aft to escape. Towards the end of March they
descried a Russian vessel in the offing, and at last succeeded in
reaching friends.

Almost the same story could be told of the crews of each of the ships
that had sailed from Avacha Bay in September 1762. One ship foundered.
The castaways were stabbed where they lay in exhausted sleep. Every
member of the crew on a third ship had been slain round a bath-house,
such as Russian hunters built in that climate to enable them to ward
off rheumatism by vapour plunges. One ship only escaped the general
butchery and carried the refugees home.

Of course, Cossack and hunter exacted terrible vengeance for this
massacre. Whole villages were burned to the ground and every
inhabitant sabred. On one occasion, as many as three hundred victims
were tied in line and shot. The result was that the Cossacks' outrages
and the Aleuts' vengeance drew the attention of the Russian government
to this lucrative fur trade in the far new land. The disorders put an
end to free, unrestricted trade. {44} Henceforth a hunter must have a
licence; and a licence implied the favour of the court. The court saw
to it that a governor took up his residence in the region to enforce
justice and to compel the hunters to make honest returns. Like the
Hudson's Bay men, the Russian fur traders had to report direct to the
crown. Thus was inaugurated on the west coast of America the Russian
regime, which ended only in 1867, when Alaska was ceded to the United
States.

[Illustration: Routes of Explorers on the Pacific Coast.]

{45}

CHAPTER IV

COOK AND VANCOUVER

It was the quest for a passage to the Atlantic that brought Captain
James Cook to the Pacific. Before joining the Royal Navy, Cook had
been engaged as a captain in the Baltic trade; and from Russian
merchantmen he had learned all about Bering's voyage in the North
Pacific, which was being quoted by the geographers in proof of an open
passage north of Alaska. In the Baltic, too, Cook had heard about the
strait of Juan de Fuca, which was supposed to lead through the
continent to the Atlantic. At this time all England was agog with
demands that the Hudson's Bay Company should find a North-West Passage
or surrender its charter. Parliament had offered a reward of L20,000
to any one discovering a passage-way to the Pacific, and Samuel Hearne
had been sent tramping inland to explore the north by land. Curiously
enough, Cook had been born i