Ships were to
be despatched to California setting up signs of Russian possession.
Forts in Hawaii could be used as a mid-Pacific arsenal and halfway
house for the Russian fleet that was to dominate the North Pacific. A
second Siberia on the west coast of America, with limits eastward as
vague as the Hudson's Bay Company's claims westward, was to be added to
the domains of the Czar. Whether the idea of declaring the North
Pacific a _closed sea_ as Spain had declared the South Pacific a
_closed sea_ till Francis Drake opened it, originated in the brain of
Shelikoff, or his successors, is immaterial. It was the aggrandizement
of the Russian American Fur Company as planned by Shelikoff from 1784
to 1796, that led to the Russian government trying to exclude foreign
traders from the North Pacific twenty-five years later, and which in
turn led to the declaration of the famous Monroe Doctrine by the United
States in 1823--that the New World was no longer to be the happy
hunting-ground of Old World nations bent on conquest and colonization.
Like many who dream greatly, Shelikoff did not live to see his plans
carried out.
Pages:
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395