FOOTNOTE:
[2] This Mission, according to Vancouver, was established in 1778, by Franciscans, which, with one founded three years previously at San Francisco, were the northernmost settlements of any description formed by the court of Spain, on the continental shores of north-west America, exclusive of Nootka. Although the Jesuits had planted the cross on the lower territory, on the peninsula at Loretto (1697), they had not explored the west coast. Of all the numerous voyagers of note who have visited and written upon California—Perouse, Vancouver, Kotzbue, Belcher, Wilkes, and others—there is not one whose delineations are characterized with so much truth and simplicity as Vancouver,—not only in this territory, but in the groups of Polynesia. He must have been truly a good man. His intercourse with the untutored savages of the Pacific was ever tempered with justice and humanity. He did more than any succeeding navigator in stocking the islands with cattle, and his scientific duties were executed with exceeding accuracy for the means at his command. The English may well be proud of the renown he has shed upon the land of his birth; and his name will be for ever cherished in the Pacific, when the unscrupulous deeds of his great Commander shall have been forgotten.