To Governor Yanovsky. On the Protection of the Aleuts. c. 1818–1820

To our beloved fatherland, the Creator has been pleased to give this land as though a newborn infant—one that has yet neither the strength for any understanding, nor the reason for it, and requires not only protection but, by reason of its weakness and the frailty of its infant age, actual sustenance; and yet it has not even the capacity to make its petition known to anyone.

And since the care of this people’s welfare has been entrusted by Divine Providence—for a time unknown to us—into the hands of the Russian authority here present, which authority has now been committed to your power: therefore I, the most humble servant and nurse of these peoples, standing before you on their behalf, write to you my petition with tears of blood.

Be to us a father and protector. We know not eloquence; yet with speechlessness, with the tongue of infants, we say: “Wipe away the tears of the defenseless orphans; cool the hearts that are melting with the heat of grief; let them know what comfort means!”