Captain Lincoln wrote on January 12, 1827 to DON GUILLERMO HARTNELL from Callao that he couldn’t find a Russian-English dictionary in London, but found a French-Russian one in Paris through a friend

+++  Sometimes Hartnell mediated disputes at the customhouse, trying to improve relations between the Russian  and Mexican governments and to dispel the animosity shown by Spaniards since earliest times to shaggy visitors from the north.  After several deals with them in sea-otter and sealskins, Hartnell  wrote in 1826 to the company captain, John Lincoln.  He asked his friend to look for an English-Russian dictionary and grammar on the next European voyage of the ‘John Begg,’ explaining that he wished to learn Russian because no one else could converse freely with such close neighbours and frequent visitors.  From his own experience, he felt that the Russians were willing, even anxious, to increase goodwill, to abandon the illegal practices of olden days (when Spaniards would admit no foreign trade to California), and to exchange produce with Mexican-Californians.  An interpreter was badly needed, that these desires be expressed to the governor.  He himself wished to launch a new era of understanding.  Hartnell confided to Lincoln his further thought that fat commissions could be collected by an individual (again he had himself in mind) acting as Russian agent in Mexican territory.  ++  North of Ross lay other Russian settlements, in dire need of California produce.  Straight to the Arctic they stretched, each filled with scurvy-ridden, ill-clothed, half-starved subjects of the czar, rich in furs and nothing else.  Through his gift of tongues, it was conceivable that Don Guillermo could command the fur trade of the entire Russian empire in the Pacific, comprising portions of Siberia, Kamchatka, and the Aleutian Islands, as well as Sitka and other points on the northwest coast.  ++  Captain LIncoln became interested in Hartnell’s large idea and took pains to fulfill his commission.  From Callao he wrote, on January 12, 1827: “Throughout all London there was not a Russian and English grammar to be got, but a friend of mine wrote to Paris and got me one in French and Russian, which I hope will answer the same.”  ++  It is a coincidence, perhaps, that French voyagers to the Pacific were unfailingly interested in outposts of the Russian empire.  Duhaut-Cilly’s description of Ross is the most intimately and accurately detailed.  +++