USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 27
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 27
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This survey of the Strait of Fuca was conducted in the most complete and effectual manner possible by Vancouver, whose ac- count of it, filling a large portion of his journal, together with his charts, afford uncquivocal testimony of the skill and perseverance of the British navigators. Galiano and Valdes seem also to have done as much as could have been expected, considering the smallness of their force and the miserable scale of their equipments. Had they not met the British ships, they would, doubtless, have found their way through the strait ; but they could never have made even a tolerable survey of it, as they must have left a number of passages
241
NEGOTIATIONS AT NOOTKA.
1792.]
unexplored ; and the world would, probably, never have received any detailed report of their operations .*
Before the arrival of these vessels at Nootka Sound, Captain Caamano returned from his search for the Rio de Reyes of Ad- miral Fonte, in which he had spent two months. During this period, he entered many of the openings in the coasts north and north-east of Queen Charlotte's Island, between the 53d and the 56th parallels of latitude; some of which were found to be the mouths of bays, or of inlets running far inland, and others to be channels separating islands. He appears to have displayed much skill and industry in his examinations, as Vancouver indirectly testifies in his narrative : but he effected no discoveries calculated to throw much light on the geography of that part of the coast ; and his labors were productive of advantage only in so far as they served to facilitate the movements of the English navigator, to whom his charts and journals were exhibited at Nootka.
At Nootka, Vancouver found the store-ship Dædalus, which brought the instructions from the British government for his con- duct as commissioner. She left England in the autumn of 1791, under the command of Lieutenant Hergest ; and, passing around Cape Horn, she, in the latter part of March, 1792, fell in with the
* The voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana was the last made by the Spaniards in the North Pacific Ocean, for the purposes of discovery ; and the only one, since that of Vizcaino, of which an authentic account has been given to the world, with the sanction of the Spanish government. The Journal of Galiano and Valdes was pub- lished at Madrid in 1802, by order of the king, with an Introduction, often cited in the preceding pages, including a historical sketch of the exploring voyages of the Spaniards on the coasts of America, north-west of Mexico. This Introduction is the only valuable part of the work ; the meagre and uninteresting details of the Journal having been superseded by the full and luminous descriptions of Vancouver: it was intended -as a defence of the rights of Spain to the north-west portion of America, which were supposed to be endangered since the cession of Louisiana to France-as a vindication of the claims of Spanish navigators to the merit of dis- covering those regions, which the British were endeavoring to monopolize- and as a reply to the charges, insinuations, and sarcasms, against the intelligence, liberality, and good faith, of the Spanish government and nation, brought forward by Fleurieu. It was compiled chiefly from the original journals and other documents, in the archives of the Council of the Indies, relative to the exploration of the North Pacific coasts; and, in this manner, many curious if not important facts were communi- cated, which might otherwise have remained forever buried. It is, however, to be regretted that the author should have disfigured his work - as he has in every part in which the honor or interests of Spain are concerned - by gross and palpable misstate- ments of circumstances, respecting which he undoubtedly possessed the means of arriving at the truth. It may, perhaps, be considered a sufficient apology for him, that his book was published by the Spanish government, at Madrid, in 1802, as we know not what changes may have been made in it by insertions, suppressions, and alterations, after it left his hands.
31
242
LETTER OF GRAY AND INGRAHAM.
[1792.
islands in the centre of the Pacific, north of the Marquesas, which had been discovered by Ingraham in April of the preceding year. Sailing thence, she reached Woahoo, one of the Sandwich Islands, where Lieutenant Hergest and Mr. Gooch, the astronomer, were murdered by the natives, on the 11th of May; after which she came to Nootka Sound, under the command of Lieutenant New. Vancouver gave the name of Hergest's Islands to the group visited by the Dædalus, as above mentioned ; and so they are called in his chart, although, as he says in his journal, he had been informed that they had been previously discovered and landed on by some of the American traders.
For his conduct as commissioner, Vancouver was referred by his instructions to the convention of October, 1790, and to a letter brought by the Dædalus from count de Florida Blanca, the Spanish minister of state, addressed to the commandant of the port of San Lorenzo of Nootka, ordering that officer, in conformity with the first article of the convention, to put his Britannic majesty's com- missioner in possession of the buildings and districts, or parcels of land, which were occupied by his subjects in April, 1789, as well in the port of Nootka as in the other, said to be called Port Cox, and to be situated about sixteen leagues farther southward. A copy of this order had been given to Quadra, on his departure from Mexico ; but it does not appear that either of the commissioners was furnished by his government with any evidence to assist him in ascertaining precisely what lands were to be restored, or for what buildings indemnification was to be made by the Spaniards.
In order to supply this want of information, Quadra had, imme- diately on arriving at Nootka, made inquiries on the subject of Maquinna and other chiefs of the surrounding tribes ; all of whom, without hesitation, denied that any lands had been purchased, or any houses had been built there, by the English at any time. As the testimony of the savage chiefs could not, however, be of much value alone, he had next addressed his inquiries to Captains Gray and Ingraham, who arrived at Nootka in July, as already stated, and who had witnessed the proceedings at that place in 1789, when the former commanded the Washington, and the latter was first mate of the Columbia; and they, in answer, sent a letter, dated August 2d, containing a clear and particular statement of all the circumstances connected with the occupation of Nootka, and the seizure of the vessels by Martinez. With regard to the particular points in question, they declare unequivocally that, although they
243
PROPOSITIONS OF QUADRA.
1792.]
had been in habits of constant intercourse with Maquinna and his people for nine months, they had never heard of any purchase of lands on that coast by British subjects ; and that the only building seen by them, when they reached the sound in September, 1789, was a rude hut, made by the Indians, which had been destroyed long before the arrival of the Spaniards .* These statements were, in all respects, confirmed by Viana, the Portuguese, who had been the captain of the Iphigenia in 1788 and 1789, and who was then with his vessel at Nootka ; and the Spanish commissioner thereupon considered himself authorized to assume that no lands were to be restored, and no buildings to be replaced or paid for by Spain.
A communication to this effect, with copies of the letters of Gray and Ingraham and Viana, was, accordingly, addressed by Quadra to Vancouver, on the arrival of the latter at Nootka. The Spanish commissioner, however, at the same time offered, with the view of removing all causes of disagreement between the two nations, to surrender to the British the small spot of ground on the shore of Friendly Cove, which had been temporarily occupied by Meares and his people in 1788; to give up, for their use, the houses and cul- tivated lands of the Spaniards near that place; and to retire with all his forces to Port Nuñez Gaona, in the Strait of Fuca, (where an establishment had been begun by Fidalgo,) until the two govern- ments should determine further on the matter: with the under- standing, nevertheless, that this cession was not to be considered as affecting the rights of his Catholic majesty to the dominion of the territory, and that Nootka was to be regarded as the most northern settlement of the Spaniards, to whom the whole coast lying south of it, and the adjacent country, was to be acknowledged to belong exclusively.
Vancouver, on the other hand, had thought proper to construe the first article of the convention of 1790 as giving to his country- men possession of the whole territory surrounding Nootka and Clyo- quot ; and he therefore refused to receive what was offered by Quadra, declaring, with regard to the concluding part of the Spaniard's proposition, that he was not authorized to enter into any discussion as to the rights or claims of the respective nations. In this conviction he was supported by the evidence of Robert Duffin, the former mate of the Argonaut, who happened to arrive at Nootka while the negotiation was in progress. This person testified that
* See letter of Gray and Ingraham to Quadra, among the Proofs and Illustrations in the latter part of this volume, under the letter D.
[1792.
DUFFIN'S EVIDENCE.
he had accompanied Mr. Meares to Nootka in 1788, with his two vessels, which sailed under Portuguese colors and under the name of a Portuguese merchant, for the purpose of avoiding certain heavy duties at Macao, but were, notwithstanding, " entirely British property, and wholly navigated by the subjects of his Britannic majesty ;" that he had himself been present when Mr. Meares purchased " from the two chiefs, Maquinna and Callicum, the whole of the land that forms Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, in his Bri- tannic majesty's name," for some sheets of copper and trifling articles ; that the natives were perfectly satisfied, and, with the chiefs, did homage to Mr. Meares as sovereign ; that the British flag - not the Portuguese - was displayed on shore on that occasion ; that Mr. Meares caused a house to be erected on a convenient spot, containing three bed-chambers, with a mess-room for the officers and proper apartments for the men, " surrounded by several out- houses and sheds for the artificers to work in, all of which he left in good repair, under the care of Maquinna and Callicum, until he, or some of his associates, should return ; that he, Duffin, was not at Nootka when Martinez arrived there, but he understood no vestige of the house remained at that ti.ne; and, on his return thither in July, 1789, he found the Cove occupied by the subjects of his Catholic majesty, and on the spot on which the house had stood were the tents and houses of some of the people of the ship Columbia. Upon the strength of this testimony, Vancouver pro- nounced the declarations of Messrs. Gray and Ingraham to be en- tirely false; and he takes pains, in several parts of his work, to animadvert, in severe terms, on what he is pleased to call " the wilful misrepresentations of the Americans, to the prejudice of British subjects."
On the points to which Duffin's statement relates, it is unneces- sary to add any thing to what has been already said. The evidence is presented to us by Vancouver, in the form of an abstract, of the correctness of which, as well as of the candor of that officer, we may be enabled to form an estimate, by comparing his abstract of the letter from Gray and Ingraham to Quadra, with the letter itself. It will be thus scen, that the British commander has, most unfairly, garbled the testimony of the American traders, by suppressing or altering every part of it which could tend to place his countrymen, or their cause, in an unfavorable light, or to excuse the conduct of the Spaniards towards them. His bitterness towards the citizens of the United States, on this occasion, may, perhaps, be attributed
1792.]
NEGOTIATION SUSPENDED.
to the circumstance, that, on his arrival at Nootka, he learned the complete success of Gray in finding a large river, and a secure harbor, on a coast which he had himself explored in vain with the same objects.
The correspondence between the two commissioners was con- tinued for some weeks, at the end of which, finding it impossible to effect any definitive arrangement, they agreed to submit the matter, with all the additional evi lence obtained by both parties, to their respective governments, and to await further orders ; Nootka being, in the mean time, considered a Spanish port .* Vancouver,
* The preceding sketch of the negotiation between Vancouver and Quadra is derived from the Journals of Vancouver, Galiano and Valdes, and Ingraham. The following summary account of the business, extracted from Ingraham's Journal, was drawn up, at his request, by Mr. Howel, the supercargo of the American brig Mar- garet, who acted as translator for Quadra, and saw the whole of the correspondence.
" The indefinite mode of expression adopted by Messrs. Fitzherbert and Florida Blanca did not affix any boundaries to the cession expected by Great Britain : what the buildings were, or what was the extent of the tract of land to be restored, the plenipotentiaries did not think proper to determine. Don Juan Francisco, having no better guide, collected the best evidence he could procure, and that could enable him to determine what were the lands and buildings of which the British subjects were dispossessed, and which the tenor of the first article of the convention alone authorized him to restore. The result of this investigation, in which he was much aided by your communication, supported by the uniform declarations of Maquinna and his tribe, sufficiently evinced that the tract was a sinall corner of Friendly Cove, and, to use the words of Captain Vancouver, little more than a hundred yards in ex- tent any way; and the buildings, according to your information, dwindled to one hut. Señor Quadra, having ascertained the limits usually occupied by Mr. Meares, or his servants, was ever ready to deliver it, in behalf of his Catholic majesty, to any envoy from the British court. Captain Vancouver arrived at Nootka Sound in the latter end of August; and Señor Quadra wrote to him on the subject of their re- spective orders, and enclosed your letter, together with one from a Captain Viana, a. Portuguese, who passed as captain of the Iphigenia, when she was detained by the Spaniards. Don Juan Francisco, in his letter, avowed his readiness to put Captain Vancouver in possession of the tract of land where Mr. Meares's house once stood, which alone could be that ceded to Great Britain by the convention. Señor Quadra offered, likewise, to leave for his accommodation all the houses, gardens, &c., which had been made at the expense of his Catholic majesty, as he intended leaving the port immediately. In the same letter, he tendered Captain Vancouver offers of every service and assistance which hospitality or benevolence could dictate. Cap- tain Vancouver, in reply, gratefully acknowledged the intended favors, but entirely dissented from the boundaries affixed by Senior Quadra to the tract of land, of which he was to receive the possession and property ; and, in pursuance of his directions, interpreted the first article as a cession of this port, viz., Nootka Sound, in toto, to- gether with Clyoquot, or Port Cox. He disclaimed all retrospective discussion of the rights, pretensions, &c., of the two courts, and also of the actual possessions of British subjects in Nootka Sound, deeming it irrelevant to the business he was authorized to transact, and only to be settled by the respective monarchs. The letters which followed on both sides were merely a reiteration of the foregoing proposals and demands. Señor Quadra invited to a discussion of the boundaries, &c., and sup-
246
SURVEY OF BULFINCH'S HARBOR. [1792.
accordingly, despatched Lieutenant Mudge, by way of China, to England, with communications for his government; and he then prepared for his own departure towards the south, being resolved to examine the Columbia River and Bulfinch's Harbor, of which he had received from Quadra copies of the charts given to that officer by Gray.
Vancouver sailed from Nootka, with his three vessels, on the 13th of October, and, on the 18th, he was opposite Bulfinch's Harbor, to examine which he detached Lieutenant Whidbey, in the Dæda- lus, while he himself proceded with the other vessels to the mouth of the Columbia. Into that river Broughton penetrated, in the Chatham, on the 20th : the Discovery was unable to pass the bar at the mouth ; and Vancouver, being persuaded that the stream was inaccessible to large ships, "except in very fine weather, with moderate winds, and a smooth sea," sailed to the Bay of San Francisco, where he had ordered the other officers to join him in case of separation. In December following, the whole squadron was reunited at Monterey, where Whidbey and Broughton pre- sented the reports of their observations.
Whidbey's account of Bulfinch's Harbor was less favorable than Gray's; from both, however, it appears that the place possesses advantages which must render it important, whenever the surround- ing region becomes settled. It affords a safe retreat for small vessels, and there are several spots on its shore where boats may land without difficulty : moreover, it is the only harbor on the coast, between Cape Mendocino and the Strait of Fuca, except the mouth of the Columbia ; and, under such circumstances, labor and inge- nuity will certainly be employed to correct and improve what nature has offered. Upon the strength of this survey, the place has been frequently distinguished on British, and even on American maps, as Whidbey's Harbor, although Vancouver himself has not pre- tended to withhold from Gray the merit of discovering it.
Broughton, as before mentioned, entered the Columbia with the
ported his evidence with well-grounded reasoning; yet Captain Vancouver steadily adhered to the demands he first made, and refused every kind of discussion. The definitive letter from Señor Quadra was transmitted on the 15th of September ; but, it being of the same nature with the preceding ones, Captain Vancouver only re- plied by a repetition of his former avowal, and informing the Spanish commandant that he could receive, on the part of his master, the king of Britain, no other terri- tories than those he had pointed out in his other letters, with which if Señor Quadra did not comply, he must retain them for his Catholic majesty, until the respective courts should determine what further proceedings they might deem necessary."
247
BROUGHTON SURVEYS THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
1792.]
Chatham, on the 20th of October; and he there, to his surprise, found lying at anchor the brig Jenny, from Bristol, which had sailed from Nootka Sound a few days previous. Scarcely had the Chat- ham effected an entrance ere she ran aground; and the channel proved to be so intricate, that Broughton determined to leave her about four miles from the mouth, and to proceed up the stream in his cutter. A short account of his survey will be sufficient, as it would be unnecessary to present an abridgment of the long and minute description given in the journal of Vancouver.
The portion of the Columbia near the sea was found by Brough- ton to be about seven miles in width; its depth varied from two fathoms to eight, and it was crossed in every direction by shoals. which must always render the navigation difficult, even by small vessels. Higher up, the stream became narrower, and, at the distance of twenty-five miles from its mouth, its breadth did not exceed a thousand yards. These circumstances were considered by Broughton and Vancouver as authorizing them to assume that the true entrance of the river was at the last-mentioned point, and that the waters between it and the ocean constituted an inlet or sound .* From the extremity of this inlet, the party rowed eighty miles up the river, in a south-west course, to a bend, where, the current being so rapid as to prevent them from advancing without great labor, they abandoned the survey, and returned to their vessel. The angle of land around which the river flowed, and where their progress was arrested, received the appellation of Point Vancouver ; the part of the inlet where the ship Columbia lay at anchor during her visit, was called Gray's Bay ; and that immediately within Cape Disappointment was named Baker's Bay, in compliment to the captain of the Jenny. On the 10th of November, the Chatham
* " I shall conclude this account of the Columbia River by a few short remarks that Mr. Broughton made in the course of its survey, in his own words. 'The discovery of this river, we were given to understand, is claimed by the Spaniards, who called it Entrada de Ceta, after the commander of the vessel who is said to be its first discoverer, but who never entered it; he places it in 46 degrees north latitude. It is the same opening that Mr. Gray stated to us, in the spring, he had been nine days off, the former year, but could not get in, in consequence of the outsetting current; that, in the course of the late summer, he had, however, entered the river, or rather the sound, and had named it after the ship he then commanded. The ex- tent Mr. Gray became acquainted with on that occasion is no farther than what I have called Gray's Bay, not more than fifteen miles from Cape Disappointment, though, according to Mr. Gray's sketch, it measures thirty-six miles. By his calcu- lation, its entrance lies in latitude 46 degrees 10 minutes, longitude 237 degrees 18 minutes, differing materially, in these respects, from our observations.'" -- Vancou- ver, vol. ii. p. 74.
248
UNWORTHY CONDUCT OF VANCOUVER. [1792.
quitted the Columbia, in company with the Jenny, and arrived at Port San Francisco before the end of the month.
The distinction which Vancouver and Broughton have thus en- deavored to establish between the upper and the lower portions of the Columbia, is entirely destitute of foundation, and at variance with the principles of our whole geographical nomenclature. Inlets and sounds are arms of the sea, running up into the land ; and their waters, being supplied from the sea, are necessarily salt : the waters of the Columbia are, on the contrary, generally fresh and potable within ten miles of the Pacific ; the volume and the overbearing force of the current being sufficient to prevent the farther ingress of the ocean. The question appears, at first, to be of no conse- quence : the following extract from Vancouver's journal will, how- ever, serve to show that the quibble was devised by the British navigators, with the unworthy object of depriving Gray of the merits of his discovery : " Previously to his [Broughton's] depart- ure, he formally took possession of the river, and the country in its vicinity, in his Britannic majesty's name, having every reason to believe that the subjects of no other civilized nation or state had ever entered this river before. In this opinion he was confirmed by Mr. Gray's sketch, in which it does not appear that Mr. Gray either saw or ever was within five leagues of its entrance." This unjust view has been adopted by the British government and writers, and also, doubtless from inadvertency, by some distinguished authors in the United States. It may be, indeed, considered fortunate for Gray, that, by communicating the particulars of his discoveries, as he did, to Quadra, he secured an unimpeachable witness in support of his claims ; had he not done so, the world would probably never have learned that a citizen of the United States was the first to enter the greatest river flowing from America into the Pacific, and to find the only safe harbor on the long line of coast between Port San Fran- cisco and the Strait of Fuca.
At San Francisco and Monterey, Vancouver surveyed the bays, and examined the Spanish establishments, of which he presents minute and graphic descriptions in his narrative ; and he obtained satisfactory evidence that the presidio of San Francisco, situated near the entrance of the bay, in latitude of 37 degrees 48 minutes, was the northernmost spot, on the Pacific coast of America, occupied by the Spaniards previous to the month of May, 1789, and was, con- sequently, according to the convention of 1790, the northernmost spot on that coast over which Spain could exercise exclusive juris-
249
EXECUTION OF MURDERERS AT WOAHOO.
1793.]
diction. At Monterey, the English commander again met and conferred with the Spanish commissioner Quadra; and it was agreed between them, that Lieutenant Broughton should proceed to Europe, across Mexico, with further communications, for their respective courts, on the subject of the arrangement of the ques- tions at issue. These affairs having been concluded, the Dædalus was sent to New South Wales; and Vancouver proceeded, with the Discovery and Chatham, the latter under Lieutenant Puget, to the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived in the middle of Feb- ruary, 1793. ,
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