Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/47

 JAMES COLNETT AND THE "PRINCESS ROYAL order on the Spanish commander at Nootka requiring the latter to deliver up the Princess RoyaP to him. Armed with this order from the Viceroy, Colnett sailed July 9, 1790, from San Bias for Nootka Sound in the Argonaut, having on board the surviving members of the crews of the two vessels. It is at this point that the present writer intends to take up the story; but before doing so, it will be well to note briefly what earlier writers have said on the special theme of this article. Greenhow, the pioneer in this field, in his History of Oregon and California 3 says that after his release Colnett sailed in the Argonaut for Nootka "to receive possession of the Princess Royal, for which he had an order. On arriving at the sound, Colnett found the place deserted; and, not knowing where to seek the sloop, he sailed for Macao, which he reached in the latter part of 1790. Thence he went, in the following year, to the Sandwich Islands, where the Princess Royal was re- stored to him, in March, by Lieutenant Quimper, the Spanish officer under whose command she had been em- ployed for nearly two years." Bancroft4 makes substantially the same statement, while Manning 5 says that on Colnett's "arrival at Nootka the Princess Royal was not there. June 11 of the next year she was dispatched from San Bias to be surrendered to Colnett or some other representative of the company in China. Colnett fell in with her and she was handed over at the Sandwich Islands." Each of the statements just noted contains one or more errors—errors which, it is true, are of no particular importance so far as the main purpose of these writers 2 This small vessel had been placed under the command of a Spanish naval officer, Manuel Quimper, and sent from San Bias to assist in the exploration of the northwest coast. 3 Second edition (1845), pp. 200 -201 . ^History of the Northwest Coast, I, p . 243.
 * Op. cit., p. 359.