Always, too, he was an eager buyer of their goods, giving them in
exchange seal-skins from the Seal Islands. Boston vessels were the
first to enter partnership with Baranof. Later came Astor's captains
from New York, taking sealskins in trade for goods supplied to the
Russians.
{334} How did Baranof, surrounded by hostile Indians, with no servants
but Siberian convicts, hold his own single-handed in American wilds?
Simply by the power of his fitness, by vigilance that never relaxed, by
despotism that was by turns savage and gentle, but always paternal, by
the fact that his brain and his brawn were always more than a match for
the brain and brawn of all the men under him. To be sure, the liberal
measure of seventy-nine lashes was laid on the back of any subordinate
showing signs of mutiny, but that did not prevent many such attempts.
The most serious was in 1809. From the time that Benyowsky, the Polish
adventurer, had sacked the garrison of Kamchatka, Siberian convicts
serving in America dreamed of similar exploits. Peasants and officers,
a score in number, all convicts from Siberia, had plotted to rise in
New Archangel or Sitka, assassinate the governor, seize ships and
provisions, and sailing to some of the South Sea Islands, set up an
independent government.
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