e influence I well know--and that great personal power with
which the Almighty has been so lavish, and you will have the whole
weakly garrisoned country under your foot before they know where they
are, and the Russian settlers pouring in. Spain cannot come to the
rescue while this devil Bonaparte is alive, and he is young, and like
yourself a favorite of destiny. Those damned Bostonians inherit the
grabbing instincts of the too paternal race they have just rejected,
but there are thousands of miles of desert between California and their
own western outposts, hundreds of savage tribes to exterminate. By the
time they are in a position to attempt the occupation of California we
shall be so securely entrenched they will either let us alone or send
troops that would be half dead by the time they reach us. As to ships,
we could soon build enough at Okhotsk and Petropaulovsky for our
purpose. For the matter of that, if your gifted tongue impressed the
Tsar with the riches of California there would always be war ships on
her coast." He leaned forward and caught the strong shoulders above
him in hands that looked like a tangle of baked nerves, and shook them
vigorously. "You are a great boy!" he said with a sort of quizzical
solemnity. "A great boy. This damned, God-forsaken, pestilential,
demoralizing, brutalizing factory for enriching a few with the very
life blood and vitals of thousands that will suffer and starve and
never be heard of" (all his language cannot be recorded), "will make
two or three reputations by the way. Mine will be one, although I'll
get nothing else. Shelikov is safe; but you will have a monument.
Well, God bless you. I grudge you nothing. Not even the happiness you
deserve and are bound to have--for when all is said and done, Rezanov,
you are a lucky dog, a lucky dog! Any man may see that, even when
these infernal snows have left him with but half an eye. To quarrel
with a destiny like yours would be as great a waste of time as to
protest that California is warm and fertile, while this infernal North
is like living in a refrigerator with the deluge to vary the monotony.
Now let us get drunk!"

But Rezanov laughingly extricated himself, and sending a message to
Davidov and Khostov to come to him immediately, walked toward the tent
he had ordered erected on the edge of the settlement; only the worst of
weather drove him indoors in these half-civilized communities.

As he was passing the ch