One Of These 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 have 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 for his share.
Over these coasting captains, as we have hinted, the veteran
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 him in his "prosnics" or carousals, and to drink
"potations pottle deep." His carousals, too, were not of the most
quiet kind, nor were his potations as mild as nectar. "He is
continually," said Mr. Hunt, "giving entertainments 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 to table."
As to any "temperance captain" who stood fast to his faith, and
refused to give up his sobriety, he might go elsewhere for a
market, for he stood no chance with the governor.
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