The English people, not from any fixed national policy, but from individual initiative, were taking these necessary steps and the Government was practically compelled to follow them up. As soon as Captain Cook’s voyage of 1778 had made known to the English people the possibilities of the fur trade in this region, shipowners immediately turned their attention thither. Between 1785 and 1790 no fewer than 12 or 15 British vessels visited the coast to trade with the natives, several of them making return voyages, and most of them making shorter or longer stops at Nootka.[81] As has been stated, steps were taken from the very first to establish a post at Nootka as a center for these trading operations. A temporary one was actually set up by Meares in 1788, and an expedition was sent out for the purpose of making this permanent the following year. Thus, up to 1789, the English were exercising more control over the region than the Spanish. Had the English plans of this year not miscarried, and had the Spanish expedition of the same year not been sent, the question as to the respective rights, at least to Nootka and the immediate neighborhood, would probably never seriously have been raised.
Chapter IV.
MARTINEZ’S OPERATIONS AT NOOTKA BEFORE COLNETT’S ARRIVAL.
It was on the 5th[82] of May, 1789, that the Spanish ship anchored in Friendly Cove of Nootka Sound bearing Martinez with his instructions for occupying the port and planting a permanent colony that should be a substantial proof of the Spanish claim and serve as a center for spreading Spanish sovereignty over all the coast. Just ten days before this[83] Colnett had sailed from China with instructions and equipment to make it, an English port.[84] During the next two months, while the Englishman was crossing the Pacific, the Spaniard was making good use of the time. When the latter reached Nootka there seems to have been no visible sign that the English had ever occupied the place or even intended to occupy it. The only evidence of civilization was one vessel under a Portuguese captain with Portuguese instructions and a Portuguese flag. It soon became known that there was also an American ship a few miles away up the sound.
It has never been conclusively proved that the house which Meares built the summer before had entirely disappeared. In a letter written three years later to the Spanish commandant at that time the American captains, who had spent the winter of 1788-89 at Nootka, declared that when Martinez arrived there was no trace of Meares’s house in the cove; that there had been a house, or rather a hut, when they arrived in the fall, but that, prior to his sailing for the Sandwich Islands, Captain Douglas had pulled it to pieces, had taken the boards on board the Iphigenia, and had given the roof to Captain Kendrick, who had used it as firewood.[85]
While there is no proof that the statement of these gentlemen is not true, yet they were too plainly prejudiced in favor of the Spanish to permit their testimony to be taken for its full face value in the absence of any corroborating evidence. There is, however, some indirect evidence to support their statement, and its value is the greater because of its being indirect, and still greater because it comes from the side of the English to whose interest it would have been to maintain the contrary. This appears in the extract which Meares quotes from the journal of the Iphigenia. In the entry made two days after his return from the Sandwich Islands and two weeks before the arrival of Martinez the writer says: “[We] sent some sails on shore and erected a tent to put our empty casks in.”[86]
If their house had still been standing they would doubtless have used it for this purpose instead of erecting the tent. Further, the fact that no mention is made of the house in this journal is pretty conclusive proof that it was not in existence on their arrival. Meares’s narrative of the departure of the Iphigenia in the preceding autumn is silent on the subject. In fact, there is no statement made even in Meares’s memorial that his house was still standing; but the memorial is so written, doubtless intentionally, that the casual reader would infer that the house was still there and that evidences of English occupation were unquestionable. This is doubtless what has led most historians who have touched upon the subject, among whom are some of the best, into the error of implying or openly declaring that there was a substantial English colony when the Spanish expedition arrived.[87]
It was also this failure of Meares to tell the whole truth that led the British Parliament and ministry into the error of believing that their rights to the place were unquestionable and that the conduct of the Spanish commandant was little better than high-handed robbery.[88] It is, then, pretty safe to assert that there was no indication whatever of English occupation when Martinez arrived, and that he was consequently perfectly justified in taking possession for Spain and in maintaining his position by force if it should become necessary. The question, therefore, is not, Was he justified in his first act? but, Were his subsequent acts of violence necessary to maintain his position?
Captain Kendrick, of the American ship Columbia, which Martinez found at Nootka, and Captain Gray, of her consort, the Lady Washington, which was out on a trading cruise at the time, were slightly involved in the relations between the Spanish and English commanders. But the vessel under Portuguese colors furnishes the center of interest for the first month of Spanish occupation.