Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter XIII.
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was very well satisfied with the results. He permitted
him and his crew to go to Yakutsk to obtain rest, and
ordered him to return to St. Petersburg the next spring
to render in person an account of the results of the
expedition. His preliminary report, sent in advance,
received considerable attention in the cabinet of the
Empress, and caused much talk in the leading circles of
the capital. While in Yakutsk, he received orders to
travel day and night to reach St. Petersburg.
Meanwhile, however, his old enemy Pissarjeff had also been
active. Surreptitiously, especially from Walton, who
was constantly at enmity with his chief, he had obtained
some information concerning the expedition and had
reported to the Senate that Spangberg had not been in
Japan at all, but off the coast of Corea. This assertion
he sought to prove by referring to pre-Spangberg maps,
which, as we have noted, placed Japan eleven or twelve
degrees too far east, directly south of Kamchatka. This
gossip was credited in the Senate, and a courier was
dispatched to stop Spangberg. At Fort Kirinsk, on the
Lena, in the summer of 1740, he received orders to
return to Okhotsk and repeat his voyage to Japan, while
a commission of naval officers and scholars betook
themselves to investigate the matter. These wise men, after
several years of deliberation, came to the conclusion that
Walton had been in Japan, and that Spangberg most
probably had been off the coast of Corea. In the
summer of 1742, he started out on his third expedition to
Japan, but as this was a complete failure, undoubtedly
due to Spangberg’s anger on account of the government’s
unjust and insane action, and as it has no geographical
significance, we shall give it no further consideration.
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