There are six vessels (of forty to fifty tons burthen) employed by the empress between Okotsk and Bolcheretsk, five of which are appropriated to the transporting of stores and provisions from Okotsk to Bolcheretsk; except that once in two or three years, some of them go round to Awatska, and the Kamtschatka river; the sixth is only used as a packet-boat, and always kept in readiness, and properly equipped for conveying dispatches. Besides these, there are about fourteen vessels employed by the merchants in the fur trade, amongst the islands to the eastward. One of these we found frozen up in the harbour of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which was to sail on a trading voyage to Oonalashka, as soon as the season would permit. It is here to be observed, that the most considerable and valuable part of the fur-trade is carried on with the islands that lie between Kamtschatka and America. These were first discovered by Beering, in 1741, and being found to abound with sea-otters, the Russian merchants became exceedingly eager in searching for the other islands seen by that navigator, to the south-east of Kamtschatka, called, in Muller’s map, the Islands of Seduction, St. Abraham, &c. In these expeditions they fell in with three groups of islands. The first, about fifteen degrees to the east of Kamtschatka, in 53° N. latitude; the second, about twelve degrees to the eastward of the former; and the third, Oonalashka, and the islands in its neighbourhood. These trading adventurers advanced also as far east as Shumagin’s Islands (so called by Beering), the largest of which is named Kodlak. But here, as well as on the continent at Alaska, they met with so warm a reception, in their attempts to compel the payment of a tribute, that they never afterward ventured so far. However, they conquered and made tributary the three groups before mentioned. In the Russian charts, the whole sea between Kamtschatka and America is covered with islands; for the adventurers in these expeditions frequently falling in with land, which they imagined did not agree with the situation of other laid down by preceding voyagers, immediately concluded it must be a new discovery, and reported it as such on their return; and since the vessels employed in these expeditions were usually out three or four years, and oftentimes longer, these mistakes were not in the way of being soon rectified. It is, however, now pretty certain, that the islands already enumerated are all that have yet been discovered by the Russians in that sea to the southward of 60° of latitude.