The management of this great organization was vested in an administrative council, composed of its stockholders in St. Petersburg, with a head general office at Irkutsk, Siberia—a chief manager, who was to reside in Alaska, and was styled “The Governor,” and whose selection was ordered from the officers of the Imperial navy not lower in rank than post-captain. That high official and Alaskan autocrat had an assistant, also a naval officer, and each received pay from the Russian Company, in addition to their regular governmental salaries, which were continued to them by the Crown. In cases of mutiny or revolt the powers of the governor were absolute. He had also the fullest jurisdiction at all times over offenders and criminals, with the nominal exception of capital crimes. Such culprits were supposed to have a preliminary trial, then were to be forwarded to the nearest court of justice in Siberia. Something usually “happened” to save them the tedious journey, however. The Russian servants of the company—its numerous retinue of post-traders, factors, and traders, and laborers of every class around the posts—were engaged for a certain term of years, duly indentured. When the time expired the company was bound to furnish them free transportation back to their homes, unless the unfortunate individuals were indebted to it; then they could be retained by the employer until the debt was paid. It is needless to state in this connection that an incredibly small number of Russians were ever homeward bound from Alaska during these long years of Muscovitic control and operation. This provision of debtor _vs._ creditor was one which enabled the creditor company to retain in its service any and all men among the humbler classes whose services were desirable, because the scanty remuneration, the wretched pittance in lieu of wages, allowed them, made it a matter of utter impossibility to keep out of debt to the company’s store. Even among the higher officials it is surprising to scan the long list of those who, after serving one period of seven years after another, never seemed to succeed in clearing themselves from the iron grasp of indebtedness to the great corporation which employed them. As long as the Russian Company maintained a military or naval force in the Alaskan territory, at its own expense, these forces were entirely at the disposal of its governor, who passed most of his time in elegant leisure at Sitka, where the finest which the markets and the vineyards of the world afforded were regularly drawn upon to supply his table. No set of men ever lived in more epicurean comfort and abundance than did those courtly chief magistrates of Alaska who succeeded the plain Baranov in 1818, and who established and maintained the vice-regal comfort of their physical existence uninterruptedly until it was surrendered, with the cession of their calling, in 1867.