Russian penetration of the Pacific coast of North America extended as far south as Fort Ross, on Bodega Bay. The posts of the Russian-American Company are assumed to have been founded in 1811, but Nicolai Rezanov attempted a lodgement in 1806 which apparently failed, perhaps for the reasons here revealed. Conditions under the Company were notoriously poor, even by contemporary Russian standards, and Indian raids were frequent. Had he lived, Rezanov would undoubtedly have achieved much needed reforms, but his tragic death in March 1807, in the obscure Siberian town of Krasnoiarsk, prevented this. He had been on his way to obtain the Tsar's ratification of a treaty to trade with the Spanish colonies which he had agreed in principle with Don José Arguello, Commandante at San Francisco. Prior to his landing at San Francisco, Rezanov had headed an embassy to the Japanese capital at Yedo as part of Kruzenstern's circumnavigation. This, too, ended in failure.
Don Alejo is my own invention, for Don José seems to have been a man of honour, unwilling to trade against the wishes of Madrid, although he had reached some form of accommodation with Rezanov. It seemed reasonable to assume his daughter had inherited her father's high-minded character and that she should be attracted to that of Rezanov, for she too existed, famed for her extraordinary beauty. She first met the Russian in April 1806, they fell in love and announced their betrothal. When she finally learnt of his untimely death, the Spanish beauty became a nun.
Descriptions of Russian merchant ships may be found in the pages of Dana, who met them in San Francisco in the 1840s, shortly before the abandonment of the posts at Bodega Bay (Fort Ross) and the Columbia River, and some twenty-odd years before the sale of Alaska to the United States. Several countries laid a spurious claim to this wild and lovely coast in the early years of the last century and it is fascinating to speculate upon the turn of events had the presence of gold been known forty years earlier than it is generally thought to have been. It is not inconceivable that its presence was known to a few who, for reasons of their own, wished it to remain secret.