Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/337



THE CENTENNIAL iriSTORY OF OREGON I'O'.i

how close the Spaniard came to making the discovery whieli lias made lioliert Gray famous. The Spaniard kept on south and made Monterey on August :!. 1775, a few days after the never-to-be-forgotten battle of Bunker Hill.

We have been thus ptirticular to set out the facts constituting the rights of Spain to claim the Old Oregon country from the California line clear up to Alaska. According to the theories of the European nations in vogue one hun- dred and tifty years ago, the King of Spain had done everything necessary to give his nation a good title to the Oregon country; for according to this histoi-i- eal record, the Spanish naval ofBcer and ships flying the flag of Spain, in lawful exploration of tlie high seas, were the first discoverers of the Oregon country.

It was doubtless the fact that Captain Francis Drake had been on the Oregon coast befoi-e the Spaniard. But he was here, as has been before stated, as a freebooter or pirate, plundering Spanish merchant vessels, and as such his acts could not confer any title on the English government; and for that reason his government never took advantage of any discoveries he made.

And. notwithstanding the fact that the Spaniards were the first discoverers of the Oregon coast, for some reason, never explained, they did not make these discoveries known to the world at that time; but waited until after Captain James Cook, as the representative of Great Britain, made his famous voyage to the Oregon coast in 1778. Cook sailed from Plymouth, England, eight days after the American Declaration of Independence had been signed up by the Conti- nental Congress, a fact which could not have been at that time known in Eng- land. These dates are given to show that the new-horn nation of the United States had not, at the time the Spanish and English claims to Oregon were set up, yet achieved a national organization, existence of recognition before the world ; and was not, therefore, bound by the comity laws of nations which gave away great countries on rights of discovery.

But Captain Cook saw no part of the coast of America on this voyage, which had not been previously seen by the Spanish navigators, Perez, Heceta and Bodega.

The question was raised later on by England that Spain had negotiated away its rights to Oregon by a treaty entered into October, 1790, which provides that Spain should restore to Great Britain the possession of property and ships taken from the British by force at Nootka Sound by the Spanish Captain Martinez, in May, 1779. And as this incident has figured prominently not only in the history of those times, but also in the diplomacy and treaty rights of the Ignited States and England, a resume of the facts therewith connected will now be given.

From a trifdiug incident of Captain Cook's voyage to the west coast of Ore- gon in 1778 the attention of all the trading nations was attracted to this coun- try. Cook got from the Indians, and carried away to China, a small bale of furs, which, on being offered for sale, at once dazzled the eyes of all traders in Chinese ports for their superiority to anything of the kind ever seen before and the vast fur trade of Northwest America started right there.

But when the British sea-rovers and independent traders sought to start into the fur trade they were handicapped by the regulations and franchise grants of their own country. In pursuance of its immemorial policy of granting special privileges to royal favorites, the British government had divided up the earth between two chartered cmiipanies. and had granted to the South Sea Company