too little of a courtier at heart ever to
have been a prime favorite in St. Petersburg until the accession of a
ruler with whom he had something in common. A dissolute woman and a
crack-brained despot were the last to appreciate an original and
independent mind, and the seclusion of Alexander had been so complete
during the lifetime of his father that Rezanov barely had known him by
sight. But the Tsarovitz, enthusiastic for reform and a passionate
admirer of enterprise, knew of Rezanov, and no sooner did he mount his
gory throne than he confirmed the Chamberlain in his enterprise, and
two years later made him a Privy Counsellor, invested him with the
order of St. Ann, and chose him for the critical embassy to the verdant
realm with the blind and gateless walls.

Rezanov had conquered so far in life even less by address than by the
demonstration of abilities very singular in a man of his birth and
education. When he met Shelikov, during the Siberian merchant-trader's
visit to St. Petersburg in 1788, he was a young man with little
interest in life outside of its pleasures, and a patrimony that enabled
him to command them to no great extent and barely to maintain the
dignity of his rank. Shelikov's plan to obtain a monopoly of the fur
trade in the islands and territories added by his Company to Russia,
possibly throughout the entire possession, thus preventing the
destruction of sables, seals, otters, and foxes by small traders and
foreigners, interested him at once; or possibly he was merely
fascinated at first by the shrewd and dauntless representative of a
class with which he had never before come in contact. The accidental
acquaintance ripened into intimacy, Rezanov became a partner in the
Shelikov-Golikov Company, and married the daughter of his new friend.
After the death of his father-in-law, in 1795, his ambitions and
business abilities, now fully awake, prompted him to obtain for himself
and his partners rights analogous to those granted by England to the
East India Company. Shelikov had won little more than half the power
and privileges he had solicited of Catherine, although he had
amalgamated the two leading companies, drawn in several others, and
built ships and factories and forts to protect them. And if the
regnant merchants made large fortunes, the enterprise in general
suffered from the rivalries between the various companies, and above
all from lack of imperial support.

Rezanov, his plans made,