USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 21
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 21
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183
APPREHENSIONS OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.
1786.]
sea otter skins * obtainable there, and carry them for sale to Canton : but the enterprise proved unsuccessful, as the agent could only ob- tain a small number of furs, of inferior quality, the produce of the sale of which in China did not cover the expenses of their trans- portation.
Considerable uneasiness was also created at Madrid, by the en- deavors of the British government to advance the whale and seal fishery in the seas surrounding the southern extremity of America. A number of experienced whalers, especially from Nantucket, had been induced, immediately after the peace of 1783, to engage in this business, under the British flag; and high premiums were offered by act of Parliament, in 1786, to encourage perseverance in the pursuit. As British vessels and subjects would thus necessa- rily frequent the unoccupied coasts of Patagonia and the adjacent islands, it was apprehended, by the Spanish government, that estab- lishments might be formed in those regions, for their protection ; the natural consequence of which would be, the introduction of foreign merchandise, and of opinions contrary to the interests of Spain, into the contiguous provinces. In order to provide against these evils, the Spaniards increased their garrison at Port Soledad, in the Falkland Islands, as well as their naval force in that quarter ; and an attempt was made, under the patronage of their government, to organize a company for the whale and seal fishery in the South- ern Ocean, which proved entirely abortive.
It was from Russia, however, that the Spanish government an- ticipated the greatest danger to its dominions on the Pacific side of America. Of the commerce and establishments of that nation on the northernmost coasts of the Pacific, enough had been learned from the narrative of Cook's expedition, and other works then re- cently published, to show their advancement, and the enterprise of those by whom they were conducted, as well as the determination of the Russian government to maintain and encourage them ; and La Pérouse, during the stay of his ships at Conception, in Chili, in 1786, promised, at the particular request of the captain-general, to communicate confidentially to the viceroy of Mexico the results of the observations on those subjects which he might make in Kamt- chatka and the islands and coasts of America adjacent. La Pe- rouse, however, did not return to America after his visit to Kamt- chatka, nor was any information on the points in question received from him by the Spanish authorities ; and the viceroy of Mexico,
* La Perouse - Portlock.
184
APPREHENSIONS OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT.
[1787.
having waited in vain for the promised intelligence until the end of 1787, resolved to despatch vessels to the North Pacific, in order to ascertain the truth with regard to the trade and settlements of the Russians and other foreign nations on the coasts of that division of the ocean.
Before relating the particulars of the expedition made for that purpose, a circumstance may be mentioned, which serves to show the state of feeling of the Spanish government at the period in question, with regard to the proceedings of foreigners in the Pacific, and the extent of the measures which it was ready to adopt in order to exclude them from that ocean. It has been said, in the preced- ing chapter, that the ship Columbia having received some damage on her way from Boston to the north-west coast of America, in May, 1788, entered a harbor in the Island of Juan Fernandez, where as- sistance was afforded in refitting her by the Spanish commandant Don Blas Gonzales and his garrison. After her departure, the commandant communicated the circumstances, by a despatch, to his immediate superior, the captain-general of Chili, who thereupon recalled Gonzales from the island, and placed him in arrest, address- ing, at the same time, a report on the subject, with a request for instructions, to the viceroy of Peru. The viceroy, after consulting with his official legal adviser, replied to the captain-general at length on the subject, and expressed his surprise and displeasure at the mis- conduct of the commandant of Juan Fernandez, in allowing the strange ship to leave the harbor, instead of seizing her and her crew ; as he should have known that, by the royal ordinance of November, 1692, every foreign vessel found in those seas, without a license from the court of Spain, was to be treated as an enemy, even though belonging to a friend or ally of the king, seeing that no other nation had, or ought to have, any territories, to reach which its vessels should pass around Cape Horn or through Magellan's Straits. In so serious a light did the viceroy regard the matter, that a ship was sent from Callao to track or intercept the Columbia; the authori- ties on the coasts of Peru and Chili were specially enjoined to be vigilant, and, in case any foreign vessel should appear in the vicini- ty, to seize her; and the whole affair was made known by a de- spatch to the viceroy of Mexico, in order that similar precautions might be adopted on his part. The unfortunate commandant Gon- zales was cashiered for his remissness ; and he subsequently ad- dressed a petition to the government of the United States for its intercession with his sovereign. Thus were half of the Spanish do-
185
VOYAGE OF MARTINEZ AND HARO.
1788.]
minions in America thrown into alarm and agitation, by the appear- ance of a trading ship from the United States on the Pacific: yet Teodor Lacroix, the viceroy of Peru, and Ambrose O'Higgins, cap- tain-general of Chili, were men of education and experience, distin- guished for their courage and sagacity ; but such was the jealous system which they were bound to support .*
For the expedition of inquiry to the north-west coasts of America, the viceroy of Mexico employed two vessels, the corvette Princesa, commanded by Estevan Martinez, (who had been the pilot in the voyage of Juan Perez, in 1774,) and the schooner San Carlos, under Lieutenant Gonzalo Haro. They were instructed to proceed direct- ly to Prince William's Sound, and to make every possible inquiry and examination respecting the establishments of the Russians there and in other parts of America adjacent ; having completed which, they were to explore the coasts southward to California, if time should be left for that purpose, seeking particularly for places convenient for the reception of Spanish colonies : and they were especially enjoined to treat the natives of the places which they might visit with kindness, and not to engage in any quarrel with the Russians.
Of this voyage of Martinez and Haro, a short account will suffice. They quitted San Blas on the 8th of March, 1788, and, on the 25th of May, they anchored in the entrance of Prince William's Sound, where they lay nearly a month, without making any attempt to examine the surrounding shores. At length, in the end of June, Haro, having sailed, in the San Carlos, along the coast of the ocean farther south-west, discovered a Russian establishment on the east side of the Island of Kodiak, under the command of a Greek, named Delaref, with whom he was able to communicate; and from this person he received detailed accounts of all the Russian establish- ments in that quarter. On the 3d of July, Haro rejoined Martinez, who had, in the mean time, explored the coasts of Prince William's Sound; and they proceeded together along the eastern side of the
* The petition of Gonzales, with copies of his reports to the captain-general, and the sentence pronounced against him, remain in manuscript in the archives of the Department of State at Washington. Mr. Jefferson, secretary of state of the United States, recommended his case to the Spanish government, in a letter to Mr. Carmi- chael, then plenipotentiary at Madrid, dated April 11th, 1790, with what success is not known. The other particulars here related of this curious affair are derived from the General Report, or Instructions, left by the viceroy of Peru to his successor, on his retirement from that office, which was published at London in 1822, in the Biblio- teca Americana.
24
186
VOYAGE OF MARTINEZ AND HARO.
[1789. -
peninsula of Aliaska, to Unalashka, the largest of the Aleutian Islands, where they arrived on the 30th of August. There they re- mained until the 18th of September, receiving every attention from the Russians belonging to the factory, and then sailed for the south. In their voyage homeward, the vessels were separated : Haro reached San Blas on the 22d of October ; Martinez did not enter that port until the 5th of December, having put into Monterey for refresh- ments .*
The geographical observations made in this expedition were of little value at the time; and it would be needless to notice them here, as the coasts to which they relate have been since completely surveyed. Agreeably to the report presented by Martinez, on his return to the viceroy of Mexico, the Russian establishments in Amer- ica at that time were in number eight, all situated east of Prince William's Sound, on which, however, one was then in progress ; and they contained, together, two hundred and fifty-two Russian subjects, nearly all of whom were natives of Kamtchatka or Sibe- ria. Martinez was, moreover, informed that two vessels had been sent in that summer from Kodiak, to found a settlement at Nootka Sound, and that two large ships were in preparation at Ochotsk, for further operations of the same nature. The vessels sent from Ko- diak were doubtless those which proceeded, under Ismyloff and Betscharef, along the coast eastward to the foot of Mount St. Elias ; the others were those intended for the expedition under Billings, which was not begun until 1790.
These accounts of the establishments and projects of the Rus- sians were immediately communicated to the court of Madrid, which addressed to the empress of Russia a remonstrance against such encroachments of her subjects upon the territories of his Cath- olic majesty. In the memorial conveying this remonstrance, it is to be remarked that Prince William's Sound is assumed as separating the dominions of the two sovereigns ; it being doubtless intended,
* The preceding account of this voyage is derived from the journal of Martinez, of which a copy, in manuscript, was obtained from the hydrographical office at Madrid.
The first notice of this expedition, published in Europe, was taken from a letter written at San Blas, soon after the arrival of Haro at that port, in which it was said that the Spaniards had found Russian establishments between the forty-ninth and the fiftieth degrees of latitude, instead of between the fifty-ninth and the sixtieth degrees, and on this error, such as is daily committed by persons ignorant of nautical matters, M. Poletica, the Russian envoy in the United States, endeavored, in 1822, to found a claim for his sovereign to the whole of the American coasts and islands on the Pacific north of the forty-ninth parallel. See hereafter, chap. xvi.
187
CLAIMS OF SPAIN EXAMINED.
1789.]
by means of this geographical obscurity, to leave undefined the del- icate question as to the limits of Spanish America in the north- west. The empress of Russia answered - that orders had been given to her subjects not to make settlements in places belonging to other nations ; and, if those orders had been violated with regard to Spanish America, she desired the king of Spain to arrest the en- croachments, in a friendly manner. With this answer, more cour- teous than specific, the Spanish minister professed himself content ; observing, however, in his reply, that Spain " could not be respon- sible for what her officers might do, at places so distant, whilst they were acting under general orders to allow no settlements to be made by other nations on the Spanish American continent." *
In the mean time, however, the viceroy of Mexico, Don Manuel de Flores, had, in virtue of his general instructions, taken a decisive measure with regard to Nootka Sound. For that purpose, he de- spatched Martinez and Haro from San Blas, early in 1789, with their vessels manned and equipped effectively ; ordering them, in case any British or Russian vessel should appear at Nootka, to receive her with the attention and civility required by the peace and friendship existing between Spain and those nations, but, at the same time, to declare the paramount rights of his Catholic majesty to the place, and the adjacent coasts, firmly, though discreetly, and without using harsh or insulting language.t
Before entering upon the narrative of the events which followed, it should be observed, with regard to the right of the Spanish gov- ernment thus to take possession of Nootka, that, before the 6th of May, 1789, when Martinez entered the sound with that object, no settlement, factory, or other establishment whatsoever, had been founded or attempted, nor had any jurisdiction been exercised by the authorities or subjects of a civilized nation, in any part of America bordering upon the Pacific, between Port San Francisco, near the 38th degree of north latitude, and Prince William's Sound, near the 60th. The Spaniards, the British, the Russians, and the French, had, indeed, landed at many places on those coasts, where they had displayed flags, performed ceremonies, and erected monu- ments, by way of taking possession - as it was termed - of the ad-
* Memorial addressed by the court of Spain to that of London, dated June 13th, 1790, among the Proofs and Illustrations, in the latter part of this volume, under the letter D, No. 3.
t Abstract of these instructions to Martinez, in the Introduction to the Journal of Galiano and Valdes, p. 106.
188
RIGHTS DERIVED FROM DISCOVERY.
[1789.
jacent territories for their respective sovereigns ; but such acts are, and were then, generally considered as empty pageants, securing no real rights to those by whom, or in whose names, they were per- formed. Nor does it appear that any portion of the above-men- tioned territories had become the property of a foreigner, either by . purchase, occupation, or any other title, which can be regarded as valid. It has been already said that Mr. Meares, in his Memorial, addressed to the British Parliament, in 1790, laid claim to certain tracts of land about Nootka Sound, as having been ceded to him by the natives of the country, in 1788; but it was, at the same time, shown that this claim was unsupported by sufficient evidence, and was, moreover, directly, as well as indirectly, contradicted by Mr. Meares himself, in his journal of the same proceedings : and other circumstances will be mentioned hereafter, serving to prove the falsehood of that person's assertions, and of his pretensions to the possession of any part of the American territory.
The right of exclusive sovereignty over these extensive regions was claimed by Spain, in virtue of the papal concession, 1493, of the first discovery of their coasts by Spanish subjects, and of the contiguity of the territories to the settled dominions of Spain. Of the validity of the title derived from the papal concession it appears to be needless, at the present day, to speak. That the Spaniards were the first discoverers of the west coasts of America, at least as far north as the 56th parallel of latitude, has been already shown ; and the fact is, and has been ever since the publication of Maurelle's Journal, in 1781, as indisputable as that the Portuguese discovered the south coasts of Africa. The extent of the rights derived from discovery are, however, by no means clearly defined by writers on public law ; and the practice of nations has been so different in dif- ferent cases, that it seems impossible to deduce any general rule of action from it. That a nation whose subjects or citizens had as- certained the existence of a country previously unknown, should have a better right than any other to make settlements in that coun- try, and, after such settlement, to own it, and to exercise sovereignty over it, is in every respect conformable with nature and justice ; but this principle is liable to innumerable difficulties in its application to particular cases. It is seldom casy to decide how far a discovery may have been such, in all respects, as should give this strongest right to settle, or to what extent of country a title of sovereignty may have been acquired by a particular settlement : and even where the novelty or priority and sufficiency of the discovery are admit-
189
NEW EXPEDITION FROM MACAO.
1789.]
ted, the right of prior occupation cannot surely be regarded as subsisting forever, to the exclusion of all other nations; and the claims of states occupying contiguous territories are always to be taken into consideration
Agreeably to these views, it could not with justice be assumed that Spain, from the mere fact of the first discovery of the north- west coasts of America by her subjects, acquired the right to exclude all other nations from them forever ; but it would be most unjust to deny that her right to occupy those vacant territories, contiguous as they were to her settled dominions, even if they had not been first discovered by her subjects, was much stronger than that of any other nation. Thus the occupation, and even the exploration, of any part of the north-west coasts by another power, might have been reasonably considered by Spain as an unfriendly, if not as an offensive, act ; while she might, on the contrary, have extended her establishments at least as far north as the 56th parallel, and have claimed the exclusive right of occupying all the coasts south of her most northern establishment, without giving just cause of dissatisfaction to any other power. The exclusive right of occupation must be here distinguished from the exclusive right of sovereignty ; as no nation could be justified, by virtue of the former right, and without occupation or the performance of acts indicating an intention to occupy, in depriving others of the trade of extensive vacant sea-coasts, unless upon the ground that the exercise of such trade would be injurious to its actual interests in those countries.
Resuming the narrative of events in the North Pacific-It has been mentioned, in the preceding chapter, that Meares sailed in the Felice from Nootka Sound to China, in the end of September, 1789. On reaching Macao, in December following, he learned that, during his absence, Juan Cavallo, the Portuguese merchant, whose name appeared on the papers of the Felice and Iphigenia as their owner, had become a bankrupt. What steps were taken immediate- ly, in consequence of this event, is not related ; but an arrangement was soon after made between the anonymous merchant proprietors and Mr. Etches, the agent of the King George's Sound Company, who was then at Macao, with the ship Prince of Wales and sloop Princess Royal, for a union of the interests of the two parties. Agreeably to this arrangement, the Felice was sold, and the Prince of Wales returned to England ; and a ship called the Argonaut was purchased, in which Colnett, a lieutenant in the British navy, previ- ously commanding the Princess Royal, was despatched, in April,
190
.
NEW EXPEDITION FROM MACAO.
[1789.
1789, to Nootka, as captain, and agent for the proprietors on the American coast, accompanied by the Princess Royal, under Captain William Hudson.
The management of the affairs of the association at Macao ap- pears to have been committed entirely to Meares, who drew up the instructions for Colnett. From these instructions, of which a copy is appended by Meares to his Memorial, it is evident that there was really an intention to found a permanent establishment on some part of the north-west coast of America, although no spot is desig- nated as its site, and no hint is given of any acquisition of territory having been already made at or near Nootka Sound. Indeed, the only reference to that place, in the whole paper, is contained in the words, " We recommend you, if possible, to form a treaty with the various chiefs, particularly at Nootka." Yet Meares, in his Memo- rial, strangely enough says, "Mr. Colnett was directed to fix his residence at Nootka Sound, and, with that view, to erect a substan- tial house on the spot which your memorialist had purchased in the preceding year, as will appear by a copy of his instructions hereunto annexed." The Argonaut and Princess Royal were, moreover, certainly navigated under the British flag; there being no object in using any other, as they were both provided with licenses from the East India and the South Sea Companies, which afforded them the requisite authorization .*
Whilst these vessels were on their way to Nootka Sound, their first place of destination on the coast, the brig Iphigenia, and schooner North-West America, belonging to the same association, though under Portuguese colors, arrived in that bay from the Sandwich Islands, where they had passed the winter, agreeably to the instructions of Mr. Meares. They entered the sound on the 20th of April, in the most wretched condition imaginable. The Iphigenia was a mere wreck ; according to the journal of Douglas, her supercargo or captain, annexed to the Memorial of Meares,
* The following account of the occurrences at Nootka in the summer of 1789 is taken from - the journal or narrative of the voyage of Meares, and the documents attached to it, consisting of his Memorial to Parliament, and papers in proof, among which is especially worthy of notice the journal of Douglas, the captain or supercargo of the Iphigenia - the journal of Colnett's voyage, in 1793, in which some of those circumstances are related in a note, at page 96 - the journal of Vancouver's voyage in 1792- the letter addressed by the American Captains Gray and Ingraham to the Spanish commandant at Nootka, in 1792, which will be found at length among the Proofs and Illustrations, at the end of this volume, under the letter C-and the memorials and other papers relative to the dispute which ensued between Great Britain, in the Proofs and Illustrations, under the letter D.
191
SEIZURE OF THE IPHIGENIA.
1789.]
" she had like to have foundered at sea, for want of pitch and tar to stop the leaks ; she had no bread on board, and nothing but salt pork for her crew to live on; she was without cables," and, on attempting to moor her in the harbor, it was necessary to " borrow a fall from the American sloop Washington," which, with the ship Columbia, was found lying there. The North-West America was in no better condition ; and, as they had no articles for barter with the natives, they must have remained inactive for some time, had they not procured some assistance and supplies from the American vessels, by means of which the schooner was enabled to leave the sound on the 28th of the month, for a short trading trip along the coasts. The Washington, about the same time, also departed on a similar expedition ; and the Iphigenia, lying at Friendly Cove, and the Columbia, at Mawhinna, a few miles higher up, were the only vessels in Nootka Sound on the 6th of May, when the Spanish commander Martinez arrived there in the corvette Princesa, to take possession of the country for his sovereign.
Martinez immediately communicated his intentions to the captains of the other vessels, whose papers he also examined ; and, appear- ing to be content, he landed materials and artillery, and began to erect a fort on a small island at the entrance of Friendly Cove. With this assumption of authority on his part, no dissatisfaction appears to have been expressed or entertained by either of the other parties ; on the contrary, the utmost good feeling for some time prevailed on all sides : the officers of the different vessels visited and dined with each other, and Martinez readily supplied the Iphigenia with articles of which she was in need, in order to go to sea immediately, accepting, in return for them, bills drawn by her Portuguese captain, Viana, upon Juan Cavallo, the Portuguese merchant of Macao, as her owner.
Things remained thus at Nootka for a week, at the end of which time the other Spanish vessel, the San Carlos, arrived, under Captain Haro. On the following day, the 15th of May, Martinez invited Viana and Douglas to come on board his ship; and, on their doing so, he immediately told them that they were prisoners, and their vessel was to be seized. "I inquired," says Douglas, in his journal, " the cause of his not taking the Washington sloop, as he had orders from the king of Spain to take every vessel he met out on this coast. He gave me no satisfactory answer, but told me my papers were bad; that they mentioned I was to take all English, Russian, and Spanish vessels that were of inferior force to the
192
THE IPHIGENIA RELEASED BY MARTINEZ. [1789.
Iphigenia, and send or carry their crews to Macao, there to be tried for their lives as pirates. I told him they had not interpreted the papers right ; that, though I did not understand the Portuguese, I had seen a copy of them in English, at Macao, which mentioned, if I was attacked by any one of those nations, to defend myself, and, if I had the superiority, to send the captains and crews to Macao, to answer for the insult they had offered." Martinez, however, was not, or did not choose to be, content with this explanation, which certainly did not place the Iphigenia and her owners in a position conformable with the usages of civilized nations ; and, in obedience to his orders, that brig was boarded by the Spaniards, her men, with her charts, papers, and instruments, were transferred to the ships of war, and preparations were begun for sending her, as a prize, to San Blas.
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