The Princess Royal was not however molested by him, but, on the 2d of July, her consort the Argonaut arrived with Captain Colnett, who, upon hearing of the treatment of the Iphigenia and the North-west America, hesitated at first to enter the Sound. His instructions were to found a factory, to be called Fort Pitt, in the most convenient station which he might select, for the purpose of a permanent settlement, and as a centre of trade, round which other stations might be established. Having at last entered the Sound, he was invited to go on board the Princesa, where an altercation ensued between Martinez and himself, in respect of his object in visiting Nootka, the result of which was the arrest of Colnett himself and the seizure of the Argonaut. Her consort the Princess Royal on her return to Nootka on the 13th of July, was seized in like manner by the Spanish commander. Both these vessels were sent as prizes to San Blas, according to Captain Meares’ memorial. The Columbia in the mean while had been allowed to depart unmolested, and her consort the Washington, which had been trading along the coast, soon followed her.
Such is a brief summary of the transactions at Nootka Sound in the course of 1789, which led to the important political discussions, that terminated in the convention of the 28th of Oct. 1790, signed at the Escurial. By this convention the future relations of Spain and Great Britain in respect of trade and settlements on the north-west coast of America, were amicably arranged.
Immediately upon receiving information of these transactions from the Viceroy, the Spanish Government hastened to communicate to the Court of London the seizure of a British vessel, (the Argonaut,) and to remonstrate against the attempts of British subjects to make settlements in territories long occupied and frequented by the Spaniards, and against their encroachments on the exclusive rights of Spain to the fisheries in the South Seas, as guaranteed by Great Britain at the treaty of Utrecht. The British Ministry in reply demanded the immediate restoration of the vessel seized, as preliminary to any discussion as to the claims of Spain. The Spanish Cabinet in answer to this demand stated, that as the Viceroy of Mexico had released the vessel, his Catholic Majesty considered that affair as concluded, without discussing the undoubted rights of Spain to the exclusive sovereignty, navigation, and commerce in the territories, coasts, and seas, in that part of the world, and that he should be satisfied with Great Britain directing her subjects to respect those rights in future. At this juncture, Meares, who had received from the Columbia, on her arrival at Macao, the tidings of the seizure of the North-west America, whose crew returned as passengers in the Columbia, as well as of the Argonaut and the Princess Royal, arrived at London with the necessary documents to lay before the British Government. A full memorial of the transactions at Nootka Sound in 1789, including an account of the earlier commercial voyages of the Nootka and the Felice, was presented to the House of Commons on May 13, 1790. It is published in full in the appendix to Meares’ Voyages, and the substance of it may be found amongst the state papers in the Annual Register for 1790. This was followed by a message from his Majesty to both Houses of Parliament on May 25th, stating that “two vessels belonging to his Majesty’s subjects, and navigated under the British flag, and two others, of which the description had not been hitherto sufficiently ascertained, had been captured at Nootka Sound by an officer commanding two Spanish ships of war.” Having alluded to the substance of the communications which had passed between the two Governments, and to the British minister having been directed to make a fresh representation, and to claim full and adequate satisfaction, the message concluded with recommending that “such measures should be adopted as would enable his Majesty to support the honour of his crown and the interests of his people.” The House of Commons gave their full assent to these recommendations, and readily voted the necessary supplies, so that preparations to maintain the rights of Great Britain by arms were immediately commenced. In the mean time a note had been addressed on May 5th, to the Spanish minister in London, to the effect that his Majesty the King of England would take effectual measures to prevent his subjects from acting against the just and acknowledged rights of Spain, but that he could not accede to her pretensions of absolute sovereignty, commerce, and navigation, and that he should consider it his duty to protect his subjects in the enjoyments of the right of fishery in the Pacific Ocean. In accordance with the foregoing answers, the British chargé-d’affaires at Madrid made a demand, on May 16th, for the restitution of the Princess Royal, and for reparation proportionate to the losses and injuries sustained by English subjects trading under the British flag. He further asserted for them “an indisputable right to the enjoyment of a free and uninterrupted navigation, commerce, and fishery, and to the possession of such establishments as they should form with the consent of the natives of the country, not previously occupied by any of the European nations.” The substance of these communications was embodied in the memorial of the Court of Spain, delivered on June 13th to the British ambassador at Madrid. It appeared, however, from a subsequent reply from the Spanish minister, the Conde de Florida Blanca, that Spain maintained, “that the detention of the vessels was made in a port, upon a coast, or in a bay of Spanish America, the commerce or navigation of which belonged exclusively to Spain by treaties with all nations, even England herself.” The nature of these exclusive claims of Spain had been already notified to all the courts of Europe, in a declaration made by his Catholic Majesty on June 4th, where the words are made use of, “in the name of the King, his sovereignty, navigation, and exclusive commerce to the continent and islands of the South Sea, it is the manner in which Spain, in speaking of the Indies, has always used these words: that is to say, to the Continent, islands and seas, which belong to his Majesty, so far as discoveries have been made, and secured to him by treaties and immemorial possession, and uniformly acquiesced in, notwithstanding some infringements by individuals, who have been punished upon knowledge of their offences. And the King sets up no pretensions to any possessions, the right to which he cannot prove by irrefragable titles.”
What were the treaties and immemorial possession upon which Spain rested her claims, was more explicitly stated in the Spanish Memorial of the 13th June. The chief reliance seemed to have been placed upon the 8th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, as concluded between Great Britain and Spain in 1713, by which it was agreed, that the exercise of navigation and commerce to the Spanish West Indies should remain in the same state in which it was in the time of Charles II. of Spain; that no permission should at any time be given to any nation, under any pretext whatever, to trade into the dominions subject to the Crown of Spain in America, excepting as already specially provided for by treaties: moreover, Great Britain undertook “to aid and assist the Spaniards in re-establishing the ancient limits of their dominions in the West Indies, in the exact situation in which they had been in the time of Charles II.” The extent of the Spanish territories, commerce, and dominions on the continent of America was further alleged in this memorial to have been clearly laid down and authenticated by a variety of documents and formal acts of possession about the year 1692, in the reign of the above-mentioned monarch: all attempted usurpations since that period had been successfully resisted, and reiterated acts of taking possession by Spanish vessels, had preserved the rights of Spain to her dominions, which she had extended to the limits of the Russian establishments within Prince William’s Sound. It was still further alleged, that the Viceroys of Peru and New Spain had of late directed the western coasts of America, and the islands and seas adjacent, to be more frequently explored, in order to check the growing increase of smuggling, and that it was in one of the usual tours of inspection of the coasts of California that the commanding officer of a Spanish ship had detained the English vessels in Nootka Sound, as having arrived there, not for the purposes of trade, but with the object of “founding a settlement and fortifying it.”
From these negotiations it would appear, that Spain claimed for herself an exclusive title to the entire north-western coast of America, up to Prince William’s Sound, as having been discovered by her, and such discovery having been secured to her by treaties, and repeated acts of taking possession. She consequently denied the right of any other nation (for almost all the nations of Europe had been parties to the Treaty of Utrecht) to make establishments within the limits of Spanish America. Great Britain, on the other hand, maintained her right “to a free and undisturbed navigation, commerce, and fishery, and to the possession of any establishment which she might form with the consent of the natives of the country, where such country was not previously occupied by any of the European nations.” These may be considered to have been the two questions at issue between Great Britain and Spain, which were set at rest by the subsequent convention.
That such was the object of the convention, is evident from the tenor of two documents exchanged between the two courts on the 24th of July, 1790, the first of which contained a declaration, on the part of his Catholic Majesty, of his engagement to make full restitution of all the British vessels which were captured at Nootka, and to indemnify the parties with an understanding that it should not prejudice “the ulterior discussion of any right which his Majesty might claim to form an exclusive establishment at the port of Nootka;” whilst on the part of his Britannic Majesty a counter-declaration was issued, accepting the declaration of his Catholic Majesty, together with the performance of the engagements contained therein, as a full and entire satisfaction for the injury of which his Majesty complained; with the reservation that neither the declaration nor its acceptance “shall prejudice in any respect the right which his Majesty might claim to any establishment which his subjects might have formed, or should be desirous of forming in future, in the said Bay of Nootka.” Mr. Greenhow’s mode of stating the substance of these papers (p. 206) is calculated to give an erroneous notion of the state in which they left the question. He adds, “it being, however, at the same time admitted and expressed on both sides, that the Spanish declaration was not to preclude or prejudice the ulterior discussion of any right which his Catholic Majesty might claim to form an exclusive establishment at Nootka Sound.” This is not a correct statement of the transaction, as the reservation was expressed in the declaration of his Catholic Majesty; but so far was his Britannic Majesty from admitting it in the counter-declaration, that he met it directly with a special reservation of the rights of his own subjects, as already set forth.
Had the crown of Spain been able to rely upon assistance from France, in accordance with the treaty of 1761, known as the Family Compact, there can be no doubt that she would have attempted to maintain by arms her claim of exclusive sovereignty over “all the coast to the north of Western America on the side of the South Sea, as far as beyond what is called Prince William’s Sound, which is in the sixty-first degree;” but her formal application for assistance was not attended with the result which the mutual engagements of the two crowns would have secured at an earlier period. The National Assembly, to which body Louis XVI. was obliged, under the altered state of political circumstances in France, to submit the letter of the King of Spain, was rather disposed to avail itself of the opportunity which seemed to present itself for substituting a national treaty between the two nations for the Family Compact between the two Courts; and though it decreed that the naval armaments of France should be increased in accordance with the increased armaments of other European powers, it made no direct promise of assistance to Spain. On the contrary, the Diplomatic Committee of the National Assembly resolved rather to strengthen the relations of France with England, and to prevent a war, if possible; and with this object they co-operated with the agent of Mr. Pitt in Paris (Tomline’s Life of Pitt, c. xii.) and with M. de Montmorenci, the French Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in furthering the peaceable adjustment of the questions in dispute.
Convention between His Britannic Majesty and the King of Spain, signed at the Escurial the 28th of October, 1790. (Annual Register, 1790, p. 303. Martens, Recueil de Traités, t. iv., p. 493.)
“Their Britannic and Catholic Majesties, being desirous of terminating, by a speedy and solid agreement, the differences which have lately arisen between the two crowns, have judged that the best way of attaining this salutary object would be that of an amicable arrangement, which, setting aside all retrospective discussion of the rights and pretensions of the two parties, should fix their respective situation for the future on a basis conformable to their true interests, as well as to the mutual desire with which their said Majesties are animated, of establishing with each other, in every thing and in all places, the most perfect friendship, harmony, and good correspondence. In this view, they have named and constituted for their plenipotentiaries; to wit, on the part of his Britannic Majesty, Alleyne Fitz-Herbert, Esq., one of his said Majesty’s Privy Council in Great Britain and Ireland, and his Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to his Catholic Majesty; and, on the part of his Catholic Majesty, Don Joseph Monino, Count of Florida Blanca, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Spanish Order of Charles III., Councillor of State to his said Majesty, and his Principal Secretary of State, and of the Despatches; who, after having communicated to each other their respective full powers, have agreed upon the following articles:—
“Art. I. It is agreed that the buildings and tracts of land situated on the north-west coast of the continent of North America, or on islands adjacent to that continent, of which the subjects of his Britannic Majesty were dispossessed, about the month of April, 1789, by a Spanish officer, shall be restored to the said Britannic subjects.