[Illustration: Indian Settlement at Nootka.]
Donning regimentals, Lieutenant Puget marched solemnly up to the fort to inform Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra, representative of Spain, that Captain George Vancouver, representative of England, had arrived at Nootka to await the pleasure of New Spain's commander. It was New Spain's pleasure to receive England's salute; and Vancouver's guns roared out a volley of thirteen shots to the amaze of two thousand or more savages watching from the shores. Formally accompanied by his officers, Vancouver then paid his respects to New Spain. Don Quadra returned the compliment by breakfasting next morning on board the Discovery, while his frigates in turn saluted England by a volley of thirteen guns. In all this solemn parade of formality, Maquinna, lord of the wild domain, began to wonder what part he was to play, and ventured to board the Discovery, clad in a garb of nature, to join the breakfast of the leaders; when he was summarily cuffed overboard by the guard, who failed to recognize the Indian's quality. Don Quadra then gave a grand dinner to the English, to which the irate Maquinna {278} was invited. Five courses the dinner had, with royal salutes setting the echoes rolling in the hills. Seventeen guns were fired to the success of Vancouver's explorations. Toasts were drunk, foaming toasts to glory, and the navigators of the Pacific, and Maquinna, grand chief of the Nootkas, who responded by rising in his place, glass in hand, to express regret that Spain should withdraw from the North Pacific. It was then the brilliant thought flashed on Don Quadra to win the friendship of the Indians for all the white traders on the Pacific coast through a ceremonious visit by Vancouver and himself to Maquinna's home village, twenty miles up the sound.
Cutter and yawl left Friendly Cove at eight in the morning of September 4, coming to Maquinna's home village at two in the afternoon. Don Quadra supplied the dinner, served in style by his own Spanish lackeys; and the gallant Spaniard led Maquinna's only daughter to the seat at the head of the spread, where the young squaw did the honors with all the hauteur of the Indian race. Maquinna then entertained his visitors with a sham battle of painted warriors, followed by a mask dance. Not to be outdone, the whites struck up fife and drum, and gave a wild display of Spanish fandangoes and Scotch reels. In honor of the day's outing, it was decided to name the large island which Vancouver had almost circumnavigated, Quadra and Vancouver.
When Maquinna returned this visit, there were fireworks, and more toasts, and more salutes. All this {279} was very pleasant; but it was not business. Then Vancouver requested Don Quadra to ratify the international agreement between England and Spain; but there proved to be a wide difference of opinion as to what that agreement meant. Vancouver held that it entailed the surrender of Spain's sovereignty from San Francisco northward. Don Quadra maintained that it only surrendered Spanish rights north of Juan de Fuca, leaving the northwest coast free to all nations for trade. With Vancouver it was all or nothing. Don Quadra then suggested that letters be sent to Spain and England for more specific instructions. For this purpose Lieutenant Broughton was to be despatched overland across Mexico to Europe. It was at this stage that Robert Gray came down from the north on the damaged Columbia, to receive assistance from Quadra. Within three weeks Gray had sailed for Boston, Don Quadra for New Spain, and Vancouver to the south, to examine that Columbia River of Gray's before proceeding to winter on the Sandwich Islands.
The three English ships hauled out of Nootka in the middle of October, steering for that new river of Gray's, of which Vancouver had expressed such doubt. The foaming reefs of Cape Disappointment were sighted and the north entrance seen just as Gray had described it. The Chatham rode safely inside the heavy cross swell, though her small boat smashed to chips among the breakers; but on Sunday, October {280} 21, such mountainous seas were running that Vancouver dared not risk his big ship, the Discovery, across the bar. Broughton was intrusted to examine the Columbia before setting out to England for fresh orders.
The Chatham had anchored just inside Cape Disappointment on the north, then passed south to Cape Adams, using Gray's chart as guide. Seven miles up the north coast, a deep bay was named after Gray. Nine or ten Indian dugouts with one hundred and fifty warriors now escorted Broughton's rowboat upstream. The lofty peak ahead covered with snow was named Mt. Hood. For seven days Broughton followed the river till his provision ran out, and the old Indian chief with him explained by the signs of pointing in the direction of the sunrise and letting water trickle through his fingers that water-falls ahead would stop passage. Somehow, Broughton seemed to think because Gray, a private trader, had not been clad in the gold-braid regimentals of authority, his act of discovery was void; for Broughton landed, and with the old chief assisting at the ceremony by drinking healths, took possession of all the region for England, "having" as the record of the trip explains, "every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation or state had ever entered this river before; in this opinion he was confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch, in which it does not appear that Mr. Gray either saw or was ever within five leagues of the entrance."
{281} Any comment on this proceeding is superfluous. It was evidently in the hope that the achievement of Gray—an unassuming fur trader, backed by nothing but his own dauntless courage—would be forgotten, which it certainly was for fifty years by nearly all Americans. Three days later, on November 3, Broughton was back down-stream at the Chatham, noting the deserted Indian village of Chinook as he passed to the harbor mouth. On November 6, in heavy rain, the ship stood out for sea, passing the Jenny of Bristol, imprisoned inside the cape by surf. Broughton landed to reconnoitre the passage out. The wind calmed next day, and a breach was descried through the surf. The little trading ship led the way, Broughton following, hard put to keep the Chatham headed for the sea, breakers rolling over her from stem to stern, snapping the tow-rope of the launch and washing a sailor overboard; and we cannot but have a higher respect for Gray's feat, knowing the difficulties that Broughton weathered.
Meanwhile Vancouver on the Discovery had coasted on down from the mouth of the Columbia to Drake's Bay, just outside the Golden Gate of San Francisco, where the bold English pirate had anchored in 1579. By nightfall of November 14 he was inside the spacious harbor of San Francisco. Two men on horseback rode out from the Spanish settlement, a mile back from the water front, firing muskets as a salute to Vancouver. The next morning, a Spanish friar and {282} ensign came aboard the Discovery for breakfast, pointing out to Vancouver the best anchorage for both wood and water. While the sailors went shooting quail on the hills, or amused themselves watching the Indians floating over the harbor on rafts made of dry rushes and grass, the good Spanish padre conducted Vancouver ashore to the presidio, or house of the commandant, back from the landing on a little knoll surrounded by hills. The fort was a square area of adobe walls fourteen feet high and five deep, the outer beams filled in between with a plaster of solid mortar, houses and walls whitewashed from lime made of sea-shells. A small brass cannon gathered rust above one dilapidated carriage, and another old gun was mounted by being lashed to a rotten log. A single gate led into the fort, which was inhabited by the commandant, the guard of thirty-five soldiers, and their families. The windows of the houses were very small and without glass, the commandant's house being a rude structure thirty by fourteen feet, whitewashed inside and out, the floor sand and rushes, the furnishings of the roughest handicraft. The mission proper was three miles from the fort, with a guard of five soldiers and a corporal. Such was the beginning of the largest city on the Pacific coast to-day.