1806.] GOVERNMENT OF RUSSIAN AMERICA. 271 



fishermen, or mechanics ; in the best of which situations their lot 

 was more wretched than that of any other class of human beings 

 within the pale of civilization, or, indeed, of any other class of per- 

 sons whatsoever, except the natives of the American coasts, whom 

 they assisted in keeping under subjection. Under such circum- 

 stances, it will be easily believed that " none but vagabonds and 

 adventurers ever entered the company's service as Promuschleniks ; " 

 that " it was their invariable destiny to pass a life of wretchedness 

 in America ; " that " few had the good fortune ever to touch Rus- 

 sian ground again, and very few to attain the object of their wishes 

 by returning to Europe." * 



The government of Russian America was arranged on a plan 

 even more despotic than that of the other parts of the empire. 

 The general superintendence of the affairs of the company was in 

 the hands of a Directory, residing at St. Petersburg, by which all 

 the regulations and appointments were made, and all questions 

 were decided, with the approval, however, of the imperial depart- 

 ment of commerce. All the territories belonging to the company, 

 and all persons and things in them, were placed under the control 

 of a chief agent or governor, residing at Kodiak or Sitca, from 

 whose orders there was no appeal, except to the Directory : in like 

 manner, each district or group of settlements was ruled by an 

 inferior agent, accountable directly to the governor-general ; and 

 each factory or settlement was commanded by an overseer, chosen 

 from among the Promuschleniks, who possessed the right to pun- 

 ish, to a certain extent, those within the circle of his authority. 



The regulations for the government of these territories were, 

 like those of the Spanish Council of the Indies, generally just and 

 humane; but the enforcement of them, as in Spanish America, was 

 intrusted, for some time, to men with whom justice and humanity 

 were subordinate to expediency. The first chief agent was Alex- 

 ander Baranof, who had accompanied Schelikof in his expedition in 

 1783, and was the superintendent of the settlements at Kodiak and 

 Cook's Inlet when Vancouver visited those places in 1794. He was 

 a shrewd, bold, enterprising, and unfeeling man, of iron frame and 

 nerves, and the coarsest habits and manners. By his inflexible 

 severity and energy, he seems to have maintained absolute and in- 

 dependent sway over all the Russian American coasts for more than 

 twenty years ; showing little respect to the orders of the Directory, 



* Krusenstern's Account of his Voyage to the North Pacific. 



