Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/45

Rh must have reached the main land. From here Drake again sailed northerly along the coast until he reached 48° north, which is about the entrance to the Straits of Fuca. Prom this point Drake turned back, keeping close in and finally reached what we now know as Drake's bay on the coast of California. It is claimed, and it may be true, that Drake thought he could find a passage across the continent by water and get east to the Atlantic and England with his plunder without risking a fight with any Spanish ship. If that were so, Drake with all his admitted great ability, must have believed in the Strait of Anian myth. But Francis Fletcher, Drake's nephew, who accompanied those pirates as chaplain, piously praying for their success, published in 1628 an account of that voyage which shows that they must have been well up towards Alaska before they turned back from the extreme cold.

It seems necessary to state these particulars of Drake's discovery, as they throw light upon the claim the British government afterwards set up to Oregon. If Drake, on that voyage, did actually reach Oregon, then according to the international law of that period, the English had a right to Oregon from discovery. But the British government never claimed anything for Drake or that voyage. Why, Drake was at that time a pirate, and outlaw, and no rights could be founded on the acts of such. There can be but little doubt that the character of Drake's expedition was well known to the British government. After wintering at Drake's bay, Drake struck out across the Pacific ocean and reached England by way of the Cape of Good Hope route in September, 1588, after an absence of two years, being the first Englishman to sail around the earth. His return to England created a great sensation. His sailors were reported to be clothed in silks, his sails were damask, and his masts covered with cloth of gold. Queen Elizabeth hesitated long before recognizing the really great exploration of a freebooter. But finally she honored him with knighthood, and approved all his acts.

Drake was the first explorer to give a name to the country—New Albion—which may be found for the first time on the map of Honduis made in 1595.

The next exploring expedition to the Oregon coast was made by Sebastian Viscaino and Martin Aguilar, who were sent out by the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico, with two small vessels to explore the northwest coast of America. Leaving Monterey, California, in January, 1603, they .sailed northerly and falling in with bad weather were separated in a gale. The scurvy broke out on both ships, and many of the men died from the disease. But Aguilar's ship finally reached the land near Cape Blanco, Oregon, and found a river thereabouts, either Coos bay or the Coquille. Father Ascension, the chaplain of the ship, says in his account of it, that they "found a very copious and soundable river on the banks of which were very large ashes, brambles, and other trees of Castile; and wishing to enter it the current would not permit it." The same priest obtained a report from the pilot of the other ship that "having reached Cape Mendocino with most of the men sick, and it being mid-winter and the rigging cruelly cold and frozen so they could not steer the ship, the current carried her slowly towards the land, running to the Strait of Anian, which here has its entrance, and in eight days we had advanced more than one degree of latitude, reaching 43 degrees north in sight of a point named San Sebastian near which enters a river named Santa Anes." It seems to be clear that both these Spanish ship captains reached sub-