their days in comfort with their relatives, they are beset by fresh and perhaps still more aggravated vexations.  They cannot leave that place, it seems, till they have closed accounts with the agents, and, as this is frequently protracted, no doubt with the most diabolical design, they become idle, spend what they had acquired, run into debt, (for sufficient credit is allowed them), and at last are necessitated to revert to their former slavery with perhaps far less ability than formerly, and with no other expectation of relief than what is afforded by the certainty of their dissolution.  It is impossible to contemplate this distressing picture a moment longer.  Let us leave it.—­E.]

It is now time to give some account of the native inhabitants.  To all appearance, they are the most peaceable, inoffensive people, I ever met with.  And, as to honesty, they might serve as a pattern to the most civilized nation upon earth.  But, from what I saw of their neighbours, with whom the Russians have no connection, I doubt whether this was their original disposition, and rather think that it has been the consequence of their present state of subjection.  Indeed, if some of our gentlemen did not misunderstand the Russians, they had been obliged to make some severe examples, before they could bring the islanders into any order.  If there were severities inflicted at first, the best apology for them is, that they have produced the happiest consequences, and, at present, the greatest harmony subsists between the two nations.  The natives have their own chiefs in each island, and seem to enjoy liberty and property unmolested.  But whether or no they are tributaries to the Russians, we could never find out.  There was some reason to think that they are.[16]

[Footnote 16:  See the particulars of hostilities between the Russians and the natives, in Coxe, as cited above.—­D.

It will readily be inferred from what has already been mentioned of the conduct of the Russian agents towards their own countrymen, that the circumstance of the unfortunate islanders, who are also subjected to their sway, cannot be very eligible.  A single quotation from the work referred to, will answer every purpose we can have in view in alluding to them in this place.  “The chief agent of the American Company is the boundless despot over an extent of country, which, comprising the Aleutic islands, stretches from 57 to 61 degrees of latitude, and from 130 to 190 degrees of east longitude.  The population of the islanders annually decreasing, and the wretched condition of the Russians living there, sufficiently proves, that, from their first migration to these islands and to the American coast, up to the present moment, the Company’s possessions have been entrusted to people, who were, indeed, zealous for its own advantage, but frequently more so for that of a few subordinate agents.”  A Lieutenant Davidoff, he gives us to understand, had collected some very important notices respecting these possessions