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The guns were also turned upon the Diana whenever she approached the shore, but with such wretched aim that the Russians only laughed at it. In the following summer the Diana returned to Kunashir, bringing Kachi, the merchant, who had been seriously ill from homesickness, and two of his attendants, the others having died.
Not fully crediting this, Rikord resolved to carry his captive to Kamchatka, hoping to obtain from him some useful information concerning the purposes of the Japanese government. At Rikord's request the merchant wrote a letter to the commander of the fort at Kunashir, telling him what was proposed. No answer was returned, and when the boats tried to land for water they were fired upon.
Kachi kept his word, and soon was able to obtain a letter in the handwriting of Golownin, stating that he and his companions were all alive and well at Matsumai. Afterwards one of the Russian sailors was brought to Kunashir and sent on board the Diana, with the understanding that he would return to the fort every night.
How they did so we have now to tell. In 1811 Captain Golownin, an intelligent and educated officer of the Russian navy, was sent in command of the sloop-of-war Diana to explore the Kurile Islands. These belonged to Japan, and were partly settled. At the south end of Kunashir, one of these islands, was a Japanese settlement, with a garrison.
Meanwhile their countrymen were making earnest efforts to obtain their release. Some months after their capture the Diana, now under Captain Rikord, returned to Kunashir, bringing one of the Japanese who had been taken prisoner in the descent on Saghalien. The other had died.
On the first of these heads, Golownin deemed it prudent to use some deception, and he stated that he was proceeding to St Petersburg, from the eastern extremity of the Russian Empire; that contrary winds had considerably lengthened his voyage; and that, being greatly in want of wood and fresh water, he had been looking on the coasts for a safe harbour where these might be procured, and had been directed by an officer at Eetooroop to Kunashir.
They persuaded the captain to take one of them on board as an interpreter, and proceed to Kunashir, to make such explanations as might exonerate the Russian government in this matter. The Japanese chief of the island further assured the Russians, that they could obtain a supply of wood, water, and fresh provisions at Kunashir; and he furnished them with a letter to its governor.
The reception of the Diana at Kunashir was, in the first instance, a vigorous but ineffective discharge of guns from the fortress, the walls of which were so completely hung with striped cloth, that it was impossible to form any opinion of the size or strength of the place.
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