Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XIX.
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and during Elizabeth’s inert administration, all modern
enterprises, the Northern Expedition among them, were
allowed to die a natural death. At Avacha and
Okhotsk affairs wore a sorrowful aspect. The forces of
the expedition had been decimated by sickness and death,
their supplies were nearly exhausted, their rigging and
sails destroyed by wind and weather, the vessels more
or less unseaworthy, and East Siberia drained and
devastated by famine; only Bering’s great powers of
perseverance could have collected the vanishing forces for a
last endeavor. On September 23, 1743, an imperial
decree put an end to any further undertakings.
Meanwhile, the crew of the St. Peter had, in August, 1742,
returned to Avacha in a boat made from the timber of
the stranded vessel. Chirikoff had previously departed
for Okhotsk, to which place also Spangberg returned
from his third voyage to Japan. Gradually the forces
of the various expeditions gathered in Tomsk, where,
first under the supervision of Spangberg and Chirikoff,
and later that of Waxel and other officers, they
remained until 1745. Thus ended the Great Northern
Expedition.
But Bering’s ill fate pursued him even after death.
During the reign of Empress Elizabeth, nothing was
done to make known the results of these great and
expensive explorations, nor to establish the reputation of
the discoverers. The reports of Bering and his
co-workers, which make whole cartloads of manuscript,
were buried in the archives of the Admiralty. Only
now and then did a meager, and usually incorrect,
account come to the knowledge of the world. Some of the
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