their delivery, and a large proportion of the amount originally 

 ordered was generally subtracted before it reached those for whose 

 use it was designed. Soldiers, whose terms had expired, were also, 

 in some cases, allowed to remain in the country ; and the com- 

 mandants permitted a little contraband trade with the Americans, 

 who introduced manufactured articles in return for hides. 



In the mean time, the Russians of Northern Asia, though ex- 

 cluded from the ports of China, continued their commerce with 

 that empire, as also with Europe, as formerly, by means of caravans 

 passing over land ; the communications being conducted principally 

 by a company established at Irkutsk, the great mart of that part of 

 the world. The fur trade of the northernmost coasts of the Pacific 

 was monopolized by the association, formed in 1781, under the 

 direction of Schelikof and Gollikof, which was protected by the 

 empress Catharine, and endowed with many important privileges. 

 After the death of Catharine, in 1794, her son and successor, Paul, 

 at first determined to put an end to the association, on account of 

 the alleged cruelty of its agents towards the natives of the American 

 coasts : he was, however, induced to change his resolution ; and, a 

 union having been effected, in 1798, between the two companies 

 above mentioned, a decree was issued, on the 8th of July of the 

 following year, conceding to them, under the title of the Russian 

 American Company, the entire use and control, for twenty years, of 

 all the coasts of America on the Pacific, from the 55th degree of 

 north latitude to Bering's Strait, together with the adjacent islands, 

 including the Kurile and the Aleutian groups, all of which were 

 claimed as having been discovered by Russians. The company 

 was also authorized to explore, and bring under subjection to the 

 imperial crown, any other territories in America not previously 

 attached to the dominions of some civilized nation ; with the 

 express provision that the natives of all these countries should 

 be treated with kindness, and, if possible, be converted to the 



