Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/339



to secure the further attachment aud protection of Maquinna, lie was promised that when the people of those ships tiually left the coast, he should enter into the full possession of the house and all the goods belonging therewith."

This was the tirst house built in all the vast region of old Oregon, and these were the circumstances under which it was erected. It wfus a mere temporary shelter from the weather, with some stockade defense against an attack from the Indians.

Hearing of these operations of the I'ur traders, great uneasiness was aroused in Spain. And in 17S9 the Spanish vicei'oy in Mexico dispatched two ships to tile uortli with instructions to proclaim and enforce the rights of Spain to the country. These ships — the Princess and San Carlos — commanded by Lieut, ^lartinez. reached Nootka Sound, j\Iay 5th, 1789, and found there the American ship Columbia, and the ships Iphigeiiia and the Felice, with Captain Meares, arriving a few days afterward.

The Spaniard promptly announced his business, and the Americans as promptly recognized the rights of Spain to the country. The captain of the Iphi- genia gave an evasive and untruthful reply, saying he had put in there in dis- tress to await the arrival of Captain Meares. But the Spaniard hearing that the Iphigeuia carried orders to capture any Russian, Spanish or English vessel, he seized the ship, and subsequently the Northwest America, another ship in the same service as the Iphigenia.

Captain Meares. not returning on account of a reorganization of the ad- venturing merchants, which has not replaced Meares, with Captain Colnett, also holding a commission in the British navy, now off on leave, events dragged until Colnett came into Nootka off the ship Princess Royal. Colnett's instructions di- rected him "to establish a factory to be called Fort Pitt for the purpose of permanent settlement, and as a center of trade around which other stations may be estaldished." And he informed the Spanish captain. Martinez, that he should take possession of Nootka Sound in the name of Great Britain and hoist the Brit- ish flag. The Spaniard replied that possession had already been taken in the name of Spain, and that he would resist any attempts to take possession in the name of Great Britain. The Englishmen inquired if the Spaniard would object to building a house; the Spaniard: "Certain, I will object; you can erect a tent to get wood and water, but no house." The Englishman replied that he would liuild a block house ; whereupon the Spaniard arrested the British cap- tain and all his crew, and seized the ships — Princess Royal and Argonaut — and sent them down to San Bias. Mexico, as prizes.

Here, then, was a veritable "tempest in a teapot." Consider for a moment the surroundings of these men and the future weight given to their acts. Here they were in a little pocket of a bay on Vancouver island ; the Americans twenty thousand miles from their home port; the English-Portuguese merchant ad- venturers no better than pirates, as they were sailing imder false eoloi-s, six thousand miles from their base of operations, and the Spaniard three thousand miles from his governor: with an onlooking audience of hundreds of savages and not a single civilized man within thousands of miles. The Spaniard bravely asserts the rights and authority of his king, and the bluffing British captain tamely submits to arrest.

It was ten months after the capture of the British ships before the news