There were six vessels (of from forty to fifty tons burthen) employed by the empress between Okotzk and Bolcheretsk; five of which are appropriated to the transporting of stores and provisions from Okotzk to Bolcheretsk; except that once in two or three years, some of them go round to Awatska and the Kamtschatka river; the sixth is only used as a packet-boat, and always kept in readiness, and properly equipped for conveying dispatches.  Besides these, there are about fourteen vessels employed by the merchants in the fur-trade, amongst the islands to the eastward.  One of these we found frozen up in the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which was to sail on a trading voyage to Oonalashka, as soon as the season would permit.[84]

It is here to be observed, that the most considerable and valuable part of the fur-trade is carried on with the islands that lie between Kamtschatka and America.  These were first discovered by Beering, in 1741, and being found to abound with sea-otters, the Russian merchants became exceedingly eager in searching for the other islands seen by that navigator, to the S.E. of Kamtschatka, called in Muller’s map the islands of Seduction, St Abraham, &c.  In these expeditions they fell in with three groups of islands; the first about fifteen degrees to the east of Kamtschatka, in 53 deg.  N. latitude; the second about twelve degrees to the eastward of the former; and the third, Oonalashka, and the islands in its neighbourhood.  These trading adventurers advanced also as far east as Shumagin’s Islands (so called by Beering), the largest of which is named Kodiak.  But here, as well as on the continent at Alashka, they met with so warm a reception in their attempts to compel the payment of a tribute, that they never afterward ventured so far.  However they conquered, and made tributary the three groups before mentioned.

In the Russian charts, the whole sea between Kamtschatka and America is covered with islands; for the adventurers in these expeditions frequently falling in with land, which they imagined did not agree with the situation of others laid down by preceding voyagers, immediately concluded it must be a new discovery, and reported it as such on their return; and, since the vessels employed in these expeditions were usually out three or four years, and oftentimes longer, these mistakes were not in the way of being soon rectified; It is, however, now pretty certain, that the islands already enumerated are all that have yet been discovered by the Russians in that sea, to the southward of 60 deg. of latitude.

It is from these islands that the sea-otter skins, the most valuable article of the fur-trade, are for the most part drawn; and as they are brought completely under the Russian dominion, the merchants have settlements upon them, where their factors reside, for the purpose of bartering with the natives.  It was with a view to the farther increase and extension of this trade, that the admiralty of Okotzk fitted out an