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From them Vancouver learned that Don Quadra, the Spanish representative, was awaiting him at Nootka, prepared to restore the forts and property as agreed in the Nootka Convention. The vessels continued their journey northward and entered Queen Charlotte Sound in August. Then, steering into the open sea, Vancouver sailed for Nootka to meet Spain's official messenger.
Famous Captain Cook, the great navigator of the Pacific seas, in 1778, reached and entered Nootka Sound, and, leaving numerous harbors and bays unexplored, he pressed on and visited the shores of Alaska, then called Unalaska, and traced the coast as far north as Icy Cape.
So had Meares, another trader. So had Kendrick and Gray, the two Americans. This was the very section which Bering and Cook had left untouched; and who could tell where these straits might lead? They were like a second Mediterranean. Meares argued they might connect with Hudson Bay. Then Spain had forced matters to a climax by seizing Meares's vessels and fort at Nootka as contraband.
So soon as the Federal Government was free from the anxieties of war, and its position was alike established and recognized, public attention was directed to the "fur country," which had in turn attracted the English, the Spanish, and the French. Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts, discovered by the great Cook and the talented Quadra, Vancouver, and Marchand, were American.
English connection with this part of the world may be said to date from an exploratory voyage made by Captain Cook in 1776, when he landed at Friendly Cove and Nootka Sound, and took possession of them in the name of his sovereign.
Finding no help for his revolutionary schemes in England, he went to the continent and traveled through France, Germany, Turkey, and Russia. At the Russian court he was warmly received, but was soon dismissed at the demand of the Spanish minister. At news of the dispute between England and Spain about Nootka Sound in 1790, he hastened to England and communicated his scheme to the British ministry.
I think this strong circumstancial proof that there is a stettlement of white persons at Nootka sound or some point to the N. W. of us on the coast.
"Have you told?" asked the boy anxiously. "Never said a word," replied Oolalik. "Here," said Nootka, holding out a piece of half-cooked blubber to the boy, "sit down and tell us all about it. What is the news?" "Ha!" exclaimed Anteek, accepting the food as if he appreciated it. "Well, I've killed my first walrus all alone too!" "Clever boy! how was it?" said Mrs Mangivik. "This was the way.
Tatoosh Island, off Cape Flattery, where the Makah Indians live, derives its name from Tootootche, the Nootka name for the "thunder-bird." The Makahs originally came from the west coast of Vancouver's Island. They deem themselves much superior to the tribes of the interior, because they go out on the ocean.
In the second week of June the sloop was back at Nootka, where Gray was not a little surprised to find the Spanish had erected a fort on Hog Island, seized Douglas's vessel, and only released her on condition that the little fur trader Northwest-America should become Spanish property on entering Nootka.
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