all powerful at court by that time, he would take
care that the Russian navy inspired Spain with a
distaste for remote Pacific waters. He had long
since recovered from the disappointment induced
by the orders compelling him to remain in the col-
onies. The great Company he had heretofore re-
garded merely as a source of income and a means of
advancing his ambitions, he now loved as his child.
Even during the marches over frozen swamps and
mountains, during the terrible winter in Sitka when
he had become familiar with illness and even with
hunger, his ardor had grown, as well as his deter-
mination to force Russia into the front rank of
Commercial Europe. The United States he barely
considered. He respected the new country for
the independent spirit and military genius that
had routed so powerful a nation as Great Britain,
but he thought of her only as a new and tentative
civilization on the far shores of the Atlantic. After
some experience of travel in Siberia, and knowing
the immensity and primeval conditions of north-
western America, he did not think it probable that
the little cluster of states, barely able to walk alone,
would indulge in dreams of expansion for many
years to come. He had heard of the projected ex-
pedition of Lewis and Clarke to the mouth of the
Columbia, but--perhaps he was too Russian--he
did not take any adventure seriously that had not
a mighty nation at its back. And as it was almost
the half of a century from that night before the