The Oregon Territory Part 2

It appears, likewise, that Drake, from the nature of the wind, was obliged to gain a considerable offing, before he could stand towards the northward: 600 leagues _in longitude_, according to the first edition (the second edition omitting the words 'in longitude,') which does not differ much from the World Encompa.s.sed. The latter states--"From Guatulco, or Aquatulco, we departed the day following, viz., April 16, setting our course directly into the sea, whereupon we sailed 500 leagues in longitude to get a wind: and between that and June 3, 1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 degrees of lat.i.tude, where the night following we found such an alternation of heat into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof."

The cold seems to have increased to that extremity that, in sailing two degrees further north, the ropes and tackling of the s.h.i.+p were quite stiffened. The crew became much disheartened, but Drake encouraged them, so that they resolved to endure the uttermost. On the 5th of June they were forced by contrary winds to run into an ill-sheltered bay, where they were enveloped in thick fogs, and the cold becoming still more severe, "commanded them to the southward whether they would or no." "From the height of 48 degrees, in which now we were, to 38, we found the land by coasting along it to be but low and reasonable plain: every hill, (whereof we saw many, but none very high,) though it were in June, and the sun in his nearest approach to them, being covered with snow. In 38 30' we fell in with a convenient and fit harbour, and June 17th came to anchor therein, where we continued until the 23d day of July following."

The writer of this account, in another paragraph, confirms the above statement by saying, "add to this, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto 48, yet we found not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually north-west, as if it went directly into Asia."

Mr. Greenhow is disposed to reject the statement of the World Encompa.s.sed, for two reasons: first, because it is improbable that a vessel like Drake's could have sailed through six degrees of lat.i.tude from the 3d to the 5th of June; secondly, because it is impossible that such intense cold could be experienced in that part of the Pacific in the month of June, as is implied by the circ.u.mstances narrated, and therefore they must be "direct falsehoods."

The first objection has certainly some reason in it; but in rejecting the World Encompa.s.sed, Mr. Greenhow adopts the Famous Voyage as the true narrative, so that it becomes necessary to see whether Hakluyt's account is not exposed to objections equally grave.

Hakluyt agrees with the author of the World Encompa.s.sed, in dating Drake's arrival at a convenient harbour on June 17,--(Hakluyt gives this date in vol. iii., p. 524,)--so that Drake would have consumed twelve days in running back three and a half degrees, according to one version of the Famous Voyage, and four and a half degrees according to the other, before a wind which was so violent that he could not continue to beat against it.

There is no doubt about the situation of the port where Drake took shelter, at least within half a degree, that it was either the Port de la Bodega, in 38 28', as some have with good reason supposed, (Maurelle's Journal, p. 526, in Barrington's Miscellanies,) or the Port de los Reyes, situated between La Bodega and Port San Francisco, in about 38, as the Spaniards a.s.sert; and there is no difference in the two stories in respect to the interval which elapsed after Drake turned back, until he reached the port. There is, therefore, the improbability of Drake's vessel, according to Hakluyt, making so little way in so long a time _before_ a wind, to be set off against the improbability of its making, according to the World Encompa.s.sed, so much way in so short a time on a wind, the wind blowing undoubtedly all this time very violently from the north-west. Many persons may be disposed to think that the two improbabilities balance each other.

In respect to the intense cold, it must be remembered that the Famous Voyage, equally with the World Encompa.s.sed, refers to the great extremity of the cold as the cause of Drake's drawing back again till he reached 38. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Drake did turn back on account of his men being unable to bear up against the cold, after having so lately come out of the extreme heat of the tropics. Is it more probable that this intense cold should have been experienced in the higher or the lower lat.i.tude? for the intense cold must be admitted to be a fact. Drake seems to have been exposed to one of those severe winds termed _Northers_, which in the early part of the summer, bring down the atmosphere, even at New Orleans and Mexico, to the temperature of winter; but without seeking to account for the cold, as that would be foreign to the present inquiry, the fact, to whatever extent it be admitted, would rather support the statement that Drake reached the 48th parallel, than that he was constrained to turn back at the lower lat.i.tude of 43.

It may likewise be observed that the description of the coast, "as trending continually north-westward, as if it went directly into Asia,"

would correspond with the 48th parallel, but be altogether at variance with the 43d; and it is admitted by all, that Drake's object was to discover a pa.s.sage from the western to the eastern coast of North America.

His therefore finding the land not to trend so much as one point to the east, but, on the contrary, to the westward, whilst it fully accounts for his changing his course, determines also where he decided to return. It should not be forgotten that the statement in the World Encompa.s.sed, that the coast trended to the westward in 48, was in contradiction of the popular opinion regarding the supposed Straits of Anian, and if it were not the fact, the author hazarded, without an adequate object, the rejection of this part of his narrative, and unavoidably detracted from his own character for veracity.

We have, however, two cotemporaries of Sir Francis Drake, who confirm the statement of the World Encompa.s.sed. One of these has been strangely overlooked by Mr. Greenhow; namely, Stow the annalist, who, under the year 1580, gives an account of the return of Master Francis Drake to England, from his voyage round the world. "He pa.s.sed," he says, "forth northward, till he came to the lat.i.tude of forty-seven, thinking to have come that way home, but being constrained by fogs and cold winds to forsake his purpose, came backward to the line ward the tenth of June, 1579, and stayed in the lat.i.tude of thirty-eight, to grave and trim his s.h.i.+p, until the five-and-twenty of July." This is evidently an account derived from sources quite distinct from those of either of the other two narratives.

It occurs as early as 1592, in an edition of the Annals which is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, so that it was circulated two years at least before Drake's death.

The other authority is that of one of the most celebrated navigators of Drake's age, John Davis, of Sandrug by Dartmouth, who was the author of a work ent.i.tled "The World's Hydrographical Discovery." It was "imprinted at London, by Thomas Dawson, dwelling at the Three Cranes in the Vine-tree, in 1595," and may be found most readily in the 4th volume of the last edition of Hakluyt's Voyages. After giving some account of the dangers which Drake had surmounted in pa.s.sing through the Straits of Magellan, which Davis had himself sailed through three times, he proceeds to say, that "after Sir Francis Drake was entered into the South Seas, he coasted all the western sh.o.r.es of America, until he came into the septentrional lat.i.tude of forty-eight degrees, being on the back side of Newfoundland."

Now Davis is certainly ent.i.tled to respectful attention, from his high character as a navigator. He had made three voyages in search of a north-west pa.s.sage, and had given his name to Davis' Straits, as the discoverer of them; he had likewise been the companion of Cavendish in his last voyage into the South Seas, in 1591-93, when, having separated from Cavendish, he discovered the Falkland islands. He was therefore highly competent to form a correct judgment of the value of the accounts which he had received respecting Drake's voyage, nor was he likely, as a rival in the career of maritime discovery, to exaggerate the extent of it. We find him, on this occasion, deliberately adopting the account that Drake reached that portion of the north-west coast of America, which corresponded to Newfoundland on the north-east coast, or, as he distinctly says, the septentrional lat.i.tude of 48 degrees.

Davis, however, is not the only naval authority of that period who adopted this view, for Sir William Monson, who was admiral in the reign of Elizabeth and James I., and served in expeditions against the Spaniards under Drake, in his introduction to Sir Francis Drake's voyage round the world, praises him because "lastly and princ.i.p.ally that after so many miseries and extremities he endured, and almost two years spent in unpractised seas, when reason would have bid him sought home for his rest, he left his known course, and ventured upon an unknown sea in forty-eight degrees, which sea or pa.s.sage we know had been often attempted by our seas, but never discovered." And in his brief review of Sir F. Drake's voyage round the world, he says: "From the 16th of April to the 5th of June he sailed without seeing land, and arrived in forty-eight degrees, thinking to find a pa.s.sage into our seas, which land he named Albion."

(Sir W. Monson's Naval Tracts, in Churchill's Collection of Voyages, vol.

iii., pp. 367, 368.)

Mr. Greenhow (p. 75) says, that Davis's a.s.sertion carries with it its own refutation, "as it is nowhere else pretended that Drake saw any part of the west coast of America between the 17th degree of lat.i.tude and the 38th." But surely Davis might use the expression, "coasted all the western sh.o.r.es of America," without being supposed to pretend that Drake kept in sight of the coast all the way. The objection seems to be rather verbal than substantial. Again, Sir W. Monson is charged by the same author with inconsistency, because he speaks of C. Mendocino as the "furthest land discovered," and the "furthermost known land." But Sir W. Monson is on this occasion discussing the probable advantages of a north-west pa.s.sage as a saving of distance, and he is speaking of C. Mendocino, as the "furthermost known part of America," i. e., the furthermost headland from which a course might be measured to the Moluccas, and he is likewise referring especially to the voyage of Francisco Gali, so that this objection is more specious than solid. It should likewise not be forgotten, that in the most approved maps of that day, in the last edition of Ortelius, for example, and in that of Hondius, which is given in Purchas's Pilgrims, C. Mendocino is the northernmost point of land of North America. It may also not be amiss to remark, that in the map which Mr. Hallam (in his Literature of Europe, vol. ii., c. viii., -- v.) justly p.r.o.nounces to be the best map of the sixteenth century, and which is one of uncommon rarity, Cabo Mendocino is the last headland marked upon the north-west coast of America, in about 43 north lat.i.tude. This map is found with a few copies of the edition of Hakluyt of 1589: in other copies, indeed, there is the usual inferior map, in which C. Mendocino is placed between 50 and 60. The work, however, in which it has been examined for the present purpose, is Hakluyt's edition of 1600, in which it is sometimes found with Sir F. Drake's voyage traced out upon it: but in the copy in the Bodleian Library, no such voyage is observed; whilst the line of coast is continued above C. Mendocino and marked, in large letters, "Nova Albion." Thus Hakluyt himself, in adopting this map as "a true hydrographical description of so much of the world as hath been hitherto discovered and is common to our knowledge," has so far admitted that Nova Albion extended beyond the furthest land discovered by the Spaniards. On the other hand, Camden, in his life of Elizabeth, first published in 1615, adopts the version of the story which Hakluyt had put forth in his earliest edition of the Famous Voyage, making the southern limit 55 south, and the northern 42 north, which Hakluyt has himself rejected in his later edition. There can be little doubt that Camden's account bears internal evidence of having been copied in the main from Hakluyt. Purchas, as we may gather from his work, merely followed Hakluyt.

In addition to these, Mr. Greenhow enumerates several comparatively recent authors as adopting Hakluyt's opinion. Of these, perhaps Dr. Johnson has the greatest renown. He published a life of Drake in parts, in five numbers of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740-41. It was, however, amongst his earliest contributions, when he was little more than thirty years of age, and therefore is not ent.i.tled to all the weight which the opinion of Dr. Johnson at a later period of life might carry with it. But as it is, the pa.s.sage, as it stands at present, seems to involve a clerical error.

"From Guatulco, which lies in 15 40', they stood out to sea, and without approaching any land, sailed forward till on the night following the 3d of June, being then in the lat.i.tude of 38, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts that they were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them, as they proceeded, to such a degree that the sailors were discouraged from mounting upon deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could scarcely be conveyed warm to the table. On June 17th they came to anchor in 38 30'."

In the original paper, as published in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1741, Dr. Johnson writes 38 in numbers as the parallel of lat.i.tude where the cold was felt so acutely. This would be in a far lower lat.i.tude than what any of the accounts of Drake's own time gives; so that it may for that reason alone be suspected to be an error of the press, more particularly as Drake is made ultimately to anchor in 38 30', a higher lat.i.tude than that in which his crew were benumbed with the cold.

We must either suppose that Dr. Johnson entirely misunderstood the narrative, and intentionally represented Drake as continuing his voyage northward in spite of the cold, and anchoring in a higher lat.i.tude than where his men were so much discouraged by its severity, or that there is a typographical error in the figures. The latter seems to be the more probable alternative; and if, in order to correct this error, we may reasonably have recourse to the authority from which he derived his information as to the lat.i.tude of the port where Drake cast anchor, it is to the World Encompa.s.sed, and not to the Famous Voyage, that we must refer; for it is the World Encompa.s.sed which gives us 38 30' as the lat.i.tude of the convenient and fit harbour, whereas the Famous Voyage sends Drake into a fair and good bay in 38.

The dispute between Spain and Great Britain respecting the fur trade on the north-west coast of America having awakened the attention of the European powers to the value of discoveries in that quarter, a French expedition was in consequence despatched in 1790, under Captain Etienne Marchand, who, after examining some parts of the north-west coast of America, concluded the circ.u.mnavigation of the globe in 1792. Fleurieu, the French hydrographer, published a full account of Marchand's Voyage, to which he prefaced an introduction, read before the French Inst.i.tute in July, 1797. In this introduction he reviews briefly the course of maritime discovery in these parts, and states his opinion, without any qualification, that Sir Francis Drake made the land on the north-west coast of America in the lat.i.tude of 48 degrees, which no Spanish navigator had yet reached. Mr. Greenhow (p. 223) speaks highly of Fleurieu's work, though he considers him to have been careless in the examination of his authorities. He observes, that "his devotion to his own country, and his contempt for the Spaniards and their government, led him frequently to make a.s.sertions and observations at variance with truth and justice." It may be added, that at the time when he composed his introduction, the relations of France and Great Britain were not of a kind to dispose him to favour unduly the claims of British navigators.

The same train of events which terminated in the Nootka Convention, led to a Spanish expedition under Galiano and Valdes, of which an account was published, by order of the king of Spain, at Madrid, in 1802. The introduction to it comprises a review of all the Spanish voyages of discovery along the north-west coast, in the course of which it is observed, that, from want of sufficient information in Spanish history, certain foreign writers had undervalued the merit of Cabrillo, by a.s.signing to Drake the discovery of the coast between 38 and 48; whereas, thirty-six years before Drake's appearance on that coast, Cabrillo had discovered it between 38 and 43. A note appended to this pa.s.sage states:--"The true glory which the English navigator may claim for himself is the having discovered the portion of coast comprehended between the parallels of 43 and 48; to which, consequently, the denomination of New Albion ought to be limited, without interfering with the discoveries of preceding navigators." (Relacion del Viage hecho por las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el ano de 1792. Introduccion, pp. x.x.xv.

x.x.xvi.)

To the same purport, Alexander von Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, says:--"D'apres des donnees historiques certaines, la denomination de Nouvelle Albion devrait etre restreinte a la partie de la cote qui s'etend depuis les 43 aux 48, ou du Cap de Martin de Aguilar, a l'entree de Juan de Fuca," (l. iii., c. viii.) And in another pa.s.sage: "On trouve que Francisco Gali cotoya une partie de l'Archipel du Prince de Galles ou celui du Roi George (en 1582.) Sir Francis Drake, en 1578, n'etait parvenu que jusqu'aux 48 de lat.i.tude au nord du cap Grenville, dans la Nouvelle Georgie."

The question of the northern limits of Drake's expedition has been rather fully entered into on this occasion, because it is apprehended that Drake's visit const.i.tuted a _discovery_ of that portion of the coast which was to the north of the furthest headland which Ferrelo reached in 1543, whether that headland were Cape Mendocino, or Cape Blanco; and because Mr.

Greenhow, in the preface to the second edition of his History of Oregon and California, observes, that in the accounts and views there presented of Drake's visit to the north-west coast, all who had criticised his work were silent, or carefully omitted to notice the princ.i.p.al arguments adduced by the author. We may conclude with observing, that on reviewing the evidence it will be seen, that in favour of the higher lat.i.tude of 48 we have a well authenticated account drawn up by the nephew of Sir Francis Drake himself, from the notes of several persons who went the voyage, confirmed by independent statements in two contemporary writers, Stow the annalist, and Davis the navigator, and supported by the authority of Sir W. Monson, who served with Drake in the Spanish wars after his return; and on this side we find ranked the influential judgment of the ablest modern writers who have given their attention to the subject, such as the distinguished French hydrographer Fleurieu, the able author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana, published by the authority of the king of Spain, and the learned and laborious Alexander von Humboldt. On the opposite side stands Hakluyt, and Hakluyt alone; for Camden and Purchas both followed Hakluyt implicitly, and though they may be considered to approve, they do not in any way confirm his account; while Hakluyt himself has nowhere disclosed his sources of information, and by the variation of the two editions of his work in the two most important facts of the whole voyage, namely, the extreme limits southward and northward respectively of Drake's expedition, he has indirectly made evident the doubtful character of the information on which he relied, and has himself abandoned the version of the story, which Camden and the author of the Vie de Drach, have adopted upon his authority.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST OF AMERICA.

The Voyage of Francisco de Gualle, or Gali, in 1584.--Of Viscaino, in in 1598.--River of Martin d'Aguilar.--Cessation of Spanish Enterprises.--Jesuit Missions in California in the 18th century.--Voyage of Behring and Tchiricoff in 1741.--Presidios in Upper California.--Voyage of Juan Perez in 1774; of Heceta and de la Bodega in 1775.--Heceta's Inlet.--Port Bucareli.--Bay of Bodega.--Hearne's Journey to the Coppermine River.--Captain James Cook in 1776.--Russian Establishments, in 1783, as far as Prince William's Sound; in 1787, as far as Mount Elias.--Expeditions from Macao, under the Portuguese flag, in 1785 and 1786; under that of the British East India Company in 1786.--Voyage of La Perouse in 1786.--King George's Sound Company.--Portland and Dixon, in 1786.--Meares and Tipping, in 1786, under Flag of East India Company.--Duncan and Colnett in 1787.--Captain Barclay discovers in 1787 the Straits in 48 30', to which Meares gives the name of Juan de Fuca in 1788.--Prince of Wales's Archipelago.--Gray and Kendrick.

The Spaniards had long coveted a position in the East Indies, but the Bull of Pope Alexander VI. precluded them from sailing eastward round the Cape of Good Hope; they had, in consequence, made many attempts to find their way thither across the Pacific. It was not, however, till 1564, that they succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng themselves in the Philippine Islands.

Thenceforth Spanish galleons sailed annually from Acapulco to Manilla, and back by Macao. The trade winds wafted them directly across from New Spain in about three months: on their return they occupied about double that time, and generally reached up into a northerly lat.i.tude, in order to avail themselves of the prevailing north-westers, which carried them to the sh.o.r.es of California.

An expedition of this kind is the next historical record of voyages on this coast, after Drake's visit. Hakluyt has published the navigator's own account of it in his edition of 1600, as the "True and perfect Description of a Voyage performed and done by Francisco de Gualle, a Spanish Captain and Pilot, &c., in the Year of our Lord 1584." It purports to have been translated out of the original Spanish, verbatim, into Low Dutch, by J. H.

van Lindschoten; and thence into English by Hakluyt. According to this version of it, Gualle, on his return from Macao, made the coast of New Spain "under seven-and-thirty degrees and a half." The author of the "Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and Valdes" has subst.i.tuted 57-1/2 for 37-1/2 degrees in Gualle's, or rather Gali's, account, without stating any reason for it. Mr. Greenhow, indeed, refers to a note of that author's, as intimating that he relied upon the evidence of papers found in the archives of the Indies, but on examining the note in p. xlvi., it evidently refers to two letters from the Archbishop of Mexico, then Viceroy of New Spain, to the King, in reference to an expedition which he proposed to intrust to Jayme Juan, for the discovery of the Straits of Anian. It is true that the Archbishop is stated to have consulted Gali upon his project, but the author of the "Introduction" specially alludes to Lindschoten, as the person to whom the account of Gali's Voyage in 1582 was due, and refers to a French Translation of Lindschoten's work, under the t.i.tle of "Le Grand Routier de Mer," published at Amsterdam in 1638.

But Lindschoten's original work was written in the Dutch language, being int.i.tled "Reysgeschrift van de Navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten,"

and was published towards the end of the sixteenth century; and two English translations of Gali's Voyage immediately appeared, one in Wolf's edition of Lindschoten, in 1598; the other in the third volume of Hakluyt, 1598-1600. Lindschoten's own Dutch version was subsequently inserted in Witsen's "Nord en Oost Tarterye," in 1692. All these latter accounts, including the original, agree in stating seven-and-thirty degrees and a half as the lat.i.tude where Gali discovered "a very high and fair land, with many trees, and wholly without snow." The pa.s.sage in the original Dutch may be referred to in Burney's History of Voyages, vol. v., p. 164.

The French translation, however, which the author of the Introduction consulted, gives 57-1/2, the number being expressed in figures; but as this seems to be the only authority for the change, it can hardly justify it. "A high land," observes Captain Burney, "ornamented with trees, and entirely without snow, is not inapplicable to the lat.i.tude of 37-1/2, but would not be credible if said of the American coast in 57-1/2 N., though nothing were known of the extraordinary high mountains which are on the western side of America in that parallel." It may be observed, that the French translator has likewise misstated the course which Gali held in reaching across from j.a.pan to the American coast, by rendering "east and east-by-north" in the original, as "east and north-east" in the French version, making a difference of three points in the compa.s.s, which would take him much farther north than his true course.

M. Eyries, in the article "Gali," in the Biographie Universelle, puts forward the same view of the cause of the variation of the lat.i.tude in the account adopted by the author of the Introduction, namely, that it was derived from the French translation which he consulted. The words in the French version of the Grand Routier de Mer are; "Estans venus suivant ce mesme cours pres de la coste de la Nouvelle Espagne a la hauteur de 57 degrez et demi, nous approchasmes d'un haut et fort beau pays, orne de nombre d'arbres et entierement sans neige." M. Eyries, however, has fallen into a curious mistake, as he represents Gali to have made the identical voyage which is the subject of the narrative, in company with Jayme Juan, in execution of the project of the Viceroy of Mexico, which was never accomplished, instead of his having made the account of the voyage for him. That M. Eyries is in error will be evident, not merely from the account of the author of the Introduction, if more carefully examined, as well as from the t.i.tle and conclusion of the Voyage of Gali itself, as given in Hakluyt's translation of the Dutch version of Lindschoten; but also from this circ.u.mstance, which seems to be conclusive. M. de Contreras, Archbishop of Mexico, was Viceroy of New Spain for the short s.p.a.ce of one year only, and the letters which he wrote to the King of Spain, submitting his project of an expedition to explore the north-west coast of America for his Majesty's approval, bore date the 22d January and 8th March, 1585. But Gali commenced his voyage from Acapulco in March 1582, and had returned by the year 1584, most probably before the Archbishop had entered upon his office of Viceroy, certainly before he submitted his plans to the King, which he had matured after consultation with Gali. It is difficult to account for M. Eyries' mistake, unless it originated in an imperfect acquaintance with the Spanish language, as the statement by the author of the Introduction is by no means obscure. Gali's voyage was thus a private mercantile enterprise, and not an expedition authorised and directed by the Government of New Spain, which the account of M. Eyries might lead his reader to suppose. It has acquired, accidentally, rather more importance of late than it substantially deserves, from the circ.u.mstance of its having been cited in support of the Spanish t.i.tle to the north-west coast of America; it has consequently been thought to merit a fuller examination on the present occasion, as to its true limits northward, which clearly fall short of those attained by the Spaniards under Ferrelo, and very far short of those reached by the British under Drake.

The next authentic expeditions on these coasts were those conducted by Sebastian Viscaino. The growing rumours of the discovery of the pa.s.sage between the Atlantic and Pacific by the Straits of Anian, and the necessity of providing accurate charts for the vessels engaged in the trade between New Spain and the Philippine islands, induced Philip II. to direct an expedition to be dispatched from Acapulco in 1596, to survey the coasts. Nothing however of importance was accomplished on this occasion, but on the succession of Philip III. in 1598, fresh orders were despatched to carry into execution the intentions of his predecessor. Thirty-two charts, according to Humboldt, prepared by Henri Martinez, a celebrated engineer, prove that Viscaino surveyed these coasts with unprecedented care and intelligence. "The sickness, however, of his crew, the want of provisions, and the extreme severity of the season, prevented his advancing further north than a headland in the 42d parallel, to which he gave the name of Cape Sebastian." The smallest of his three vessels, however, conducted by Martin d'Aguilar and Antonio Florez, doubled Cape Mendocino, and reached the 43d parallel, where they found the mouth of a river which Cabrillo has been supposed by some to have previously discovered in 1543, and which was for some time considered to be the western extremity of the long-sought Straits of Anian. The subsequent report of the captain of a Manilla s.h.i.+p, in 1620, according to Mr.

Greenhow, led the world to adopt a different view, and to suppose that it was the mouth of a pa.s.sage into the northern extremity of the Gulf of California; and accordingly, in maps of the later half of the seventeenth century, California was represented to be an island, of which Cape Blanco was the northernmost headland. After this error had been corrected by the researches of the Jesuit Kuhn, in 1709, we find in the maps of the eighteenth century, such as that of Guillaume de Lisle, published in Paris in 1722, California a peninsula, Cape Blanco a headland in 45, and near it marked "Entree decouverte par d'Aguilar."

With Gali and Viscaino terminates the brilliant period of Spanish discoveries along the north-west coast of America. The governors of New Spain during the remainder of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, confined their attention to securing the sh.o.r.es of the peninsula of California against the armed vessels of hostile Powers, which, after the discovery of the pa.s.sage round Cape Horn in 1616, by the Dutch navigators Lemaire and Van Schouten, carried on their depredations in the Pacific with increasing frequency. The country itself of California, was in 1697 subjected, by a royal warrant, to an experimental process of civilisation at the hands of the Jesuits, which their success in Paraguay emboldened them to undertake. In about sixty years a chain of missions was established along the whole eastern side of California, and the followers of Loyola may be considered to have ruled the country, till the decree issued by Charles III. in 1767, for the immediate banishment of the society from the Spanish dominions, led to their expulsion from the New World. During this long period, the only expedition of discovery that ventured into these seas was that which Behring and Tchiricoff led forth in 1741 from the sh.o.r.es of Kamtchatka, under the Russian flag. Behring's own voyage southward is not supposed to have extended beyond the 60th parallel of north lat.i.tude, where he discovered a stupendous mountain, visible at the distance of more than eighty miles, to which he gave the name of Mount St. Elias, which it still bears. The account is derived from the journal of Steller, the naturalist of Behring's s.h.i.+p, which Professor Pallas first published in 1795, as Behring himself died on his voyage home, in one of the islands of the Aleutian Archipelago, between 54-1/2 and 55-1/2 degrees north lat.i.tude. Here his vessel had been wrecked, and the island still bears the name of the Russian navigator. Tchiricoff, on the other hand, advanced further eastward, and the Russians themselves maintain that he pushed his discoveries as far south as the 49th parallel of north lat.i.tude, (Letter from the Chevalier de Poletica, Russian Minister, to the Secretary of State at Was.h.i.+ngton, February 28, 1822, in British and Foreign State Papers, 1821-22, p. 483;) but this has been disputed. Mr. Greenhow considers, from the description of the lat.i.tude and bearings of the land discovered by him, that it must have been one of the islands of the Prince of Wales's Archipelago, in about 56.

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 sh.o.r.es should be explored, so as to secure to the crown of Spain a t.i.tle 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 lat.i.tude 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 lat.i.tude 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 a.s.signed 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 Jose 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ma.s.sacred by the natives in the lat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sumption, 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 Edgec.u.mb, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 lat.i.tude of 38 18' they reached a s.p.a.cious 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 s.h.i.+p.

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 pa.s.sage 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 lat.i.tude; and he had a.s.sured 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 20,000_l._ had been voted, in 1745, by the House of Commons, for the discovery of a north-west pa.s.sage, through Hudson's Bay, by s.h.i.+ps belonging to his Britannic Majesty's subjects; and in 1776, this reward was further extended to the s.h.i.+ps of his Majesty, which might succeed in discovering a northern pa.s.sage 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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.sed un.o.bserved 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 s.p.a.cious 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 pa.s.sage 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 ent.i.tled, 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 a.s.suredly ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sociation was speedily formed amongst the fur merchants of Siberia and Kamtchatka to open a trade with the sh.o.r.es 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) a.s.signs 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 Francais. He thence skirted the coast southward past Port Bucareli, the western sh.o.r.es 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 a.s.sociation 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.signs 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 Pa.s.sage, states that Captain Douglas antic.i.p.ated 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.