The effect of the bandit outrages on the hostile Indians of the
mainland was quickly evident. Baranof realized that if he was to hold
the Pacific coast for his company, he must push his hunting brigades
east and south toward New Spain. A convict colony, that was to be the
nucleus of a second St. Petersburg, was planned to be built under the
very shadow of Mount St. Elias. Shields, the Englishman employed by
Russia, after bringing back two thousand sea-otter from Bering Bay in
1793, had pushed on down south-eastward to Norfolk Sound or the modern
Sitka, where he loaded a second cargo of two thousand sea-otter. A
dozen foreign traders had already coasted Alaskan shores, and southward
of Norfolk Sound was a flotilla {329} of American fur traders, yearly
encroaching closer and closer on the Russian field. All fear of
rivalry among the Russians had been removed by the union of the
different companies in 1799. Baranof pulled his forces together for
the master stroke that was to establish Russian dominion on the
Pacific. This was the removal of the capital of Russian America
farther south.
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