Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/22



In the issue of this Quarterly for March, 1924, (Volume xxv, pp. 36-52) Professor Ralph S. Kuykendall, of the Hawaiian Historical Commission, presented a fine study of "James Colnett and 'The Princess Royal'," limited, however, to the period between the release of Colnett from his imprisonment in Mexico in July, 1790, and the arrival of the Princess Royal at Macao the following year.

These notes are offered as a contribution towards the completion of the story by filling up some of the gaps which Professor Kuykendall was obliged to leave.

On page 39, after stating that Colnett sailed in the Argonaut from San Bias on July 9, 1790, expecting to receive the Princess Royal from the Spaniards at Nootka, he proceeds: "From this point on, Colnett's movements are difficult to trace with certainty;" and on page 40 he says: "It is, however, reasonable to conclude that his arrival in China from Nootka occurred a short time before the date, July 25, 1791." Thus the material on which Professor Kuykendall was working leaves a blank space of about a year, July 1790 to July 1791, save only as to the incident at Hawaii in April, 1791.

This hiatus can, to a certain extent, be filled up from the copies of the British Foreign Office Correspondence in the Archives of the Province of British Columbia and from Hoskins' manuscript Narrative. In a letter from Joseph d'Anduaga to the Count d'Aranda it is stated that though Colnett left San Bias on July 8, 1790, for Nootka, he did not arrive there until February 4, 1791— "nearly six months, when only a few weeks were necessary," the Spaniard complains. Where was he in this interval? Hoskins' manuscript Narrative furnishes the