Joseph Billings

Joseph Billings (c.1758 – 1806) was an English navigator and explorer who spent the most significant part of his life in Russian service.

In 1785, the Russian government of Catherine the Great commissioned a new expedition in search for the Northeast Passage, led by English officer Joseph Billings, who had previously sailed with Captain Cook, and the Russian officer Gavril Sarychev as his deputy and Carl Heinrich Merck as the expedition's naturalist. This enterprise operated till 1795.

Though considered a failure by some scholars because the expenditures outweighed the results, it nevertheless had a substantial record of achievement. Accurate maps were made of the Chukchi Peninsula in Eastern Siberia, the west coast of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. Members of the expedition landed on Kodiak Island and made an examination of the islands and mainlands of Prince William Sound. Additionally, the expedition compiled a census of the native population of the Aleutian Islands and reported to the crown stories of abuse by the Russian fur traders (promyshlenniki).

After the Expedition, Joseph Billings remained with the Imperial Russian Navy, before retiring in 1797 and settling in Moscow.

Billings died in Moscow on 18 June 1806 at the age of 48 years.

Cape Billings in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug was named after him.

Three contemporary accounts about the Billings expedition were written.

The first account to be published was entitled An account of a geographical and astronomical expedition to the northern parts of Russia: for ascertaining the degrees of latitude and longitude of the mouth of the river Kovima, of the whole coast of the Tshutski, to East Cape, and of the islands in the eastern ocean, stretching to the American coast, performed ... by Commodore Joseph Billings, in the years 1785, &c to 1794 and was written by Billings' secretary and interpreter Martin Sauer.It was published in London by T. Cadell in 1802.

...
Wikipedia