and on April 11th her detachment of the California pioneers. arrived at the harbor of San Diego. The San Carlos, barely escaping destruction, entered the bay on April 29th.

These two expeditions were contemporaneous with two others, which made the dreary overland march from the northern missions of the peninsula. They set out in the spring of 1769, each encumbered with a herd of cattle, and reached San Diego, the first on May 14th, and the second on July 1st. Two hundred and nineteen persons had joined the four parties; but when all were encamped on the sands of San Diego, the number which remained was only one hundred and twenty-six. This little company expected to conquer the stupendous wilderness of California, and they deserve to be honored as the founders of the first colony on the Pacific coast of the United States.

The mission of San Diego was formally established July 16, 1769. No time was lost in the effort to reach and occupy Monterey, but the party which marched overland for that purpose was so unfortunate as to pass the spot sought without recognizing it. After reaching the Bay of San Francisco the colonists turned back, but missing Monterey again kept on to San Diego. New expeditions had to be sent out, and it was not until June 3, 1770, that San Carlos, the mission capital of California, was established on the shores of the harbor of Monterey. Forts, or presidios, were also erected in connection with the missions, and so the old idea of the fortification of these two ports was realized.

But the zeal of the government agents and the Franciscans could not be satisfied with less than the conquest of the entire country. Two other missions quickly arose to open the long stretch of wilderness between the northern and southern outposts. Others were founded from time to time, that of San Francisco, the sixth in number, dating from October, 1776.

One portion of the grand project which the sending of Galvez was intended to promote was now realized, but

another equally important remained to be achieved. This was the exploration of the coast north of California, in order to limit the operations of the Russians and forestall the dreaded projects of Great Britain.

In 1774, Juan Perez, who had been in charge of the Spanish maritime expeditions to California, was commissioned to make this northern exploration. His instructions were, after discharging the supplies carried to the missions, to sail up the coast as high as latitude sixty degrees, noting the eligible points for settlement, and taking possession wherever possible in the name of the Spanish Crown. Perez sailed in the Santiago from Monterey June 11, 1774, and putting out to sea ran north to a point somewhat above fifty-four degrees, where he came within sight of the shore. This was the first authentic discovery of any part of the coast north of forty-two degrees and south of Alaska. Not daring to proceed, on account of the condition of his crew and vessel, Perez now turned southward, and in latitude forty-nine degrees thirty minutes, anchored in a bay which he named San Lorenzo. It is almost certain that this was one of the harbors in Nootka Sound. From this point he kept in sight of the land most of the way to the California line, thus effecting the first real discovery of the Oregon

coast.

The Santiago was again sent out in 1775, this time under Bruno Heceta, with Perez as second in command. She was accompanied by the schooner Sonora in charge of Cuadra. The orders were to reach the latitude of sixty-five degrees. On the 14th of July, being anchored off Point Grenville, in latitude forty-seven degrees twenty minutes, the Spaniards landed and took formal possession of the country. Thus did "Europeans set foot for the first time on the soil of the Northwest Coast."

Soon after this, encountering severe and adverse winds, the two vessels were separated, and Heceta, already discouraged at the prospect before him, turned southward. On August 17th, being in latitude forty-six degrees nine

minutes, "he discovered a bay with strong eddies and currents, indicating the mouth of a great river or strait."

Cuadra, who, after the separation from Heceta had persisted in the northern exploration, sailed far to the west, and then running north under favorable winds, first sighted the coast above latitude fifty-seven degrees, opposite a towering mountain which he named San Jacinto, but which Cook later called Mt. Edgecumbe. Cuadra anchored near this point, and landing took possession for his king. Subsequently he examined the coast carefully from about latitude sixty degrees to fifty-five degrees fourteen minutes, where the ceremony of taking possession was performed once more. But Cuadra found it impossible to reach the latitude of sixty-five degrees. Before the next Spanish expedition was dispatched to these seas the northwest coast was visited by the Englishman, Captain James Cook, whose coming inaugurates a new era in the history of the Pacific Slope.

CHAPTER II

THE RIVER OF THE WEST

It is suggestive to compare a present day map of the United States with one representing the same geographical area, and showing the relation between social and territorial facts as they existed in 1776. On the Atlantic side were a succession of English communities, stretching as far south as the lower boundary of Georgia, and reaching back to, and even beyond, the Alleghany Mountains; in the South were scattered Spanish colonies, from Florida to Mexico; and where now our nation fronts the Orient, looking across the vast Pacific, were to be found a few feeble settlements, also of Spaniards, having their northern outposts on the Bay of San Francisco.

The great continental spaces lying between the Eastern Highland and the western coast, were, with few and seemingly unimportant exceptions, occupied solely by tribes of native red men. Here and there, in the Great Lakes region, and on Mississippi waters, were barely perceptible openings in the forest, where a remnant of the old French population droned away the lazy years, surrounded by a crowd of halfbreed Indians.

Bold prophet would he have been who at that time had foretold a future connection between the English colonies, fighting for independence along the Atlantic, and the scattered communities on the shores of the opposite sea. And yet, in reality, there would have been nothing absurd

in such a prediction. History was crowded with examples of the expansion of a strong people, in the face of great obstacles, over widely extended territories; nor was it necessary to go back to the records of a conquering Alexander or a Cæsar to find them. The American colonies themselves had already achieved results in that line which were quite as remarkable as any that classic annals might bring to mind. From a few weak settlements, dependent for their very existence upon the regular transmission of supplies from England, and widely severed from one another, they had grown, in somewhat more than a century, to a body of nearly three million freemen, bound together not alone by revolutionary interest, but by the strong ties of institutional and territorial community. From tidewater colonies they had already come into possession of the first grand division of the continent, and were even pushing their outposts over the restraining wall of the Alleghanies. And the colonists had recognized, although vaguely, their potential dominance of North America, when they had dubbed the recently organized congress "Continental."

It is true that in 1776 the colonists were endeavoring to establish their right to a national organization, and as yet both the military and political outcome were in doubt; but to one who had faith in the American cause, and could compass in vision the growth of a true political union, with an efficient central government, the future must have presented glowing possibilities in the way of national growth. At a much earlier time, at least one European writer, Argenson, had predicted for the American colonies both independence, a unified republican government, and astounding prosperity. The leading statesman of France, Vergennes, in 1778 initiated a policy of restricting the young Republic forever by the line of the Alleghanies, fearing that should the American people gain a footing on the Mississippi, their career might prove disastrous to the pretensions and hopes of European powers in North America. The traveller, Jonathan Carver, at that very time, was declaring that