by David Barrie
Vancouver complained that the unreliable charts accompanying the accounts of their voyages had “roused from slumber” the “favourite opinion that had slept since the publication of Captain Cook’s last voyage” that a northeastern passage existed between the waters of the Pacific and North Atlantic oceans.
Bougainville had, in his day, complained about the “lazy, proud writers who, philosophizing in the shade of their studies . . . imperiously submit nature to their imaginations.”8 Such speculators had then insisted on the existence of the great southern continent, but now it was up to Vancouver to vindicate Cook by proving that the supposed passage through the North American landmass was also a fantasy. However, he also had scientific ambitions of his own:
Among other objects demanding my attention, whilst engaged in carrying these orders into execution, no opportunity was neglected to remove, as far as I was capable, all such errors as had crept into the science of navigation, and to establish, in their place, such facts as would tend to facilitate the grand object of finding the longitude at sea; which now seems to be brought nearly to a certainty, by pursuing the lunar method, assisted by a good chronometer.9
Vancouver spent three summers (1792, 1793, and 1794) exploring and charting the coast from southern California to Alaska, retiring each autumn to the Hawaiian archipelago—large parts of which he also charted—when bad weather made survey work on the American shore impossibly difficult. Cook had begun the task, but a huge amount of work remained. As Vancouver soon realized, the extraordinarily intricate network of islands, channels, and inlets presented an even greater surveying challenge than he had imagined. He showed astonishing patience and dedication as a surveyor, but he lacked Cook’s natural leadership qualities. Ill-tempered and erratic, he was a tough disciplinarian, and his prickly self-importance often made him an object of ridicule. Allowance must, however, be made for the fact that he was suffering from the pulmonary illness that was to cut short his life not long after he returned home, and he also carried another heavy burden. Unlike Cook, Vancouver was lumbered with a gang of teenage grandees whose well-connected parents had used their influence to have them shipped off on this latest voyage of discovery. Presumably, they regarded the expedition as a character-building alternative to the traditional continental Grand Tour, which was now precluded by the French Revolution. But, as Jonathan Raban puts it, these “patrician adolescents regarded their captain with a mixture of raw fear and snobbish disdain.”10 Vancouver’s biographer has described the midshipmen as varying “between the totally ineffective and the potentially rebellious.”11
The worst was the Honorable Thomas Pitt, son of Lord Camelford, and a cousin of the prime minister of the day. He was sixteen and already had a bad reputation: his previous commanding officer had taken the unusual step of refusing to give him a signed certificate of service, commenting laconically that “during the time he was under my Command his Conduct was such as not to entitle him to it.”12 During the outward voyage, the troublesome Pitt fell foul of Vancouver, who twice had him tied to a gun and caned in front of the other midshipmen—a punishment known as “kissing the gunner’s daughter.”13 Later, when he was found to have been asleep on watch—a very serious breach of discipline—Vancouver had him put in irons in front of the whole crew.14 These indignities Pitt neither forgave nor forgot, and though this obnoxious young man probably deserved his punishments, he made a bad enemy. Eventually dismissed and sent home to England, Pitt was to make the last years of Vancouver’s life a misery.
As La Pérouse’s comrades discovered to their cost, the tidal streams of the Pacific Northwest seaboard are in some places exceptionally strong, occasionally running at speeds of well over ten knots. Square-rigged sailing ships with no auxiliary power would have been completely unmanageable in currents even half that strong and would have been in great danger if it was too deep to anchor—as was frequently the case.
Today, cruise ships ply up and down this coast, but the many uninhabited islands cannot have changed much since Vancouver’s time, and there are still a few small areas that remain uncharted. Dark coniferous forests that have never been cut enfold the hills and mountains, advancing almost to the water’s edge, and there is even more rainfall than in England. Until I first went ashore on an island in a remote corner of northern British Columbia, I had no idea what the words “impenetrable forest” really meant: the dripping trees were so tightly packed that it was impossible to force a passage between them. Short of using an axe, the only practical way of getting beyond the beach is to follow a stream or river. No wonder the native tribes lived entirely on the shoreline. At anchor, by night, surrounded by high mountains, far from any human settlement, with the rain falling steadily, the silence and stillness are broken only by the occasional call of an owl or wolf. To the modern eye, this country has the Romantic beauty of an untouched wilderness, and so too did it strike some of the “young gentlemen” aboard Discovery, but to Vancouver the solitude and gloom were simply oppressive. As his health declined he must have looked forward eagerly to their spells in the warm waters of the Hawaiian Islands.
Vancouver set sail from England on April 1, 1791 (the significance of this date was not lost on his crew) with two ships, the Discovery and the much smaller brig, the Chatham. The Discovery was Vancouver’s first command: it soon became clear that, though new, she had not been well built. Having called at the Cape of Good Hope to refresh their supplies, rate the chronometers, and undertake essential repairs, the two small ships crossed the Indian and Pacific oceans. After making stops in Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Hawaii, they finally made their landfall on the coast of North America on April 17, 1792. Vancouver’s account illustrates the challenges then facing a navigator approaching a poorly charted coast after a long ocean passage.
A month out from Hawaii, a single set of lunars taken on April 15 suggested that the Discovery was 232°56½' East of Greenwich; the chronometer, however, indicated a figure of 232°7¾', while DR gave 229°39': a maximum difference of almost 160 nautical miles. The latitude was 37°55'—not far north of San Francisco. Vancouver knew that he must be approaching land, but the following day the wind increased and it looked as if a storm was on the way. No soundings were to be had with the 120-fathom line, and as Vancouver could not safely count on the charted longitude of the coast they were approaching, he stood off until daybreak, when they resumed their northeasterly course in a rising gale. In the afternoon, the Discovery was forced to head south under storm canvas and lost touch with the Chatham during the night. Having renewed contact with her, they headed once more for the land. “The sky being tolerably clear,” Vancouver took six sets of lunar observations that gave a longitude 50 minutes to the eastward of the chronometer:
Soon after mid-day we passed considerable quantities of drift wood, grass, sea weed, &c. Many shags, ducks, puffins, and other aquatic birds were flying about; and the colour of the water announced our approach to soundings. These circumstances indicated land not far off, although we were prevented seeing any objects more than 3 or 4 miles distant, by the weather, which had become very thick and rainy. Being anxious to get sight of the land before night if possible, we stood to the eastward with as much sail as we could carry, and at four in the afternoon reached soundings at the depth of 53 fathoms, soft brown sandy bottom. The land was now discovered . . . at the distance of about 2 leagues, on which the surf broke with great violence. . . .
During the night Vancouver plied up and down under an “easy sail” in order to be near the land in the morning, but it remained invisible until a light breeze revealed the shore to the northeast:
The observed latitude was at this time 39°27'; the longitude 235°41'30'';* by the chronometer 235°. The former was deduced by the mean results of eighty-five lunar distances. . . . This made the chronometer 41'30'' to the west of that which I supposed to be nearest the true longitude;* and from the general result of these observations it evidently appeared, that the chronometer had materially altere
d in its rate since we had reached these northern regions.15
Vancouver had learned his navigational skills from the astronomer William Wales aboard the Resolution. From Cook, too, he must have learned much about survey techniques. Although in the published account of his own voyage, Vancouver (like Cook before him) is discreet about the exact methods he employed, we know that in 1788 he had surveyed the harbor of Kingston, Jamaica, by laying out an accurately measured baseline and then fixing the position of every landmark and shoal “by intersecting Angles taken by Sextant & protracted on the spot.”16
On board Discovery, Vancouver’s equipment included an astronomical quadrant for use whenever a temporary observatory was set up on land, and no fewer than twelve sextants. At this point the two ships shared just two chronometers between them—one by Kendall (“K3” aboard Discovery) and one by Arnold (aboard Chatham). K3, which had just been overhauled by its maker, had accompanied Cook on his last voyage and again proved excellent. Vancouver was very pleased to have it. A store ship, which was to join Vancouver later that summer in Nootka Sound, was to bring out the official astronomer, William Gooch, as well as a great deal more equipment, including an astronomical regulator clock, more sextants and chronometers, a pocket watch with a second hand, theodolites, and a measuring chain.17 *
Having made his landfall, Vancouver sailed north, conducting a “running survey” on the way, just as his hero Cook had done on so many occasions, using horizontal sextant angles and compass bearings to establish the relationships between the features observed. Sketches were made to record the views. A north-south–trending coast, like the one Vancouver was now exploring, helpfully allowed him to check his progress by means of straightforward latitude observations. So long as the winds were favorable, such a survey could proceed quite quickly, but if the ship was working to windward she would be obliged to follow a zigzag course. This would not only be slower, but would also greatly complicate the task of the surveyor.
Having passed the entrance of the great Columbia River without catching sight of it, Vancouver reached Cape Flattery and entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca—a wide inlet that Cook had failed to notice—and his detailed survey work began. The extraordinary complexity of the task soon became apparent as they discovered dozens of islands to the north and numerous fjords disappearing into the high, snowcapped mountains to the east, all of which had to be investigated. On June 22, 1792, Vancouver was startled and disconcerted to encounter two small Spanish naval vessels also engaged in survey work, but he immediately established friendly relations with their commanding officers, Galiano and Valdés,* and they agreed to collaborate.
It was impossible to conduct such a complex survey from the ships, especially in dangerously tidal waters. Having found a secure anchorage, the ships’ boats (large rowing boats, though they could also carry sails) were sent ahead to take horizontal sextant (or, better still, theodolite) angles from locations on dry land that commanded extensive views whenever opportunities offered. Vertical sextant angles would have been helpful for determining the heights of mountains. The irregular terrain would often have precluded the physical measurement of baselines, but a useful makeshift was the use of sound: by timing the interval between the puff of smoke from a gun and the arrival of the report in still air, a good estimate could be made of distance. Noon observations for latitude would be taken with the sextant using an artificial horizon* if the actual horizon was not visible. Tidal measurements also had to be made—of both heights and intervals, and their relationships to the passage of the moon.
Such expeditions would sometimes last several weeks. This was exhausting and occasionally hazardous work for the crews, as the boats often had to be rowed over long distances, food supplies sometimes ran low, and the natives were not always pleased to see the European visitors. While the ships were at anchor, an observatory would be set up in a tent on shore to check the longitude by lunars (sometimes hundreds of sets were taken over many days) and to rate the chronometers. When all the boats had returned, the two ships would gingerly move forward to a new anchorage and the process would start afresh.
Each observatory site was meant to provide a more or less precise geographical location to which all the other survey measurements could be reduced. However, while Vancouver’s latitudes were usually very accurate, the longitudes he recorded in these northerly regions often differed significantly from modern values. During the first season the longitudes he established by lunars at his three observatories were all too far to the east, in the first case by an average of 14.8 minutes—about 9.5 nautical miles in these latitudes. Vancouver was more successful in the second season (by then he had five chronometers at his disposal), but even then his longitudes still tended to be too far to the east.
A modern analysis reveals that the shortcomings in the first season’s surveys were largely due to inaccuracies in the predictions contained in the Nautical Almanac, especially those relating to the positions of the moon.18 Had the Almanac not been in error, the crucial position Vancouver assigned to his first observatory at Port Discovery would have been out by only a few hundred yards. Vancouver plainly had difficulty in reconciling the inconsistencies between the results of his lunar observations and the chronometer readings, but chose to rely on the former—in keeping with official guidance. His navigational task was also complicated by other factors. Poor weather conditions often made it impossible to obtain sights for weeks on end (during the last season he was unable to make any lunar-distance observations), and his deteriorating health was also a serious handicap. In the later stages of the voyage Vancouver was frequently confined to his cabin and was unable to supervise the astronomical observations personally.19
Sailing in company with the Spanish vessels, Vancouver headed in a northwesterly direction toward the intricate maze of islands that separate the northeastern shores of Vancouver Island from the mainland. This was often nerve-racking work. As night fell they entered a “spacious sound stretching to the eastward” where Vancouver wished to stay until daybreak, but it was too deep to anchor even close to the shore:
The night was dark and rainy, and the winds so light and variable, that by the influence of the tides we were driven about as it were blindfolded in this labyrinth, until towards midnight, when we were happily conducted to the north side of an island. . . . At break of day we found ourselves about half a mile from the shores of a high rocky island, surrounded by a detached and broken country, whose appearance was very inhospitable. Stupendous rocky mountains rising almost perpendicularly from the sea, principally composed the north west, north and eastern quarters. . . . The infinitely divided appearance of the region into which we had now arrived, promised to furnish ample employment for our boats.20
Having gone ashore to fix their position, Vancouver and his colleagues moved on, but the next anchorage was no more cheerful:
Our residence here was truly forlorn: an aweful silence pervaded the gloomy forests, whilst animated nature seemed to have deserted the neighbouring country, whose soil afforded only a few small onions, some samphire, and here and there bushes bearing a scanty crop of indifferent berries. Nor was the sea more favourable to our wants, the steep rocky shores prevented the use of the seine [net], and not a fish at the bottom could be tempted to take the hook.21
There were unexpected hazards, too. One of the boats discovered a deserted native village and, while examining the abandoned dwellings,
our gentlemen were suddenly assailed by an unexpected numerous enemy, whose legions made so furious attack upon each of their persons, that unable to vanquish their foes, or to sustain the conflict, they rushed up to their necks in water. This expedient, however, proved ineffectual: nor was it until after all their clothes were boiled, that they were disengaged from an immense hord of fleas, which they had disturbed by examining too minutely the filthy garments and apparel of the late inhabitants.
Needless to say, none of the various inlets that Vancouver and his Spanish colleagues investigated o
n the mainland proved to be the entrance to the fabled passage to the Atlantic, but they did find a channel leading to the northwest that eventually connected to the open sea—the Johnstone Strait, famous now as the home of a large population of orcas. It was now clear that the land to the south was an island. Despite his immense experience and natural caution, Vancouver could not possibly navigate these waters without risk, and in July 1792, after parting company with the slower-moving Spanish vessels, the Discovery nearly came to grief in Ripple Passage. Having picked her way through the islands on the mainland shore, she had almost reached the open sea when the light southwesterly breeze dropped completely and a very thick fog descended, obscuring everything. The water being too deep for anchoring, they were left to the mercy of the currents. As Vancouver daintily puts it, their predicament “could not fail to occasion the most anxious solicitude”:
The fog had no sooner dispersed, than we found ourselves in the channel for which I had intended to steer, interspersed with numerous rocky islets and rocks. . . . The dispersion of the fog was attended by a light breeze from the N.N.W., and as we stood to windward, we suddenly grounded on a bed of sunken rocks about four in the afternoon. . . . The stream anchor was carried out, and an attempt was made to heave the ship off, but to no effect. The tide fell very rapidly. . . . On heaving, the anchor came home, so that we had no resource left but that of getting down our topmasts, yards, &c. &c. shoaring up the vessel with spars and spare topmasts, and lightening her as much as possible, by starting the water, throwing overboard our fuel and part of the ballast. . . .
Soon after the ship had run aground, the tide caught her stern—which was still afloat—and swung her around, at the same time making her heel so much to starboard that “her situation, for a few seconds, was alarming in the highest degree.” They shored her up with timber as quickly as they could, but by the time it was low water, the starboard main chains were within three inches of the surface of the sea. Luckily the sea was entirely calm, although they were now close to the open ocean.