To the gay and luxurious life, the almost prodigal entertainment of guests by Sitkans from this time on to 1867, every traveller, from writers and naval officers down to traders, has enthusiastically testified. At the first signal from a ship feeling its way into the dark harbor, a bright light flashed a welcome across the water from the high cupola on Baranoff's castle, and fires flamed up on Signal Island to beacon the way.
The officers were received as friends, and entertained in a style of almost princely magnificence during their entire stay—the only thing asked in return being the capacity to eat like gluttons, revel like roisterers, and drink until they rolled helplessly under the table; and, in Baranoff's estimation, these were small returns, indeed, to ask of a guest for his ungrudging and regal hospitality.
Visions of those high revels and glittering banquets of a hundred years ago come glimmering down to us of to-day. Beautiful, gracious, and fascinating were the Russian ladies who lived there,—if we are to believe the stories of voyagers to the Sitka of Baranoff's and Wrangell's times. Baranoff's furniture was of specially fine workmanship and exceeding value; his library was remarkable, containing works in nearly all European languages, and a collection of rare paintings—the latter having been presented to the company at the time of its organization.
Baranoff had left a wife and family in Russia. He never saw them again, although he sent allowances to them regularly. He was not bereft of woman's companionship, however, and we have tales of revelry by night when Baranoff alternately sang and toasted everybody, from the Emperor down to the woman upon his knee with whom he shared every sparkling glass. He had a beautiful daughter by a native woman, and of her he was exceedingly careful. A governess whom he surprised in the act of drinking a glass of liquor was struck in sudden blind passion and turned out of the house. The following day he sent for her, apologized, and reinstalled her with an increased salary, warning her, however, that his daughter must never see her drink a drop of liquor. When in his most gloomy and hopeless moods, this daughter could instantly soothe and cheer him by playing upon the piano and singing to him songs very different from those sung at his drunken all-night orgies.
That there was a very human and tender side to Baranoff's nature cannot be doubted by those making a careful study of his tempestuous life. He was deeply hurt and humiliated by the insolent and supercilious treatment of naval officers who considered him of inferior position, notwithstanding the fact that he was in supreme command of all the Russian territory in America. From time to time the Emperor conferred honors upon him, and he was always deeply appreciative; and it is chronicled that when a messenger arrived with the intelligence that he had been appointed by the Emperor to the rank of Collegiate Councillor, Baranoff, broken by the troubles, hardships, and humiliations of his stormy life, was suddenly and completely overcome by joy. He burst into tears and gave thanks to God.
"I am a nobleman!" he exclaimed. "I am the equal in position and the superior in ability of these insolent naval officers."
In 1812 Mr. Wilson P. Hunt, of the Pacific Fur Company, sailed from Astoria for Sitka on the Beaver with supplies for the Russians. By that time Baranoff had risen to the title and pomp of governor, and was living in splendid style befitting his position and his triumph over the petty officers, whose names are now insignificant in Russian history.
Mr. Hunt found this hyperborean veteran ensconced in a fort which crested the whole of a high, rocky promontory. It mounted one hundred guns, large and small, and was impregnable to Indian attack unaided by artillery. Here the old governor lorded it over sixty Russians, who formed the corps of the trading establishment, besides an indefinite number of Indian hunters of the Kodiak tribe, who were continually coming and going, or lounging and loitering about the fort like so many hounds round a sportsman's hunting quarters. Though a loose liver among his guests, the governor was a strict disciplinarian among his men, keeping them in perfect subjection and having seven guards on duty night and day.
Besides those immediate serfs and dependents just mentioned, the old Russian potentate exerted a considerable sway over a numerous and irregular class of maritime traders, who looked to him for aid and munitions, and through whom he may be said to have, in some degree, extended his power along the whole Northwest Coast. These were American captains of vessels engaged in a particular department of trade. One of the captains would come, in a manner, empty-handed, to New Archangel. Here his ship would be furnished with about fifty canoes and a hundred Kodiak hunters, and fitted out with provisions and everything necessary for hunting the sea-otter on the coast of California, where the Russians had another establishment. The ship would ply along the California coast, from place to place, dropping parties of otter hunters in their canoes, furnishing them only with water, and leaving them to depend upon their own dexterity for a maintenance. When a sufficient cargo was collected, she would gather up her canoes and hunters and return with them to Archangel, where the captain would render in the returns of his voyage and receive one-half of the skins as his share.
Over these coasting captains the old governor exerted some sort of sway, but it was of a peculiar and characteristic kind; it was the tyranny of the table. They were obliged to join in his "prosnics" or carousals and his heaviest drinking-bouts. His carousals were of the wildest and coarsest, his tempers violent, his language strong. "He is continually," said Mr. Hunt, "giving entertainment by way of parade; and if you do not drink raw rum, and boiling punch as strong as sulphur, he will insult you as soon as he gets drunk, which is very shortly after sitting down at table."