Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/40



30 HERBERT INGRAM PRIESTLEY

that he took only one, the Fair America, commanded by the son of Captain Metcalf. Another vessel,. . . young Met- calf recognized as his father's, was given chase, but escaped.

Concerning the manifest favor with which Martinez treated Gray and Kendrick, the log says: (entry of Oct. 30) "The sloop Washington continued her voyage, not in making dis- coveries, as was said, but rather in the collection of furs, which is the principal object of the nations;" I might have taken [these American vessels] prisoners, but I had no orders to do so, and my situation did not permit it. I treated this enemy as a friend, I turned over to him 187 skins to be sold on my account in Canton, the proceeds to be turned over to the Spanish ambassador in Boston for the benefit of the Crown.

"Capt. John Kendrick informed me that he had not yet fulfilled his commission, and asked me if he might maintain himself on the coast the following year after going to Sand- wich and Canton. I told him he might if he carried a Spanish passport, as he said he expected to do, and that in that case he should buy for me in Macao two ornaments for the mass, and seven pairs of boots for the officers of the San Carlos and my vessel, but I believe nothing of that will come to pass."

Dr. Manning says (p. 360) that there is ground for dispute as to the justice or injustice of the seizures at Nootka. The double character of the Iphigenia he mentions as a "harmless trick, meant only to deceive the Celestials." It ought to be more difficult to harmonize this judgment with probability, seeing that the only Celestials whom it would be profitable to deceive were across the Pacific, than to harmonize the act of appearing under Portuguese colors with the fact that Spain and Portugal were, since the rapprochement during the War of American Independence, on more friendly terms with each other than was either with England ; hence a Portuguese vessel would run less risk on the Northwest Coast than would an Englishman. It is to be observed that the instructions to