confound this entry or river of Aguilar, which could not be found again in our times, with the mouth of the Rio Columbia (latitude 46° 15') celebrated from the voyages of Vancouver, Gray, and Captain Lewis.

The brilliant epoqua of the discoveries made anciently by the Spaniards on the north-west coast of America ended with Gali and Viscayno. The history of the navigations of the 17th century, and the first half of the 18th, offers us no expedition directed from the coast of Mexico to the immense shore from Cape Mendocino to the confines of eastern Asia. In place of the Spanish the Russian flag was alone seen to float in these latitudes, waving on the vessels commanded by two intrepid navigators, Bering and Tschiricow.

At length, after an interruption of nearly 170 years, the court of Madrid again turned its attention to the coast of the Great Ocean. But it was not alone the desire of discoveries useful to science which roused the government from its lethargy. It was rather the fear of being attacked in its most northern possessions of New Spain; it was the dread of seeing European establishments in the neighbourhood of those of California. Of all the Spanish expeditions undertaken between 1774

Straits. It took its name from one of the two brothers embarked on board the vessel of Gaspar de Cortereal. See the learned researches of M. de Fleurieu in the historical introduction to the Voyage de Marchand, T. i. p. v.

.

and 1792 the two last alone bear the true character of expeditions of discovery. They were commanded by officers whose labours display an intimate acquaintance with nautical astronomy. The names of Alexander Malaspina, Galiano, Espinosa, Valdes, and Vernaci, will ever hold an honourable place in the list of the intelligent and intrepid navigators to whom we owe an exact knowledge of the north-west coast of the new continent. If their predecessors could not give the same perfection to their operations, it was because, setting out from San Blas or Monterey, they were unprovided with instruments and the other means furnished by civilized Europe.

The first important expedition made after the voyage of Viscayno was that of Juan Perez, who commanded the corvette Santiago, formerly called la Nueva Galicia. As neither Cook nor Bar, rington, nor M. de Fleurieu, appear to have had any knowledge of this important voyage, I shall here extract several facts from a manuscript journal*, for which I am indebted to the kindness of M. Don Guillermo Aguirre, a member of the audiencia of Mexico, Perez and his pilot, Estevan Jose Martinez, left the port of San Blast

This journal was kept by two monks, Fray Juan Crespi, and Fray Tomas de la Peña, embarked on board the Santiago, By these details may be completed what was published in the voyage of la Sutil, p. xcii.

The entrada de Perez of the Spanish maps.

on the 24th of January, 1774. They were ordered to examine all the coast from the port of San Carlos de Monterey to the 60° of latitude. After touching at Monterey they set sail again on the 7th June. They discovered on the 20th July the island de la Marguerite (which is the north-west point of Queen Charlotte's Island), and the strait which separates this island from that of the Prince of Wales. On the 9th August they anchored, the first of all the European navigators, in Nootka road, which they called the port of San Lorenzo, and which the illustrious Cook four years afterwards called King George's Sound. They carried on barter with the natives, among whom they saw iron and copper. They gave them axes and knives for skins and otter furs. Perez could not land on account of the rough weather and high His sloop was even on the point of being lost in attempting to land; and the corvette was obliged to cut its cables and to abandon its anchors to get into the open sea. The Indians stole several articles belonging to M. Perez and his crew; and this circumstance, related in the journal of Father Crespi, may serve to resolve the famous difficulty attending the European silver spoons found there by Captain Cook in 1778 in the possession of the Indians of Nootka. The corvette Santiago returned to Monterey on the 27th August, 1774, after a cruize of eight months.

seas.

In the following year a second expedition set out from San Blas, under the command of Don Bruno Heceta, Don Juan de Ayala, and Don Juan de la Bodoga y Quadra. This voyage, which singularly advanced the discovery of the northwest coast, is known from the journal of the pilot Maurelle, published by M. Barrington, and joined to the instructions of the unfortunate Laperouse. Quadra discovered the mouth ofthe Rio Columbia, called entrada de Heceta, the pic of San Jacinto (Mount Edgecumbe), near Norfolk Bay, and the fine part of Bucareli (latitude 55° 24'), which from the researches of Vancouver we know to belong to the west coast of the great island of the archipelago of the Prince of Wales. This port is surrounded by seven volcanos, of which the summits, covered with perpetual snow, throw up flames and ashes. M. Quadra found there a great number of dogs which the Indians use for hunting. I possess two very curious small maps * engraved in 1788, in

* Carta geografica de la costa occidental de la California, situada al Norte de la linea sobre el mar asiatico que se discubriò en los anos de 1769 y 1775, por el Teniente de Navid, Don Juan Francisco de Bodega y Quadra y por el Alferez de Fragata, Don Jose Cañizares, desde los 17 hasta los 58 grados. On this map the coast appears almost without entradas and without islands. We remark l'ensenada de Ezeta (Rio Colombia) and l'entrada de Juan Perez, but under the name of the port of San Lorenzo (Nootka), seen by the same Perez in 1774. Plan del gran puerto de San Francisco discubierto por Don Jose de Cañizares en el mar Asiatico. Vancouver distinguishes the ports of St. Francis, Sir Francis Drake, and

the city of Mexico, which give the bearings of the coast from the 17° to the 58° of latitude, as they were discovered in the expedition of Quadra.

The court of Madrid gave orders in 1776 to the viceroy of Mexico, to prepare a new expedition to examine the coast of America to the 70° of north latitude. For this purpose two corvettes were built, la Princessa and la Favorita; but this building experienced such delay, that the expedition commanded by Quadra and Don Ignacio Arteaga could not set sail from the port of San Blas till the 11th February 1779. During this interval Cook visited the same coast. Quadra and the pilot Don Francisco Maurelle carefully examined the port de Bucareli, the Mont SantElie, and the island de la Magdalena, called by Vancouver Hinchinbrook Island (latitude 60. 25′), situated at the entry of Prince William's bay, and the island of Regla, one of the most sterile islands in Cook river. The expedition returned to San Blas on the 21st November, 1779. I find from a manuscript procured at Mexico, that the schistous rocks in the vicinity of the port of Bucareli in Prince of Wales's Island contain metalliferous seams.

The memorable war which gave liberty to a

Bodega, as three different ports. M. de Fleurieu considers them as identical. Voyage de Marchand, vol. i. p. liv. Quadra believes, as we have already observed, that Drake anchored at the port de la Bodega.