Iron, there was none. The rusty remnants of old
wrecks were gathered together for bolts and joints and axes. Spruce
gum mixed with blubber oil took the place of oakum and tar below the
water-line. Moss and clay were used as calking above water. For sail
cloth, there was nothing but shreds and rags and tatters of canvas
patched together so that each mast-arm looked like Joseph's coat of
many colors. Seventy-nine feet from stem to stern, the crazy craft
measured, of twenty-three feet beam, thirteen draught, one hundred
tons, two decks, and three masts. All the winter of 1792-1793, just a
year after Robert Gray, the American, had built his sloop down at Fort
Defence off Vancouver Island, the Russian shipbuilding went on. Then
in April, lest the poverty of the Russians should become known to
foreign traders, Baranof sent Shields, the English {326} shipbuilder,
off out of the way, on an otter-hunting venture. It was August of the
next summer before the clumsy craft slipped from the skids into the
rising tide. She was so badly ballasted that she bobbled like cork;
and her sails so frail they flew to tatters in the gentlest wind; but
Russia had accomplished her first ship in America.
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