Note 5 — TRAVELS IN KAMTSCHATKA, DURING THE YEARS 1787 AND 1788.

According to the accounts of the earliest navigators, it is the most commodious port in this part of Asia, and ought to be the general depôt for the commerce of the country. This would be so much the more advantageous, as the vessels which frequent the other ports, commonly consider themselves as fortunate if they escape shipwreck; and for this reason the Empress has expressly prohibited all navigation after the 26th of September.

I learned a circumstance at the same time, which confirms what I have said, and seems to have occasioned the first idea of these improvements.

An English ship, belonging to M. Lanz, a merchant of Macao, came to anchor in the port of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in the year 1786. Captain Peters, who commanded the vessel, made proposals of commerce to the Russians, of which the following are the particulars. By a treaty which he had entered into with a Russian merchant, named Schelikhoff, he engaged to carry on a commerce with this part of the states of the Empress, and demanded goods to the amount of eighty thousand roubles. These goods would probably have consisted of furs, which the English expected to find a market for in China, from whence they would have brought back in exchange stuffs and other articles useful to the Russians. Schelikhoff repaired immediately to Saint Petersburg, to solicit the consent of his sovereign, which he obtained; but while was endeavouring to fulfil the conditions of his engagement, he learned that the English vessel had been lost upon the coast of Copper Island (Ile de Cuivre) in its return to Kamtschatka from the north-west part of America, where it was probable it had sailed, in order to begin its cargo, which it expected to complete at the port of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Two only of the crew were known to have been saved, a Portuguese and a Bengal negro, who passed the winter at Copper Island, from whence a Russian vessel conveyed them to Nijenei-Kamtschatka. We joined them at Bolcheretsk, and it was M. Kasloff's intention to send them next season to Petersburg.