Spanish and Russian America 99

Cook’s Fournals published in 1784-5 directed the atten-
tion of Europe, the East Indies, and the United States to
the great value of the fur-fisheries in the North Pacific
Ocean. Cook’s men were in fact the first to carry furs to
China where they were highly prized. The only trade in
furs at this time was that conducted by Britain in Hudson
Bay, and by Russia in the northern parts of her own empire.

Then followed a rush of ships from the United States,
the East Indies, Macao, Canton, England, Portugal and
Ostend, to engage in the fur-trade between America and
China.

The Russians under Gregory Shellikof advanced as far
eastward as Kodiak Island in 1787.

These varied activities alarmed Spain whose claim to the
exclusive navigation of the Pacific and the peaceful pos-
session of the sea-board was being openly flouted. Accord-
ingly the Princesa and the San Carlos, two armed vessels
under Estevan José Martinez, were dispatched in 1788 to
investigate the establishment of Russian posts in Prince
William Sound, Alaska.

“‘According to the report addressed to the Viceroy of
Mexico by Martinez, the Russian establishments in America
were four in number, all of them situated west of Prince
William Sound, and their population including soldiers and
hunters amounted to 400. They had not advanced eastward,
but reported that the Empress of Russia was about to send out
a strong force to occupy Nootka.” }

A subsequent memorial addressed by Madrid to the
Empress of Russia, naming Prince William Sound as the
boundary between Russian and Spanish America, was the
first admission on the part of Spain of the right of any other
Power to occupy a part of America bordering on the Pacific.

1Greenhow, Robert, Memoir of the North-West Coast, p. 96.