USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 19
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 19
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t King Louis XVI. is said to have planned the expedition of La Pérouse himself, and to have drawn up the greater part of the instructions with his own hand, before he communicated his intentions to any other person.
# No account of this extraordinary place has been given by any other navigator.
164
VOYAGE OF LA PEROUSE.
[1786.
tion. Quitting the Port des Français on the 4th of August, they sailed towards the south, and examined the coasts between Mount San Jacinto, or Edgecumb, and Port Bucareli, as well as those discovered by the Spaniards in 1774 and 1775, between the 54th and the 52d parallels, forming the western side of Queen Char- lotte's Island, the separation of which from the American continent seems to have been suspected by La Pérouse. Continuing onwards, they passed the mouth of Nootka Sound without entering it, and, on the 8th of September, they reached Monterey, where they were received with the greatest attention, agreeably to orders previously sent thither from Mexico. At Monterey, the observations were renewed, and the latitude and longitude of that part of the coast were, for the first time, accurately determined ; after which, on the 24th of the month, the French ships quitted the American coast forever.
The remarks and surmises of this accomplished officer, on several points connected with the north-west coasts of America, display much sagacity and science ; but his labors were rendered almost useless to the world, by the delay in the publication of his journals, which did not appear until 1797, when nearly all the places visited by him had become well known, from the descriptions of many other navigators .*
The first persons who actually engaged in the direct trade between the north-west coasts of America and China, were British subjects, though sailing, nearly all, under the Portuguese flag.
At the time of the publication of Cook's journals, the British trade in the Pacific was divided between two great commercial corporations, each possessing peculiar privileges, secured to itself by act of parliament, to the exclusion of all other subjects of the same nation. Thus no British subjects, except those in the ser- vice, or bearing the license, of the South Sea Company, could make
* Sailing from Monterey, La Pérouse visited, in succession, Macao, the Philippine Islands, the coast of Tartary, Kamtchatka, the Navigators' Islands, and New Hol- land. After leaving the latter country, in February, 1787, nothing was heard of his ships until 1826, when information was received by the French government, in con- sequence of which a vessel was sent to the Pacific, and the wrecks of both vessels were discovered on the little island of Malicolo, one of the New Hebrides Archipel- ago, east of New Holland. From the accounts of the natives, it appeared that a number of the French landed on the island after the wreck of their ships, and built a small vessel, in which they took their departure, and were doubtless lost. The journals of the expedition, and letters received from the commander and other officers, were published at Paris in 1797, under the direction of Clairet de Fleurieu, and were immediately translated into English and other European languages.
165
VOYAGE OF HANNA.
1785.]
expeditions, for trade or fishery, by way of Cape Horn or Magel- lan's Straits, to any part of the west coast of America, or the seas and islands within three hundred leagues of it: while no British subjects, not employed or licensed by the East India Company, could proceed, for either of those purposes, around the Cape of Good Hope, to any seas or lands east of that point, between it and Magellan's Straits ; with the provision, however, that the privi- leges conferred on the East India Company should not be considered as interfering with those previously granted to the other association. All British vessels, found trading or fishing contrary to the acts by which these privileges were conferred, became liable to confiscation, and the persons directing such expeditions to heavy penalties.
Thus the East India Company could carry on the direct trade between the north-west coasts of America and China, at the risk of a dispute with the South Sea Company, as to the extent of the interference with the privileges of the latter ; while those privileges were rendered entirely useless to the South Sea Company, for the purposes of that trade, by the exclusion of its vessels from the Chinese ports, which offered the principal, if not the only, profitable market for furs. Accordingly, some of the earliest commercial expeditions of the British to the north-west coasts were made under the flag of the East India Company ; while other subjects of that nation eluded the regulations of both companies, by engaging in the fur trade, under the flag of Portugal, or with licenses granted by the Portuguese authorities at Macao, near Canton.
The earliest of these expeditions appears to have been that of James Hanna, an Englishman, who sailed from Macao, in a small vessel under Portuguese colors, in April, 1785,* and arrived at Nootka Sound in August following. The natives of that country at first refused to have any dealings with him, and endeavored to seize his vessel, and murder his crew ; but they were foiled in the attempt, and, after some combats between the parties, a trade was established, the result of which was, that Hanna brought back to
* The following account of the movements of the fur traders in the North Pacific, between 1785 and 1789, is derived principally from the Narrative of the Voyage of the Ship Queen Charlotte, by her captain, John Dixon, or rather by her super- cargo, Beresford - the Narrative of the Voyage of the Ship King George, by her captain, Nathaniel Portlock - the Narrative of the Voyages of Captain John Meares, to which is prefixed a Dissertation on the Probability of a Northern Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the memorial and documents in proof, presented by Captain Meares to the British parliament in May, 1790. Many notable differences will be shown to exist between the statements of Meares in his narrative and his memorial.
166
VOYAGES OF PETERS, LOWRIE, AND MEARES.
[1786.
China, before the end of the year, furs worth more than twenty thousand dollars, in return for the old clothes, iron, and trifles, which he had carried out in the spring.
In 1786, Hanna made another voyage to the coasts; but he had then to compete with traders from Bengal and England, in conse- quence of which his profits were much less than in the preceding voyage. In the same year, also, an attempt was made to establish a direct trade between Macao and Kamtchatka, to be carried on under the Portuguese flag. With this view, Captain Peters was sent in the brig Lark to Petropawlowsk, where he made arrange- ments with Schelikof, the head of the American Trading Company, to supply them regularly with European and Chinese goods, taking furs in return ; but the Lark was lost, with nearly all on board, on Copper Island, one of the westernmost of the Aleutian Archipelago, in her voyage back to China, and no attempt for the same purpose was afterwards made.
Voyages were, about the same time, made to the North Pacific, in search of furs, by Captains Lowrie and Guise, in two small vessels from Bombay, and by Captains Meares and Tipping, in two others from Calcutta, all under the flag of the East India Company. Lowrie and Guise went to Nootka Sound, and thence northward, along the coasts, to Prince William's Sound, from which they pro- ceeded to Macao. Meares and Tipping sailed to the Aleutian Islands, and thence to Prince William's Sound, after leaving which nothing was ever heard of Tipping or his vessel : Meares spent the winter of 1786-7 in that sound, where more than half of his crew died from want or scurvy.
In the above-mentioned voyages, nothing of importance was learned respecting the geography of North-west America. In order to convey a clear idea of the extent and value of the discoveries effected by the fur traders in the three years next ensuing, it should be premised that, in the beginning of that period, the coast of the American continent was supposed, according to the best accounts and charts, to run in a regular, and almost unbroken, line north- westward, from Cape Mendocino, near the 40th degree of latitude, to Mount St. Elias, near the 60th ; the innumerable islands which are now known to extend in chains between the continent and the open Pacific Ocean, from the 48th degree to the 58th, being regarded as the main land of North America. The western sides of the most western of these islands had been examined, though imperfectly, in their whole length, by the Spaniards, in 1774 and
167
MAQUINNA, KING OF NOOTKA.
1787.]
1775: Cook had, in 1778, seen the portions about Nootka Sound and Mount San Jacinto, or Edgecumb, leaving unexplored the inter- mediate shores, which were represented - as expressed on the charts attached to his journal -according to the accounts of the Spanish navigators; and those coasts had also been seen by La Pérouse, who seems to have been the first to suspect their separation from the continent, though he took no measures to ascertain the fact, by penetrating any of the numerous openings which he observed when passing them in 1786. The coasts south of Nootka Sound, to Cape Mendocino, were not visited by the people of any civilized nation between the period of Cook's voyage and 1787; and the best charts of them were those of the Spaniards, founded on the observations of Heceta and Bodega. The parts respecting which the most accurate information had been obtained were those west- ward from Mount St. Elias, to the Aleutian Islands : that division of the coast was, indeed, so thoroughly examined by Cook, in 1778, that very little was left for subsequent navigators, except to verify his statements and conclusions.
The principal places of resort for the fur traders on the American coasts were, Nootka or King George's Sound, - Norfolk Sound, the Port Guadelupe of the Spaniards, near their Mount San Jacinto, - Prince William's Sound, and Cook's River. The two last-mentioned places, having been, in 1788, occupied by the Russians, under Schelikof, were seldom visited afterwards by the vessels of other nations ; and, as the country about Nootka was well supplied with wood fit for ship-building, and had a more agreeable climate than could be found farther north, it was generally selected as the point of destination, rendezvous, and departure, by the traders. The people there, as already mentioned, exhibited, at first, great oppo- sition to the foreigners ; but they soon acquired a taste for knives, blankets, and other such articles of luxury or use, to gratify which they were ready not only to traffic, but even to engage in labor with some show of assiduity. Their king was named Maquinna: his relations, Wicanish and Tatoochseatticus, ruled over the tribes farther south-westward, inhabiting the shores of two large bays, called Clyoquot and Nittinat. Maquinna, whose name will fre- quently appear in the following pages, possessed in a high degree the cunning, ferocity, and vindictiveness, characteristic of his race ; for, though he occasionally exhibited evidences of better qualities, yet, like the other chiefs, he seldom lost an opportunity for the
168
TAMAHAMAHA, KING OF OWYHEE.
[1787.
commission of an act of blood or perfidy, in gratification of his desires for revenge or profit.
The importance of the Sandwich Islands to the commerce of the whole North Pacific was also soon made apparent; and they became, in a few years, the favorite places of refreshment of all vessels navigating between Cape Horn and the north-west coasts of America, and between those coasts and China. Their soil is fertile, their climate delightful, and their productions are precisely those most useful to vessels engaged in long voyages. Their inhabitants, though naturally indolent, false, and treacherous, are not positively ferocious ; and they are endowed with much cunning and mechanical aptitude, which led them quickly to perceive the immediate benefits to be derived from an intercourse with strangers, and to submit to restraints, in order to secure such advantages. At the time of their discovery, the islands were governed by separate chiefs : in the course of the ensuing fifteen years, however, they all fell under the authority of one man, Mahe-Mahe, or Tamahamaha, who, by the possession of extraordinary acuteness and sagacity, combined with courage and steadiness of purpose, overcame all his rivals, and kept up something like a regular government until his death. The most formidable opponent of Tamahamaha was Tianna, a resolute and ferocious chief, who accompanied Meares to Canton in 1787, and there acquired many new ideas, which gave him, for some time, considerable advantages ; but he was, in the end, defeated and slain by his rival.
The first discoveries, worthy of note, made on the north-west coasts of America, after Cook's voyage, were those of Captains Portlock and Dixon, who were sent from London, in 1785, in com- mand of the ships King George and Queen Charlotte, by a mercantile association, styled the King George's Sound Company. The object of this association was to monopolize the direct trade between the North Pacific coasts and China, with which view its operations were to be conducted in the following manner : - Under the protection of licenses, granted by the South Sea Company, its vessels were to proceed, by way of Cape Horn, to the north-west coasts of America, laden with goods, which were there to be bar- tered for furs ; the furs were to be carried to Canton, and there sold by the agents of the East India Company, agreeably to a con- tract with that body; and the produce of their sale was to be vested in teas, and other Chinese commodities, which were to be
169
VOYAGES OF PORTLOCK AND DIXON.
1787.]
brought by the ships, around the Cape of Good Hope, to England. Portlock and Dixon were both intelligent men, well acquainted with the theory and practice of navigation, and their ships were well provided with instruments for ascertaining geographical positions ; the narratives published by them, after their return to England, though tedious to the general reader, from the minuteness of the details of trifling or personal matters, and not always strictly true, are, nevertheless, valuable, as showing the history of the fur trade in the North Pacific, and of the discovery of the American coasts of that ocean, between the time of Cook's expedition and the year 1788.
Portlock and Dixon left England together in August, 1785, and, passing around Cape Horn, and through the group of the Sandwich Islands, they reached Cook's River in July, 1786. There they met some Russians, though no establishment had been then formed by that nation east of the Island of Kodiak ; and, after a short stay, they proceeded to Nootka Sound, where they expected to spend the winter. They were, however, unable to enter that bay, or any other place on the American coast, in consequence of the violence of the winds, and were obliged to return to the Sandwich Islands, where they remained, very uncomfortably, until the spring of 1787 : they then again went to the coasts about Cook's River and Prince William's Sound, in the latter of which places they found Captain Meares, with his vessel frozen up, more than half of his crew dead, and the remainder suffering dreadfully from scurvy, as already men- tioned. The manner in which Meares was treated by his country- men on this occasion, has been represented by him, in the narrative of his voyages, in a manner very different from that in which it appears on the pages of Portlock and Dixon; the latter asserting that they rendered him every assistance in their power, while he, on the other hand, declares that their conduct towards him was selfish and inhuman in the extreme.
At Prince William's Sound Dixon left Portlock, and proceeded along the coast, eastward, to the inlet on the south side of Mount San Jacinto, or Edgecumb, called Port Remedios by Bodega, but to which he thought proper to give the name of Norfolk Sound. He " had, indeed, heard that the Spaniards anchored very near this place in 1775 ; " but this account, " he was afraid, was not absolutely to be depended on," although Maurelle's journal, containing accu- rate descriptions of that part of the coast, had been published in English, at London, in 1781. In like manner, Dixon claimed the
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170
VOYAGES OF DUNCAN AND COLNETT.
[1787.
discovery of the land farther south, between the 54th and the 52d degrees of latitude, on the ground that it had not been seen by Cook, though it is specially marked on the chart of that navigator, as found by the Spaniards in 1775; and, having become convinced, from the reports of the natives, that this land was separated from the American continent by water, he bestowed on it the name of Queen Charlotte's Island, and on the passage immediately north of it, that of Dixon's Entrance. From this part of the coast Dixon proceeded to Nootka, and thence, by the Sandwich Islands, to Canton, where he rejoined Portlock, who had passed the whole of the trading season on the coast, between Prince William's Sound and Mount St. Elias.
In China, Portlock and Dixon found the price of furs much reduced, from the great quantities of those articles which had entered the country during the season ; so great, indeed, was the fall in their value, that, according to La Pérouse, they were higher at Petropawlowsk than at Canton during the whole of 1787. From this circumstance, and also from the alleged unfairness of the East India Company's agents towards them, in the sale of their cargoes, the profits of the voyage of the King George and the Queen Charlotte, from the teas and silks which they carried to England, were not sufficient to cover the expenses of their expedition.
Before Portlock and Dixon quitted the north-west coasts of America, in 1787, they met two other vessels, the Princess Royal, commanded by Captain Duncan, and the Prince of Wales, under Captain Colnett, which had been also sent, by the King George's Sound Company, to prosecute the fur trade in the North Pacific. Duncan, in the following year, ascertained the separation of Queen Charlotte's Island from the main land, which had been assumed by Dixon, and, before him, by La Pérouse ; he also explored the sea between that island and the continent, in which he discovered a group of small islands, named by him the Princess Royal's Archi- pelago ; and thence he ran down the coast, by Nootka Sound and Cape Flattery, to the 47th degree of latitude, from which he took his departure for the Sandwich Islands and China.
The discovery of these islands, and of numerous openings in the coast, which appeared to be the mouths of channels, from that part of the Pacific, extending far eastward into the land, led to the suspicion that the whole north-western division of America might be a vast collection of islands ; and the old story of Admiral Fonte's voyage began to gain credit. The islands and reputed islands in
171
REDISCOVERY OF THE STRAIT OF FUCA.
1787.]
question were supposed to be the Archipelago of St. Lazarus, through which the admiral was said to have sailed two hundred and sixty leagues before reaching the continent ; and the commanders of exploring vessels, sent from Europe and America to the North Pacific, for some years after, were generally directed to seek, near the 53d parallel, for the mouth of the river which he was reported to have ascended, into a lake communicating with the Atlantic.
The name of the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, was also, about the same time, rescued from oblivion, by the discovery, or redis- covery, of a "broad arm of the sea," stretching eastwardly from the Pacific, almost exactly in the position of the southern entrance of the strait, through which he declared that he had sailed from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 1592. This discovery was effected in 1787 by Captain Berkeley, an Englishman commanding a ship called the Imperial Eagle, which had sailed from Ostend in the preceding year, under the flag of the Austrian East India Company. The passage thus found was situated immediately north of Cape Flattery, to the coast south of which point Cook had confined his search for it in 1778; and it opened to the ocean between the 48th and 49th parallels, instead of between the 47th and 48th, as stated in the account of the voyage of Fuca. Berkeley did not attempt to ex- plore the passage, but, sailing along the coast south of Cape Flattery, which had not been seen by the people of any civilized nation since Cook's voyage, he sent a boat ashore with some men, who were murdered by the savages, in the same manner, and almost at the same spot, where the Spaniards of Bodega's crew were massacred in 1775. In commemoration of this melancholy event, the name of Destruction Island was given to the small point of land near the continent, in the latitude of 47 degrees 35 minutes, which had, for the like reason, been called by the Spaniards Isla de Dolores. Berkeley, on his arrival at Canton, in November following, commu- nicated the account of his rediscovery of the Strait of Fuca to Meares, as expressly stated by the latter, in the Dissertation prefixed to the narrative of his voyages in the Pacific, published in 1790; though, in the narrative itself, Meares unequivocally claims as his own the whole merit of finding the passage.
At the time when Berkeley made this communication, Meares was engaged in preparations for a trading expedition to the north- west coasts of America, of which a particular notice will be here presented ; as the circumstances connected with it led to the first
172
SECOND VOYAGE OF MEARES.
[1788
dispute, and the first treaty, between civilized nations, relative to that part of the world.
For the expedition in question, two vessels were fitted out at the Portuguese port of Macao, near Canton, in China, from which, as already mentioned, several voyages had been previously made to the north-west coasts of America, in search of furs. They were both placed under the direction of John Meares, a lieutenant in the British navy, on half pay, who sailed in the ship Felice as super- cargo ; the other vessel, the brig Iphigenia, also carried a British subject, William Douglas, in the same capacity : both vessels were, however, commanded, ostensibly at least, by Portuguese captains ; they were both furnished with passports, and other papers, in the Portuguese language, granted by the Portuguese authorities of Macao, and showing them to be the property of Juan Cavallo, a Portuguese merchant of that place ; the instructions for the conduct of the voyage were written only in the Portuguese language,* and contained nothing whatsoever calculated to afford the slightest grounds for suspicion that other than Portuguese subjects were interested in the enterprise ; finally, the vessels sailed from Macao on the 1st of January, 1788, under the Portuguese flag, and there is no sufficient proof that any other was displayed by them during the expedition.
Notwithstanding these evidences of ownership and national char- acter, which appear to be complete and unequivocal, Mr. Meares, in the Memorial t addressed by him to the British government, in May, 1790, asserts that the Felice and Iphigenia, as well as their cargoes, were actually and bona fide British property, employed in the service of British subjects only ; that Cavallo had no concern nor interest in them, his name being merely used, with his consent, for the purpose of obtaining from the governor of Macao, who
* See the Journal of Douglas, the captain or supercargo of the Iphigenia, attached to the Memorial of Meares, and the quotation from it in the ensuing chapter, at page 192.
t The London Annual Register for 1790 contains what purports to be the Substance of the Memorial of Lieutenant Meares, &c., drawn up by Meares himself, or some one in his interests. In this Substance, the word Portuguese does not occur, nor is any thing mentioned relative to the apparent character of the vessels, which are, on the contrary, directly asserted to have been British in all respects, and navigated under the British flag. Meares's explanations, in his Memorial, relative to the arrangements with Cavallo, are all omitted, the following short paragraph being inserted in their place :- " Here Mr. Meares, by way of illustration, introduces a transaction no otherwise connected with his narrative, but as it proves the merchandise, &c., of which the British ships were phindered, to have been British property." ! !! Such are the materials from which histories are generally composed.
173
INSTRUCTIONS TO MEARES.
1188.]
connived at the whole deception, permission to navigate under the Por- tuguese flag, and thereby to evade the excessive port charges demand- ed, by the Chinese authorities, from vessels of all other European nations ; and that Messrs. Meares and Douglas were really the commanders of the vessels in which they respectively sailed, instead of the Portuguese subjects, who figure as such in all the papers. Some of these assertions may have been true; yet the documents annexed to the Memorial conclusively prove that all these deceptive appearances were kept up at Nootka Sound, where there were no Chinese authorities ; though, in the narrative of the voyage, pub- lished by Mr. Meares, with the Memorial and documents, no hint is given that either of the vessels were, or ever seemed to be, other than British.
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