Since the mid-60s of the XIX century, a real war has unfolded in the vast Pacific Ocean between "predators" - foreign poachers and Russian sailors. These events, once inspired by R. Kipling and D. London, are now practically forgotten in Russia. The book includes works of various genres written in the late XIX-XX centuries, reprinted for the first time in more than a century, and modern historical studies written on the basis of archival documents. In the center of most of them is the tragic fate of the schooner "Cruiser," which died in 1889 in the Sea of ​ ​ Okhotsk to protect the marine wealth of Russia.