This company claimed the whole coast of America, on the Pacific, with the adjacent islands, from Behring Straits southward to, and beyond, the mouth of the Columbia River.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Behring Straits, and Sea, take their name from this navigator,—Vitus Behring, or Bering. According to a map published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, Behring touched his farthest southerly point on our coast closely under the sixtieth parallel, at what is called, on some maps, Admiralty or Behring's Bay. His consort Tchirikow's track is extended to 55° 36´. In the narrowest part of Behring's Straits it is only thirty-six miles from Asia to America, showing how slight were the obstacles to communication, as compared with the three thousand miles separating America from Europe.
[2] Permanent Trading-Posts were begun on Oonalaska about 1773, and Kodiak 1783. In 1789 there were eight of these posts, with two hundred and fifty Russians. A Russian post was also established at St. Michael's, Norton Sound.
[3] Sitka was founded to check the encroachments of the Hudson's Bay Company. Alaska was purchased by the United States in 1867, during the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
ENGLAND ON THE PACIFIC.
"Ye mariners of England!"—Campbell.
England's conquest of Canada[1] (1763) put a wholly new face upon the situation in America. She was now, beyond dispute, the foremost power of this continent.
Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died away, when a new power arose to contend with England for what she had just torn from the grasp of France. This was her own American colonies, whose people had now been driven to take up arms (1775) against the mother country, in defence of their dearest political rights. So England gained Canada, but lost her own colonies. She wrested power from France, only to see it snatched from her own grasp in the moment of victory, though, after all, it was no less a victory for the English-speaking race over all her Latin-speaking rivals. It must be seen that events like these would have far-reaching effects in shaping our history.