of gold or silver," certainly not the kind of report one would expect from a chance landing among the Indians of the coast of Oregon; but likely in one of the bays of California.

In the first half of the sixteen century the Spanish, who were exploiting Mexico, explored the coast as far north as Mendocino. In the autumn of 1578 Francis Drake, under the favor of Queen Elizabeth of England, sailed northward along South American and Mexican shores, despoiling Spaniards of their loot. He anchored, probably, in what now is known as the Bay of San Francisco, examined the coast some degrees further north, named the country New Albion and returned triumphantly to England by way of the Cape of Good Hope, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. In later years there was much discussion over the question whether Drake reached the 43rd degree of latitude, or the 48th. It entered somewhat into the Oregon question, though little heed was paid to it in an official way in the course of the negotiations leading up to the settlement of the boundary at the 49th parallel.

In the summer of 1728 Captain Vitus Behring, under the instructions of Peter the Great of Russia, definitely ascertained that Asia and America were not joined, and his act is commemorated by attaching his name to the strait that separates them. He opened the way for the Russian fur trade and for the establishment of territorial rights on the west coast of America, and died a miserable death on an island where he and his ill sailors had sought refuge from the winter storms.

George Wilkes in his History of Oregon says "Drake was one of the most distinguished of the buccaneers who cursed the face of the ocean during the latter part of the sixteenth century." Drake seems to deserve the title of "distinguished buccaneer." Without respect for the laws of God or man he followed the dictates of a perverted conscience by plundering and laying waste every settlement he could find on the western coast of South America. With his ship bursting with stolen treasure, he appears to have feared that retributive justice, in the form of a united effort upon the part of those whom he had plundered, would overtake him if he attempted to sail home by the Atlantic, so turning his vessel toward the north he sailed into the comparatively unknown North Pacific ocean. Cold weather was encountered; the ship was put around and sailed into the Bay of San Francisco. In order to cover his nefarious enterprise with a cloak of respectability, he presented himself before the native inhabitants as a great discoverer. In taking possession of the country in the name of his sovereign he showed himself to be a sanctimonious rascal by mixing religion with the great show of civil authority displayed in the exercises. The natives doubtless were much impressed with the ceremony; but fortunately for them, the buccaneer was too close to the Spanish possessions to long remain in the country. After bestowing the name New Albion upon everything in sight he sailed away and finally reached England where, at the hands of his queen, he was knighted and became Sir Francis Drake. Spaniards were settling California and were endeavoring to expand their dominions northward. In January, 1774, in the war sloop Santiago, Lieut. Juan Perez sailed from San Blas under instructions from the Mexican viceroy to proceed to a point 60 degrees north, survey the coast southward to Monterey and to possess the territory thus covered in the name of the King of Spain. In July he landed on what is now known as Queen Charlotte Island, in 54 degrees north, and entered the channel now called Dixon's Channel. At various points to

the southward he made land, bartered with the natives and mapped the country, and in August he discovered what now bears the name Nootka Sound. He called it Port Lorenzo. He saw the Mount Olympus of the present maps and called it Sierra de Santa Rosalia. His pilot, Jose Martinez, saw what the Spaniards afterward declared to have been the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Martinez's name was applied to the point which afterward became Cape Flattery. Failure of Spanish authorities to make definite the findings of the Perez voyage deprived them in later years of valuable grounds upon which to establish claims to exploratory honors and territorial rights.

Scarcely had Perez made report to the Mexican viceroy before that dignitary dispatched northward (1775) Capt. Bruno Heceta, on the same ship, Santiago, and Perez became his ensign. The Santiago was accompanied by the Sonora, commanded by Lieut. Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. The Sonora sent a boat load of men ashore for fresh water and all were murdered by natives. The place was named Punta de Martires (Point of Martyrs), and the island near by, Isla de Dolores. A dozen years later the Imperial Eagle, Captain Berkley, lost a boat load of men in about the same manner, and he gave the name, Destruction Island, to the ill-fated place. Punta de Martires became Point Grenville. Heceta discovered Heceta's Inlet which he complained that he could not enter on account of contrary currents and he believed a large river entered the sea there. Bodega discovered what now is known as Norfolk Sound and other important features, and left his name attached to Bodega Bay.

The success of the expeditions encouraged the Spanish to further efforts in the north, and early in 1780 two more vessels, with Bodega and Capt. Ignacio Arteaga in command, left San Blas. This adventure was almost fruitless, however, and it was the last for a number of years as war, declared in 1779, had begun between Spain and England.

The American Revolution, designed to deprive England of her foothold on the Atlantic coast, was fomenting when on July 6, 1776, Capt. James Cook was placed in command of the Resolution and Discovery, under instructions to "fall in with the coast of New Albion in latitude 45 degrees north." He was to replenish his ships and proceed northward to 65 degrees or further. He was instructed to reach this point in June. His orders were explicit against landing upon Spanish dominion and again giving umbrage to subjects of the King of Spain. In 1778 Lieutenant Young was sent by the British government in the Brig Lion into Baffin's Bay, there to search for a westward passage while Cook was seeking, from the far western coast, an eastward passage. The hope of discovering the Strait of Anian had not vanished. The British government thought that if the navigators found the passage, they would meet somewhere in a sea north of the American continent. Great Britain had other expectations from Cook's voyage; she had not forgotten the bold ravages of her Drake 200 years before and the fact that, having loaded his ships with Spanish riches, he had sailed the northwestern seas, nor was she loath to convert the accidents of piracy into the honorable quests of exploratory adventure. Cook left Plymouth July 12, 1776, with George Vancouver as a midshipman, and March 7, 1778, he sighted the west coast of America north of 43 degrees. The weather was thick and only occasional glimpses of land were possible. But Cook named Cape Foulweather and Cape Flattery. He missed the Strait of Fuca, and entered Nootka

Sound where he remained for nearly a month. Then off to the northward, exploring the American and Asiatic coasts, passing through Behring's strait, he crossed the Arctic circle and reached a latitude of 70 degrees, 44 minutes. Estopped by the ice he turned his prows southward, mapped the Aleutian islands, and came in touch with the Russian settlements of Unalaska, then called Oonalaska. He had "effected more in one season than the Spaniards had accomplished in two centuries,” and had added immensely to the world's knowledge of geography. The theft by the natives of one of his small boats in the Sandwich islands and his attempts to recover it, resulted in the killing of a native chief, and of the murder of Cook in turn by the incensed barbarians.

Captain Clerke took command of the ships after they had been reprovisioned and refitted in the Sandwich islands, and returned to the northern seas, again passing through Behring Strait but not reaching the latitude attained by Cook. Returning southward Captain Clerke died and the command fell upon Lieutenant Gore, a Virginian. The season forbade further exploration and Gore sailed for Canton, China, where the furs which his men had picked up among the American natives for trifling exchanges, brought such prices that new and valuable channels were opened for the fur trade. Cook wholly disregarded the fact that the natives had articles of Spanish manufacture-evidence that the Spanish explorers had preceded him. He took possession of the country. One result of his voyage is that we have the names Foulweather, Perpetua, Gregory and Flattery applied to various capes which he sighted.

In January, 1782, the Felice and the Iphigenia, Portuguese vessels, arrived on the northwest coast. The Felice was under command of Lieut. John Mears and her sister ship was commanded by William Douglas. Both commanders were subjects of Great Britain in the employ of John Cavallo, a Portuguese fur trader of Macao, China, and sailed under the flag of Portugal. Their orders, written in the Portuguese language, were "to oppose with force any attempt on the part of any Russian, English or Spanish vessels to interfere with them, and if possible to capture them, to bring them to China, that they might be condemned as legal prizes by the Portuguese authorities of Macao, and their crews punished as pirates."

These orders were pregnant with trouble. Portugal, before that time, had done nothing to establish any title or claim to any of the country. Yet Cavallo expected British officers to observe and obey his orders.

Mears arrived at Nootka May 13, left a part of his crew with instructions to build a small coasting vessel, and sailed to the southward for the purpose of entering the river discovered by Heceta near 46 degrees 16 minutes. Failing to enter the mouth of this river, in disgust he bestowed the name Disappointment upon one of the capes in the neighborhood, called the bay on its southern side "Deception Bay" and wrote in his journal "we can now with safety assert that there is no such river as that of Saint Sas exists, as laid down in the Spanish charts." Years afterward, British diplomats, ignoring the foreign flag under which Mears sailed, cited his explorations as a basis upon which to rest the English claim to much of the Oregon country.

Returning to Nootka Mears launched the Northwest America, the first vessel built on the Pacific coast north of Mexico. This was in September and the same month the Iphigenia arrived as did also the American sloop Washington

under command of Capt. Robert Gray. Four days after the arrival of the Iphigenia, Mears sailed on the Felice for Macao where he found Cavallo bankrupt. Quick to take advantage of this misfortune that had overtaken his employer, Mears joined a British organization known as the King George Sound Company, was appointed resident agent and dispatched Capt. James Colnett, another halfpay British officer to Nootka on board the Argonaut, to found a permanent furtrading post.

The Felice had been on her way to China but a few days when Captain Kendrick arrived on board the American ship Columbia. Shortly after this the Iphigenia and the Northwest America sailed for the Hawaiian islands leaving the two American vessels to spend the winter at Nootka.

News of Nootka's growing importance as a fur-trading post for many vessels of other nations reached the Spanish authorities in Mexico and Don Estevan Jose Martinez was ordered to proceed with a squadron from San Blas to that point. Martinez arrived May 6th and announced that he had come to take possession for the crown of Spain. He landed artillery and began the construction of a fort, the first building erected in the country by white men. About a week later, Martinez learned of the orders given to the commanders of the Portuguese vessels and the friendly feeling which had existed among the men was brought to a sudden end by the seizure of the Portuguese boats and their crews. Kendrick induced the Spanish commander to release the men. Martinez supplied them with materials with which to repair their vessels, and the Iphigenia sailed away.

June 16th the Princess Royal, a King George Sound vessel, arrived with the news of Cavallo's bankruptcy and Martinez decided to hold Northwest America as security for goods advanced to the Iphigenia. As the Princess Royal was leaving the harbor July 2d she met the Argonaut, Captain Colnett, who told the Spanish commander that he had come to take possession of the country in the name of the British government. Colnett drew his sword and Martinez promptly seized the British vessels, made their crews prisoners, placed them aboard the Argonaut and sent them to San Blas in charge of Spanish officers. The Portuguese crew of the Northwest America was sent to Macao on board the American vessel, Columbia. Shortly after leaving the harbor the Columbia met the Washington when it was arranged that Kendrick and Gray should exchange commands-Gray proceeding to China on the Columbia and Kendrick remaining on the American coast.

Mears, upon receiving Gray's report of events at Nootka, took depositions from the crew of the Northwest America and hurried off to London where he presented a claim of $653,000 against Spain. The British government demanded that Spain make restitution of the land and buildings seized by Martinez. After running the usual diplomatic gauntlet the matter was settled by the treaty of October 20, 1790. The King George Company, under the terms of this treaty, was to be indemnified for its losses and the whole country was to be open to the traders of both nations. Thus England, upon the foundation of the explorations of one of her subjects then in the employ of a fur trader, sailing in a vessel under a foreign flag, by the ability of her diplomats to drive a hard bargain, laid the basis of her claim to Oregon. The British traders, under this first joint-occupancy treaty, obtained a foothold and Capt. George Vancouver, member of the Cook expedition, was sent to the Northwest coast to carry out the terms of the treaty.

Martinez, after shipping his British prisoners out of the country, sailed for