The Tendency And Interest Of The Russian Empire To Stretch Itself To The East, And The Hope Still Cherished By

The more commercial and maritime nations of Europe, that a passage to the East Indies might be discovered, either by

The north-east round Asia, or by the north-west, in the direction of Hudson's Bay, were among the most powerful of the causes which directed discovery towards those parts of the globe to which we have just alluded.

The extent of the Russian discoveries and conquests in the north and north-east of Asia, added much to geographical knowledge, though from the nature of the countries discovered and conquered, the importance of this knowledge is comparatively trifling. About the middle of the seventeenth century, they ascertained that the Frozen Ocean washed and bounded the north of Asia: the first Russian ship sailed down the river Lena to this sea in the year 1636. Three years afterwards, by pushing their conquests from one river to another, and from one rude and wandering tribe to another, they reached the eastern shores of Asia, not far distant from the present site of Ochotsk. Their conquests in this direction had occupied them nearly sixty years; and in this time they had annexed to their empire more than a fourth part of the globe, extending nearly eighty degrees in length, and in the north reaching to the 160 deg. of east longitude; in breadth their conquests extended from the fiftieth to the seventy-fifth degree of north latitude. This conquest was completed by a Cossack; another Cossack, as Malte Brun observes, effected what the most skilful and enterprising of subsequent navigators have in vain attempted. Guided by the winds, and following the course of the tides, the current and the ice, he doubled the extremity of Asia from Kowyma to the river Anadyn. Kamschatcka, however, which is their principal settlement in the east of Asia, was not discovered till the year 1690; five years afterwards they reached it by sea from Ochotsk, but for a long time it was thought to be an island. The Kurile Islands were not discovered till the beginning of the eighteenth century.

The direction of discovery to this part of the world, as well as the plan by which it might be most advantageously and successfully executed, was given by Peter the Great, and affords one proof, that his mind was capacious, though his manners, morals, and conduct, might be those of a half-civilized tyrant. Peter did not live to carry his plan into execution: it was not, however, abandoned or neglected; for certainly the Russian government, much more than any other European government, seems to pursue with a most steady and almost hereditary predilection, all the objects which have once occupied its attention and warmed its ambition. On his death, his empress and her successors, particularly Anne and Elizabeth, contributed every thing in their power to carry his plan into full and complete execution. They went from Archangel to the Ob, from the Ob to the Jenesei.

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