Morning of Fire

by Scott Ridley

  stories of magnificent profits: Cook and King, Voyage, vol. 3, 437.

  The first British trading ship: Robert Greenhow, The History of Oregon and California, and the Other Territories on the North-West Coast of North America, 165–66. The Captain Cook and the Experiment under Prince Charles’s godson, James Strange, came in 1786, as did Cook’s former officers George Dixon and Nathaniel Portlock in the King George and the Queen Charlotte. An Austrianflagged ship of the East India Company, Imperial Eagle, under Charles Barkley, visited the sound in 1787, as well as John Meares’s ships, Prince of Wales and Princess Royal, under James Colnett and Charles Duncan.

  80 “within forty yards of us”: Haswell, First Voyage, 79.

  81 Believing the Columbia lost: Ibid. Despite their intense rivalry Meares and Kendrick would never meet.

  the village name Yuquot: Frederic W. Howay, Voyages of the Columbia to the Northwest Coast; 1787–1790 and 1790–1791, 59, fn 4.

  October 1, 1788, was the anniversary: Haswell, First Voyage, 80.

  82 They left the cove on October 14: Ibid., 81. The plundering of the village and canoes at the time the Americans arrived demonstrates the violence already being practiced on the people of Nootka.

  83 “flocked to us in great numbers”: Haswell, First Voyage, 82.

  84 Although some sailors: Eliot Fox-Povey, “How Agreeable Their Company Would Be.”

  “cleansinga naked young Woman”: Cook, Journals, vol. 3, 1095.

  86 luxurious sea otter furs: There are many traders’ descriptions of the appeal of sea otter furs. See, for example, William Sturgis, “A Most Remarkable Enterprise”: Lectures on the Northwest Coast Trade and Northwest Coast Indian Life, 3.

  The natives’ ornaments differed: There are a number of descriptions of the people of Nootka. See, for example, Haswell, First Voyage, 97–98, and Mozino, Noticias de Nutka, 13–16.

  87 Legend says his father: Mozino, Noticias de Nutka, 31.

  87 Maquinna and his people being cannibals: While the fear of cannibalism was widespread, and specific observations were noted, those who examined the allegations found only ritual practices of human sacrifice. Mozino, Noticias de Nutka, 22, fn 11.

  Maquinna‘s people “eat the flesh”: Haswell, First Voyage, 104.

  88 By the middle of November: Ibid., 82–83.

  89 There were twenty-two villages: Archer, “Seduction before Sovereignty,” 143.

  on the night of December 11: Haswell, First Voyage, 83–84.

  90 perhaps flour pudding: Later crews that wintered over at Clayoquot found they could obtain blackberries and “whortle berries” into the winter months. Plum duff, a flour pudding, was a sailor’s favorite, and whortleberries would have made a likely substitute for this holiday repast.

  “You were always on the side”: Joseph Barrell to Nathaniel Barrell, December 20, 1787, and “Roster and Vote of the Committee of Twenty-Five,” February 3–4, 1788. Vol. 6, 1411. Also: Massachusetts Gazette, October 30, 1787, 171.

  91 The only news families had received: “Extract of a Letter from New London, dated April 16,” Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser 21, no. 1069 (April 23, 1789), 3.

  On January 13, an alarm went up: Haswell, First Voyage, 84–85.

  on January 28, a large canoe appeared: Ibid., 86.

  92 Maquinna’s arrival was not recorded: The first formal meetings described by visitors to Nootka took place inside Maquinna’s house, with exchange of gifts, dancing and drumming, and a meal.

  94 “I am of [the] opinion”: Haswell, First Voyage, 68.

  95 these people appeared taller: Ibid., 107.

  96 Haswell rapturously determined: Ibid., 109.

  “no land to obstruct the view”: Ibid., 111.

  97 built a “Good house”: Ibid., 123.

  98 After the sloop passed: Ibid., 125.

  a strange ship appeared: Ibid., 125, and Estevan José Martinez, Diary of the Voyage …, 75.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  99 He had started out from San Blas: Estevan José Martinez, Diary of the Voyage … (hereafter referred to as Martinez Diary 1789), 17.

  not this small American sloop: Ibid., 7.

  100 Viceroy Flores had given Martinez: Martinez stated that he had no orders to take Kendrick’s ships, and at other times that he had orders to take them or that he planned to take them. The confusion can be explained by his not having explicit written orders, but being allowed to take these ships under standing orders. The royal order of 1692 allowed Martinez to treat all foreign ships as enemies. (See Teodoro de Croix to Mexican Viceroy Manuel Flores, July 31, 1788.) Also, while Flores did not commit to writing a specific order for taking the American ships (which could have risked a diplomatic incident), he may have given specific oral orders. The end result in either case is that Martinez was free to interpret what “more powerful arguments” would mean.

  100 “get rid of him”: Martinez Diary 1789, 29.

  101 “was a Portuguese, the first mate”: Ibid., 76.

  102 “this gentleman endeavored”: Robert Haswell, A Voyage Round the World Onboard the Ship Columbia-Rediviva and Sloop Washington (hereafter referred to as First Voyage), 126.

  Meares‘s new business partner: John Meares to Robert Funter, February 3, 1789, in James Colnett, A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786–1789, 18–19.

  aggressively proposing trade: The Journal of Captain James Colnett Aboard the Argonaut, April 26, 1789–November 3, 1791, 306, Appendix II. Containing the license of the South Sea Company under which Colnett was sailing.

  “possession of all new discovered parts”: Martinez Diary 1789, 120.

  103 In the harbor at Friendly Cove: William Douglas, “Extract of the Journal of the Iphigenia” (hereafter referred to as Douglas Journal), in John Meares, The Memorial of Lt. John Mears of the Royal Navy …, 59.

  “We sang the Salve”: Martinez Diary 1789, 79.

  104 “On the morning of the [5th] of May”: Haswell, First Voyage, 143–44.

  Kendrick told him another half-truth: Kendrick confirmed what he had told Martinez in a letter a few days later. John Kendrick to Don Estevan José Martinez, May 8, 1789.

  105 After lunch, Martinez accompanied: Martinez Diary 1789, 80; Douglas Journal, 60.

  106 Martinez had tossed abalone: Martinez Diary 1789, 81.

  “In answer to your request”: Kendrick to Martinez, May 8, 1789.

  “their brother who had come”: Martinez Diary 1789, 83–84.

  107 The celebrations continued: Martinez Diary 1789, 86–87. There is a divergence in the record of what occurred the next day. Martinez places himself at Yuquot. Douglas claims that Martinez took his bedding on the morning of May 11 and went to stay overnight with Kendrick. Douglas Journal, 62–63.

  Douglas later claimed: Ibid., 63–64.

  Meares would allege: Ibid. This allegation was based on what Douglas suspected.

  War of Jenkins’ Ear: In this war between Britain and Spain, the primary engagements were from 1739 to 1741, with some trailing skirmishes continuing to 1748. The source of the conflict was an incident in which a British merchant ship or privateer was boarded by the Spanish garda costa in the Caribbean, and the ship’s captain, Robert Jenkins, allegedly had his ear sliced off by the Spanish captain. When displayed to Parliament, the severed ear touched off the volatile relations between the two countries.

  108 Douglas’s Portuguese instructions: “Extract of Letter from Mr. Meares to Captain William Douglas, February, 1788,” in Meares, Memorial, 33–34. Also Douglas Journal, 63.

  109 “As soon as I was on board”: Douglas Journal, 62.

  Forty armed Spanish men: Ibid., 62–63.

  The Treaty of Paris concluding: This treaty between Spain, Britain, France, and Portugal granted Britain extensive lands (such as Canada), boosting its international presence and ambitions.

  111 “his orders were to take”: Douglas Journal, 68.

  “he might act as he thought prope
r”: Ibid., 70.

  112 “set her on fire”: Ibid., 76.

  “the Spanish Ship”: Haswell, First Voyage, 143.

  113 The log house and forge: While Kendrick would occupy this site, which he called Fort Washington, intermittently over the next five years, the harbor at Mawina, which he would later purchase from Maquinna, naming it Safe Retreat Harbor, became a favorite anchorage of American trading vessels in the coming decades.

  114 Two days earlier, on June 15: Martinez Diary 1789, 106.

  “we discovered that the straits”: Haswell, First Voyage, 142.

  115 “I have recalled that in the year ‘74”: Martinez Diary 1789, 104.

  Charles Barkley, commanding: Robert Greenhow, The History of Oregon and California, and the Other Territories on the North-West Coast of North America, 171.

  116 Martinez held a special dinner: Martinez Diary 1789, 111.

  117 The morning of Wednesday, June 24: Ibid., 112.

  118 On the morning of Sunday, June 28: Ibid., 114.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  120 “Should you go into the Port”: Thomas Hudson to James Colnett, July 3, 1789, in James Colnett, The Journal of Captain James Colnett aboard the Argonaut from April 26, 1789 to November 3, 1791, 55.

  “He was entrusted to prevent”: Estevan José Martinez, Diary of the Voyage … (hereafter referred to as Martinez Diary 1789), 120.

  Colnett responded that he was: Joseph Ingraham, Joseph Ingraham‘s Journal of the Brigantine Hope on a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America, 1790–1792, 221.

  121 “in a friendly manner”: Martinez Diary 1789, 121.

  122 “I divined his intentions”: Martinez Diary 1789, 120. Also Colnett, Journal, 309–10.

  “we would have had a bad neighbor”: Estevan José Martinez to Viceroy Manuel Antonio Flores, July 13, 1789. Also Martinez Diary 1789, 209.

  “all the assistance in his power”: Colnett, Journal, 319.

  “a man of honour, Nephew”: Ibid., 319–21.

  “would go in on those declarations”: Ibid., 319–20.

  “It was late and thick weather”: James Colnett to the ambassador of Great Britain, May 1, 1790, in Colnett’s, Journal aboard the Argonaut, 319–21.

  123 The Argonaut’s bow was tied: Martinez Diary 1789, 122.

  124 “giving us to understand”: Ibid., 123.

  “He informed me he bore”: Ibid.,124.

  125 “My friend, in the present”: Ibid., 125.

  “I received an order from Don Martinez”: Colnett, Journal, 311.

  “I have no thought of doing so”: Martinez Diary 1789, 126. Colnett, Journal, 311–12.

  126 “although he did not understand”: Colnett, Journal, 98.

  shouted, “Goddamn Spaniard”: Martinez Diary 1789, 127.

  “I now saw, but too late”: Colnett, Journal, 98.

  “It was impossible to make any”: Robert Duffin to John Meares, July 12, 1789, in John Meares, The Memorial of Lt. John Mears of the Royal Navy …, 79.

  127 “[A]n Officer that had been”: Colnett, Journal, 60.

  “this will undoubtedly occasion”: John B. Treat to Samuel Breck, July 14, 1789.

  129 “There is ground for believing‘: Martinez Diary 1789, 132.

  130 “If Captain Cook had lived”: Ibid., 136. See 132–36 for full statement.

  “sextant, charts, and drawing paper”: Colnett, Journal, 179.

  131 Colnett was overcome with despair: Robert Duffin to John Meares, July 13, 1789, in Meares, Memorial, 83.

  131 In the British version of events: Deposition of William Graham, May 5, 1790, in Meares, Memorial, 34–41.

  He had also heard that Callicum: Martinez Diary 1789, 144.

  133 “if his crew offered any resistance”: Ibid., 141.

  “Mr Jaques, As I am a Prisoner”: Colnett, Journal, 62.

  “to use all care”: Martinez Diary 1789, 142.

  “Yard Rope rove to hang”: Colnett, Journal, 62.

  134 “Martinez Pisec!”: Martinez Diary 1789, 144.

  135 in a touching scene: This was described by one of Martinez’s officers, Josef Tobar y Tamariz, “Report of Don Josef Tobar y Tamariz, First Mate of the Royal Navy, to His Most Excellent Lordship and Viceroy of New Spain, August 29, 1789,” 118.

  “not by any means equal”: John Kendrick to Joseph Barrell, July 13, 1789.

  CHAPTER NINE

  137 “a distance of five or six miles”: Estevan José Martinez, Diary of the Voyage … (hereafter referred to as Martinez Diary 1789), 148.

  “I treated this enemy as a friend”: Ibid., 224.

  138 Gray had written a letter: Robert Gray to Joseph Barrell, July 13, 1789.

  140 The Washington’s first mate: The men who remained with Kendrick can be determined from those on the voyage pay list minus those who returned with Gray, and also from those recorded as witnesses on Kendrick’s deeds in 1791.

  a total of twenty-one men: Gray said that Kendrick had twenty men on board. Robert Gray to Joseph Barrell, December 18, 1789.

  Kendrick pressured the most experienced: “Information of William Graham,” in John Meares, The Memorial of Lt. John Mears of the Royal Navy …, 34–41.

  threatened to leave them onshore: Ibid., 41.

  142 What Kendrick did next: The earliest part of the controversy was between John Meares and George Dixon, who refuted Meares’s claims. Robert Gray and Vancouver entered into it as well, positing that Kendrick did not make the indicated circumnavigation. Historian Robert Greenhow, in The History of Oregon and California …, concluded in 1840 that Kendrick had accomplished the circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. Charles Fredric Newcombe, a British Columbia physician and ethnologist, believed that he disproved Greenhow’s reasoning in a memorial published in 1914 (see C. F. Newcombe, ed., “The First Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island”).

  “The Straits of Juan de Fuca”: James Colnett, The Journal of Captain James Colnett aboard the Argonaut from April 26, 1789 to November 3, 1791, 192.

  “It‘s the general Opinion of Capt. Duncan”: Colnett, Journal, 400, fn 370.

  143 According to John Meares: John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789 …, lvi.

  Backing up his statements: When challenged on the Washington’s circumnavigation of the island, Meares said he had a source who got the information directly from Kendrick at Macao. “Mr. Neville, who was continually with him [Kendrick] during that interval, and received the particulars of the track from him, was so obliging as to state it to me.” Contained in Meares, “An Answer.”

  144 The next confirmed report of Kendrick: Martinez Diary 1789, 221–22.

  145 “an almost endless task “: Robert Haswell, A Voyage Round the World onboard the Ship Columbia-Rediviva and Sloop Washington (hereafter referred to as First Voyage), 142.

  147 What fascinated the Washington’s crew: Haswell, First Voyage, 129. Also John Boit, 11.

  “always ready and willing”: John Hoskins, The Narrative of a Voyage, 51.

  “a little diminutive savage-looking fellow”: Ibid., 56.

  148 The native version of the story: Ibid., 51.

  CHAPTER TEN

  150 The Argonaut arrived at San Blas: James Colnett, The Journal of Captain James Colnett aboard the Argonaut from April 26, 1789 to November 3, 1791, 67.

  Also Warren L. Cook, Flood Tide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest, 1543–1819, 194.

  “every case of the cargo”: Colnett, Journal, 65.

  “ half Starved and [bathed in]”: Ibid., 67.

  151 “It being a Market day”: Ibid., 69.

  “which was it not for the Turkey Bustards”: Ibid., 70.

  152 read with alarm a letter: Estevan José Martinez to Viceroy Manuel Antonio Flores, July 13, 1789.

  Count Juan Vincente de Revillagigedo: Cook, Flood Tide, 195.

  First mate James Hansen committed suicide: Colnett, Journal, 73.

  153 “We now had no remedy left”: Ibid., 78.

  Robert Gray was en route to China:
John Meares, The Memorial of Lt. John Mears of the Royal Navy …, includes letters and statements from prisoners who arrived at Macao on the Columbia.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  158 officers of arriving ships: Ebenezer Dorr on the women of the Marquesas, April 17, 1791, in Joseph Ingraham, Joseph Ingraham‘s Journal of the Brigantine Hope on a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America, 1790–1792, 47, fn 1.

  “which abounds in everything”: Estevan José Martinez, Diary of the Voyage … (hereafter referred to as Martinez Diary 1789), 211–12.

  159 “the grand emporium of Commerce”: Richard Cadman Etches to East India Company Court of Directors, April 29, 1785, in Vincent T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1789, 421–24.

  providence intended the islands: John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789 …, xcv.

  160 Barrell rode out to Worcester: George Washington, The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 5, 472–73, fn 2.

  “that the day will arrive”: Ibid. Also George Washington to Joseph Barrell, June 8, 1788.

  the snowy peak of Mauna Kea: Mauna Kea, at 13,796 feet above sea level, is about one hundred feet taller than Mauna Loa to the east. It is the tallest mountain in the world when measured from the sea floor.

  161 oral histories tell of: Edward Joesting, Kauai: The Separate Kingdom, 10–11.

  Cook had stopped at Tahiti: Tahiti had been “discovered” by the Spanish in 1606 but according to British tradition did not receive a European visitor until Captain Samuel Wallis in 1767. Cook claimed that Wallis had discovered Tahiti. Cook, vol. 2, 241.

  When he asked about islands: Ibid., 180.

  Cook is commonly recognized: Ibid., 191. Cook sighted the islands on January 18, 1778. However, he found the natives in possession of small bits of metal, which they had fashioned into tools. One piece was guessed to have been the point of a broadsword, leading some of the crew “to think we had not been the first European visitors of these islands. But, it seems to me, that the very great surprise expressed by them, on seeing our ships … cannot be reconciled with such a notion.” Ibid., 240.

  local historians believe: See Abraham Fornander, The Polynesian Race: Its Origin and Migrations, and the Ancient History of the Hawaiian People to the Times of Kamehameha I, 158. Also Darlene E. Kelley, “Foreign Contact with Hawaii before Captain Cook.”