"Sad as his death was," says Steller, "that intrepidity and seriousness with which he prepared to meet death was most worthy of admiration." He thanked God for having been his guide from youth, and for having given him success through life. He sought in every way possible to encourage his companions in misfortune to hopeful activity, and inspire them with faith in Providence and the future. Notwithstanding his conviction that they had been cast upon the shores of an unknown land, he was not disposed to discourage the others by expressing himself on this point. On the 9th of December his body was interred in the vicinity of the huts, between the graves of the second mate and the steward. At the departure from the island there was placed upon his grave a plain wooden cross, which also served to show that the island belonged to the Russian crown. This cross was renewed several times, and in the sixties, so far as is known, twenty-four men erected a monument to his honor in the governor's garden (the old churchyard) in Petropavlovsk, where a monument to the unfortunate La Pérouse is also found, and where Cook's successor, Captain Clerke, found his last resting place.
With Bering that mental power, which had been the life of these great geographical expeditions and driven them forward toward their goal, was gone. We have seen how his plans were conceived; how through long and dreary years he struggled in Siberia to combine and execute plans and purposes which only under the greatest difficulties could be combined and executed; how by his quiet and persistent activity he endeavored to bridge the chasm between means and measures, between ability to do and a will to do,—a condition typical of the Russian society of that time. We have seen how he surmounted the obstacles presented by a far-off and unwilling government, a severe climate, poor assistants, and an inexperienced force of men. We have accompanied him on his last expedition, which seems like the closing scene of a tragedy, and like this ends with the death of the hero.
He was torn away in the midst of his activity. Through his enterprise a great continent was scientifically explored, a vast Arctic coast, the longest in the world, was charted, a new route to the western world was found, and the way paved for Russian civilization beyond the Pacific, while enormous sources of wealth—a Siberian Eldorado—were opened on the Aleutian Islands for the fur-hunter and adventurer. Russian authors have compared Bering with Columbus and Cook. He certainly was for Russia, the land of his adoption, what the two former were for Spain and England—a great discoverer, an honest, hardy, and indefatigable pioneer for knowledge, science, and commerce. He led Europe's youngest marine out upon explorations that will ever stand in history as glorious pages, and as living testimony of what Northern perseverance is able to accomplish even with most humble means.
And yet he only partly succeeded in accomplishing what for sixteen years had been the object of his endeavors. His voyage to America was merely a reconnoitering expedition, which, in the following summer, was to have been repeated with better equipments.
Chirikoff, who on the expedition in 1741, about simultaneously with Bering,[93] discovered a more southerly part of the North American coast, returned to Avacha in such an impaired condition that, in 1742, he could undertake no enterprise of importance.[94] On account of the great misfortunes that overwhelmed the expedition, Laptjef was prevented from completing the charting of Kamchatka. Thus we see that on every side of Bering's grave lay unfinished tasks. These tasks were inherited from the Dano-Russian explorer by his great successor Cook, and other younger navigators. Moreover, his death occurred at an extremely fatal period; for in these same dark December days while Bering was struggling with death in the sandpits of Bering Island, Biron, Münnich, and Ostermann lost their supremacy in St. Petersburg. The Old Russian party, the opponents of Peter the Great's efforts at reform, came into power, and during Elizabeth's inert administration, all modern enterprises, the Northern Expedition among them, were allowed to die a natural death. At Avacha and Okhotsk affairs wore a sorrowful aspect. The forces of the expedition had been decimated by sickness and death, their supplies were nearly exhausted, their rigging and sails destroyed by wind and weather, the vessels more or less unseaworthy, and East Siberia drained and devastated by famine; only Bering's great powers of perseverance could have collected the vanishing forces for a last endeavor. On September 23, 1743, an imperial decree put an end to any further undertakings. Meanwhile, the crew of the St. Peter had, in August, 1742, returned to Avacha in a boat made from the timber of the stranded vessel. Chirikoff had previously departed for Okhotsk, to which place also Spangberg returned from his third voyage to Japan. Gradually the forces of the various expeditions gathered in Tomsk, where, first under the supervision of Spangberg and Chirikoff, and later that of Waxel and other officers, they remained until 1745. Thus ended the Great Northern Expedition.
But Bering's ill fate pursued him even after death. During the reign of Empress Elizabeth, nothing was done to make known the results of these great and expensive explorations, nor to establish the reputation of the discoverers. The reports of Bering and his co-workers, which make whole cartloads of manuscript, were buried in the archives of the Admiralty. Only now and then did a meager, and usually incorrect, account come to the knowledge of the world. Some of the geographers of that day insisted that the Russian government system of suppression merely aimed at excluding the rest of Europe from that profitable maritime trade through the Arctic seas for which the Northern Expedition had opened the way. Ignorance on this subject was so great that Joseph de l'Isle ventured even before the French Academy to refer to himself as the originator of the expedition,—to rob Bering of his dearly bought honor, and to proclaim to the world that Bering accomplished no more on this expedition than his own shipwreck and death. With Buache he published a book and a map to prove his statements. The name De l'Isle at that time carried with it such weight that he might have succeeded in deceiving the world for a time, if G. F. Müller had not, in an anonymous pamphlet written in French, disproved these falsehoods. But even Müller's sketch in Sammlung Russischer Geschichte (1758), the first connected account published concerning these expeditions, has great defects, as we have seen, not only from the standpoint of historical accuracy, but it also shows a lack of appreciation of the geographical results obtained by Bering. Hence it would have been impossible for Cook to render the discoverer long-deferred justice, if he had not known D'Anville's map and Dr. Campbell's essay. Thus it was West Europe that last century rescued Bering's name from oblivion. In our day the Russian Admiralty has had this vast archival material examined and partly published, but much must yet be done before a detailed account can be given of the enterprises we have attempted to sketch, or of the man who was the soul of them all. We hardly feel disposed, with Professor Von Baer, to urge the erection of a monument in St. Petersburg, as a restitution for long forgetfulness, former misjudgment, and lack of appreciation. As Russia's first navigator and first great discoverer, he certainly has merited such a distinction. We shall, however, consider our task accomplished, if we have succeeded in giving in these pages a reliable account of the life and character of a man who deserves to be remembered, not only by that nation which must ever count Vitus Bering among her good and faithful sons, but also by the country that harvested the fruits of his labors.
BERING'S MONUMENT IN PETROPAVLOVSK.
(FROM WHYMPER.)