The discoveries of the Russians, of which vague rumours had found their way into Europe, and of which a detailed account was given to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, in 1750, by J. N. de l’Isle, the astronomer, on his return from St. Petersburg, revived the attention of Spain to the importance of securing her possessions in the New World against the encroachments of other Powers. It was determined that the vacant coasts and islands adjacent to the settled provinces of New Spain should be occupied, so as to protect them against casual expeditions, and that the more distant shores should be explored, so as to secure to the crown of Spain a title to them, on the grounds of first discovery. With this object “the Marine Department of San Blas” was organised, and was charged with the superintendence of all operations by sea. Its activity was evinced by the establishment of eight “Presidios” along the coast in Upper California, in the interval of the ten years immediately preceding 1779. Of these San Diego, in 32° 39′ 30″, was the most southerly; San Francisco, in 38° 48′ 30″, the most northerly. During the same period, three expeditions of discovery were dispatched from San Blas. The earliest of these sailed forth in January, 1774, under the command of Juan Perez, but its results were not made known before 1802, when the narrative of the expedition of the Sutil and Mexicana was published, as already stated. According to this account, Perez, having touched at San Diego and Monterey, steered out boldly into the open sea, and made the coast of America again in 53° 53′ north. In the latitude of 55° he discovered a headland, to which he gave the name of Santa Margarita, at the northern extremity of Queen Charlotte’s Island. The strait which separates this island from that of the Prince of Wales, is henceforward marked in Spanish maps as the Entrada de Perez. A scanty supply of water, however, soon compelled him to steer southward, and he cast anchor in the Bay of San Lorenzo in 49° 30′, in the month of August, and for a short time engaged in trade with the natives. Spanish writers identify the bay of San Lorenzo with that to which Captain Cook, four years afterwards, gave the name of Nootka Sound. Perez was prevented from landing on this coast by the stormy state of the weather, and his vessel was obliged to cut her cables, and put to sea with the loss of her anchors. He is supposed, in coasting southward, to have caught sight of Mount Olympus in 47° 47′. Having determined the true latitude of C. Mendocino, he returned to San Blas, after about eight months’ absence. Unfortunately for the fame of Perez, the claim now maintained for him to the discovery of Nootka Sound, was kept secret by the Spaniards till after general consent had assigned it to Captain Cook. The Spaniards have likewise advanced a claim to the discovery of the Straits of Fuca, upon the authority of Don Esteban José Martinez, the pilot of the Santiago, Perez’ vessel; who, according to Mr. Greenhow, announced many years afterwards that he remembered to have observed a wide opening in the land between 48° and 49°: and they have consequently marked in their charts the headland at the entrance of the straits as Cape Martinez. No allusion, however, is made to this claim in the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana, nor in Humboldt’s New Spain.
In the following year (1775) a second expedition sailed from San Blas under the orders of Don Bruno Heceta, Don Juan de Ayala, and Don Juan de la Bodega y Quadra. The Spanish government observed their usual prudent silence as to the results of this expedition, but the journal of Antonio Maurelle, “the second pilot of the fleet,” who acted as pilot in the Senora, which Bodega commanded, fell into the hands of the Hon. Daines Barrington, who published an English translation of it in his Miscellanies, in 1781. There are four other accounts in MS. amongst the archives at Madrid. From one of these, the journal of Heceta himself, a valuable extract is given in Mr. Greenhow’s Appendix. Their first discovery north of C. Mendocino, was a small port in 41° 7′, to which they gave the name of La Trinidad, and where they fixed up a cross, which Vancouver found still remaining in 1793. They then quitted the coast, and did not make the land again till they reached 48° 26′, whence they examined the shore in vain towards the south for the supposed Strait of Fuca, which was placed in Bellin’s fanciful chart, constructed in 1766, between 47° and 48°. Having had seven of the Senora’s men massacred by the natives in the latitude of 47° 20′, where twelve years later a portion of the crew of the Imperial Eagle were surprised and murdered, they resumed their voyage northward, though Heceta, owing to the sickness of his crew, was anxious to return. A storm soon afterwards separated the two vessels, and Heceta returned southward. On his voyage homewards he first made the land on the 10th of August, in 49° 30′, on the south-west side of the great island now known as Vancouver’s Island, and passing the part which Perez had visited, came upon the main land below the entrance of the Straits of Fuca. On the 17th of August, as he was sailing along the coast between 46° 40′ and 46° 4′, according to Heceta’s own report, or in 46° 9′ according to the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana, Heceta discovered a great bay, the head of which he could no where recognise. So strong, however, were the currents and eddies of the water, that he believed it to be “the mouth of some great river, or passage to another sea.” He was disposed, according to his own statement, to conceive it to be the same with the Straits of Fuca, as he was satisfied no such straits existed between 47° and 48°, where they were laid down in the charts. He did not, however, venture to cast anchor; and the force of the currents, during the night, swept him too far to leeward to allow him to examine it any further. Heceta named the northern headland of the bay, C. San Roque; and the southern headland, C. Frondoso; and to the bay itself he gave the name of the Assumption, though, in the Spanish charts, according to Humboldt, it is termed “l’Ensenada de Ezeta,” Heceta’s Inlet. Heceta likewise gave the name of C. Falcon to a headland in 45° 43′, known since as C. Lookout; and continuing his course to the southward along the coast, reached Monterey on August 30th.
De la Bodega, in the mean time, had stretched out to 56°, when he unexpectedly made the coast, 135 leagues more to the westward than Bellin’s chart had led him to expect. He soon afterwards discovered the lofty conical mountain in King George III.’s Archipelago, to which he gave the name of San Jacinto, and which Cook subsequently called Mount Edgecumb, and having reached the 58th parallel, turned back to examine that portion of the coast, where the Rio de los Reyes was placed in the story of the adventures of Admiral Fonte. Having looked for this fabulous stream in vain, they landed and took possession of the shores of an extensive bay, in 55° 30′, in the Prince of Wales’ Archipelago, which they named Port Bucareli, in honour of the Viceroy. Proceeding southward, they observed the Entrada de Perez, north of Queen Charlotte’s Island; but, though coasting from 49° within a mile of the shore, according to Maurelle’s account, they overlooked the entrance of Fuca’s Straits. A little below 47° unfavourable winds drove them off the coast, which they made once more in 45° 27′; from which parallel they searched in vain to 42° for the river of Martin d’Aguilar. In the latitude of 38° 18′ they reached a spacious and sheltered bay, which they had imagined to be Port San Francisco; but it proved to be a distinct bay, not yet laid down in any chart, so De la Bodega bestowed his own name upon it, having noted in his journal that it was here that Sir Francis Drake careened his ship. Vancouver, however, considered the bay of Sir Francis Drake to be distinct from this bay of Bodega, as well as from that of San Francisco.
Expeditions had been, in the mean time, made by direction of the Hudson’s Bay Company, across the northern regions of North America, to determine, if possible, the existence of the supposed northern passage between Hudson’s Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Samuel Hearne, one of the Company’s agents, in 1771, in the course of one of these journeys, succeeded in tracing a river, since known as the Coppermine River, to a sea, where the flux and reflux of the tide was observed. Hearne calculated the mouth of this river to be in about 72° north latitude; and he had assured himself, by his own observations, that no channel connecting the two seas extended across the country which he had traversed. It appears that a parliamentary grant of 20,000l. had been voted, in 1745, by the House of Commons, for the discovery of a north-west passage, through Hudson’s Bay, by ships belonging to his Britannic Majesty’s subjects; and in 1776, this reward was further extended to the ships of his Majesty, which might succeed in discovering a northern passage between the two oceans, in any direction or under any parallel north of 52°. The Lords of the British Admiralty, in pursuance of Hearne’s report, determined on sending out an expedition to explore the north-easternmost coast of the Pacific; and Captain James Cook, who had just returned from an expedition in the southern hemisphere, was ordered, in 1776, to proceed round the Cape of Good Hope to the coast of New Albion, in 45 degrees. He was besides directed to avoid all interference with the establishments of European Powers: to explore the coast northward, after reaching New Albion, up to 65°; and there to commence a search for a river or inlet which might communicate with Hudson’s Bay. He was further directed to take possession, in the name of his sovereign, of any countries which he might discover to be uninhabited; and if there should be inhabitants in any parts not yet discovered by other European powers, to take possession of them, with the consent of the natives. No authentic details of any discoveries had been made public by the Spaniards since the expedition of Viscaino, in 1602, though rumours of certain voyages along the north-west coast of America, made by order of the viceroy of New Spain, in the two preceding years, had reached England shortly before Cook sailed; but the information was too vague to afford Cook any safe directions.
The expedition reached the shores of New Albion in 44° north, and thence coasted at some distance off up to 48°. Cook arrived at the same conclusion which Heceta had adopted, that between 47° and 48° north there were no Straits of Fuca, as alleged. He seems to have passed unobserved the arm of the sea a little further northward, having most probably struck across to the coast of Vancouver’s Island, which trends north-westward. Having now reached the parallel of 49° 30′, he cast anchor in a spacious bay, to which he gave the name of King George’s Sound; but the name of Nootka, borrowed from the natives, has since prevailed. It has been supposed, as already stated, that Nootka Sound was the bay in which Perez cast anchor, and which he named Port San Lorenzo; and that the implements of European manufacture, which Captain Cook, to his great surprise, found in the possession of one of the natives, were obtained on that occasion from the Spaniards. The first notification, however, of the existence of this important harbour, dates from this visit of Captain Cook, who continued his voyage northward up to the 59th parallel, and from that point commenced his survey of the coast, in the hope of discovering a passage into the Atlantic. It is unnecessary to trace his course onward. Although Spanish navigators claim to have seen portions of the coast of North America between the limits of 43° and 55° prior to his visit, yet their discoveries had not been made public, and their observations had been too cursory and vague to lead to any practical result. Captain Cook is entitled, beyond dispute, to the credit of having first dispelled the popular errors respecting the extent of the continents of America and Asia, and their respective proximity: and as Drake, according to Fletcher, changed the name of the land south of Magellan’s Straits from Terra Incognita to Terra nunc bene Cognita, so Cook was assuredly entitled to change the name of the North Pacific Sea from “Mare Incognitum” to “Mare nunc bene Cognitum.”
On the return of the vessels engaged in this expedition to England, where they arrived in October, 1780, it was thought expedient by the Board of Admiralty to delay the publication of an authorised account, as Great Britain was engaged in hostilities with the United States in America, and with France and Spain in the Old World. The Russians in the mean time hastened to avail themselves of the information which they had obtained when Captain King, on his way homewards by China, touched at the harbor of Petropawlosk, and an association was speedily formed amongst the fur merchants of Siberia and Kamtchatka to open a trade with the shores of the American continent. An expedition was in consequence dispatched in 1783, for the double purpose of trading and exploring, and several trading posts were established between Aliaska and Prince William’s Sound. Mr. Greenhow (p. 161) assigns to this period the Russian establishment on the island of Kodiak, near the entrance of the bay called Cook’s Bay, but the Russian authorities refer this settlement to a period as remote as 1763. (Letter from the Chevalier de Poletica to the Secretary of State at Washington, 28th February, 1822. British and Foreign State Papers, 1821-22, p. 484.) The Russian establishments seem to have extended themselves in 1787, and the following year as far as Admiralty Bay, at the foot of Mount Elias. The publication, however, of the journals of Cook’s expedition, which took place in 1784-5, soon introduced a host of rival traders into these seas. Private expeditions were dispatched from Macao, under the Portuguese flag, in 1785 and 1786, and under the flag of the East India Company in 1786. In the month of June of this latter year, La Perouse, in command of a French expedition of discovery, arrived off the coast, and cast anchor in a bay near the foot of Mount Fairweather, in about 59°, which he named Port des Français. He thence skirted the coast southward past Port Bucareli, the western shores of Queen Charlotte’s Island, and Nootka, and reached Monterey in September, where having stayed sixteen days, he bade adieu to the north-west coast of America. La Perouse seems first to have suspected the separation of Queen Charlotte’s Island from the continent, but as no account of the results of this expedition was published before 1797, other navigators forestalled him in the description of nearly all the places which he had visited.
In the August of 1785, in which year La Perouse had sailed, an association in London, styled the King George’s Sound Company, dispatched two vessels under the command of Captains Dixon and Portlock, to trade with the natives on the American coast, under the protection of licences from the South Sea Company, and in correspondence with the East India Company. They reached Cook’s River in July 1786, where they met with Russian traders, and intended to winter in Nootka Sound, but were driven off the coast by tempestuous weather to the Sandwich Isles. Returning northward in the spring of 1787, they found Captain Meares, with his vessel the Nootka, frozen up in Prince William’s Sound. Meares had left Calcutta in January 1786, whilst his intended consort, the Sea Otter, commanded by Captain Tipping, had been dispatched to Malacca, with instructions to proceed to the north-west coast of America; and there carry on a fur trade in company with the Nootka. Both these vessels sailed under the flag of the East India Company. Meares, after having with some difficulty got clear of the Russian establishment at Kodiak, reached Cook’s River soon after Dixon and Portlock had quitted it, and proceeded to Prince William’s Sound, where he expected to meet the Sea Otter; but Captain Tipping and his vessel were never seen by him again after leaving Calcutta, though Meares was led by the natives to suppose that his consort had sailed from Prince William’s Sound a few days before his arrival. He determined, however, to pass the winter here, in preference to sailing to the Sandwich Isles, lest he should be prevented returning to the coast of America. Here indeed the severity of the cold, coupled with scurvy, destroyed more than half of his crew, and the survivors were found in a state of extreme distress by Dixon and Portlock, on their return to the coast in the following spring.
We have now reached a period when many minute and detached discoveries took place. Prince William’s Sound and Nootka appear to have been the two great stations of the fur trade, and it seems to have been customary, in most of the trading expeditions of this period, that two vessels should be dispatched in company, so as to divide the labor of visiting the trading posts along the coast. Thus, whilst Portlock remained between Prince William’s Sound and Mount St. Elias, Dixon directed his course towards Nootka, and being convinced on his voyage, from the reports of the natives, that the land between 52° and 54° was separated from the continent, as La Perouse had suspected, he did not hesitate to call it Queen Charlotte’s Island, from the name of his vessel, and to give to the passage to the northward of it, which is marked on Spanish maps as the Entrada de Perez, the name of Dixon’s Entrance. Before Dixon and Portlock quitted these coasts, in 1787, other vessels had arrived to share in the profits of the fur trade. Amongst these the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales had been despatched from England, by the King George’s Sound Company, under command of Captains Duncan and Colnett; whilst the Imperial Eagle, under Captain Barclay, an Englishman, displayed in those seas for the first time the flag of the Austrian East India Company. To a boat’s crew belonging to this latter vessel Captain Meares assigns the discovery of the straits in 48° 30′, to which he himself gave in the following year the name of Juan de Fuca, from the old Greek pilot, whose curious story has been preserved in Purchas’ Pilgrims. (Introduction to Meares’ Voyages, p. lv.) Meares had succeeded in returning to Macao with the Nootka, in October, 1787. In the next year he was once more upon the American coast, as two other vessels, named the Felice and Iphigenia, were despatched from Macao, under Meares and Captain Douglas respectively, the former being sent direct to Nootka, the latter being ordered to make for Cook’s River, and thence proceeding southward to join her consort. Meares, in his Observations on a North-west Passage, states that Captain Douglas anticipated Captain Duncan, of the Princess Royal, in being the first to sail through the Channel which separates Queen Charlotte’s Island from the main land, and thereby confirming the suppositions of La Perouse and Dixon. Captain Duncan, however, appears at all events to have explored this part of the coast more carefully than Douglas had done, and he first discovered the group of small islands, which he named the Prince of Wales’ Archipelago. The announcement of this discovery seemed to some persons to warrant them in giving credit once more to the exploded story of Admiral Fonte’s voyage, and revived the expectation of discovering the river, which the admiral is described to have ascended near 53° into a lake communicating with the Atlantic Ocean. It is almost needless to observe, that these expectations have never been realised.
The names of several vessels have been omitted in this brief summary, which were engaged in the fur trade subsequently to the year 1785. Two vessels, however, require notice,—the Washington under Captain Gray, and the Columbia under Captain Kendrick, which were despatched from Boston, under the American flag, in August, 1787. Captain Gray reached Nootka Sound, on Sept. 17, 1788, and found Meares preparing to launch a small vessel called the North-west America, which he had built there. The Columbia does not appear to have joined her consort till after the departure of Meares and his companions. Meares himself set sail in the Felice for China, on Sept. 23, whilst the Iphigenia proceeded with the North-west America to the Sandwich Islands, and wintered there. In the spring of 1789, the two latter vessels returned to Nootka Sound, and found the Columbia had joined her consort the Washington, and both had wintered there. The North-west America was despatched forthwith on a trading expedition northward, whilst the Iphigenia remained at anchor in Nootka Sound.
Events were now at hand which were attended with very important consequences in determining the relations of Spain and Great Britain towards each other in respect to the trade with the natives on their coasts, and to the right of forming settlements among them. These will fitly be reserved, as introductory to the Convention of the Escurial, which will be discussed in a subsequent Chapter.