Such fits of despair
might end in wild carousals, when he drank every Russian under the
table, outshouted the loudest singer, and perhaps wound up by throwing
the roomful of revellers out of doors. But he rose from the depths of
debauch and despair, and went on with the game. That was the main
point.
The terrible position to which loss of supplies had reduced the traders
of Kadiak when his own vessel {325} was wrecked at Oonalaska on the way
out, demonstrated to Baranof the need of more ships; so when orders
came from his company in 1793 to construct a sailing boat on the
timberless island of Kadiak without iron, without axes, without saw,
without tar, without canvas, he was eager to attempt the impossible.
Shields, an Englishman, in the employment of Russia, was to act as
shipbuilder; and Baranof sent the men assigned for the work up to
Sunday Harbor on the west side of Prince William Sound, where heavy
forests would supply timber and the tide-rush help to launch the vessel
from the skids. There were no saws in the settlement. Planks had to
be hewn out of logs.
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