by Scott Ridley
At the small village onshore at Mawina, Kendrick organized a feast where he introduced Martinez to a group of lesser chiefs as “their brother who had come to live with them for some time.” He said the Spanish commander would protect them from foreign nations that might try to attack them, a subtle reference to the plundering by Meares’s ships. “Wacass, wacass” (friend), they said, clasping Martinez’s hand. Martinez was impressed by this and by first mate Joseph Ingraham’s knowledge of Nootka Sound and its people. He asked Ingraham for a report he could forward to the viceroy.
The celebrations continued in a warm drizzle on May 10 as the three captains and their officers were invited to a naming ceremony for Maquinna’s son, Prince Hauitl. Maquinna’s two brothers, his father-in-law, Hannape, and chiefs of other tribes were in attendance. Kendrick sat with Martinez and explained the ceremony as it unfolded. The rhythmic beating of sticks, dancing, and singing echoed across the cove far into the night.
Early the next morning, partly sleepless from the din of the party, Martinez took his bedding and went up to visit Kendrick. The burly Spanish commander saw himself in a difficult position. If he expelled Douglas from Nootka, it was likely the British would try to establish themselves in another cove or bay along the coast. There was no way he could patrol the intricate shoreline and islands to prevent it. He had to halt them here, although he could not accomplish it without the neutrality of Kendrick and the Mowachaht.
Douglas later claimed that Martinez and Kendrick made an alliance against him during this visit. It is not clear whether Kendrick agreed with Martinez’s plan to seize the Iphigenia. Nevertheless, Martinez told Kendrick that he would take Meares prisoner when his ship appeared and gained Kendrick’s complicity. Later, when events were slipping toward war, Meares would allege that it was John Kendrick who convinced Martinez to take the British ships. Though Kendrick denied the allegation, he did have a reasonable motive for encouraging a conflict between Martinez and the British. If control of the Northwest Coast was uncertain at this point, he could gain time and a better opportunity to settle an American outpost.
No doubt Kendrick recognized the sensitivity of the situation and its possible repercussions. The nine-year War of Jenkins’ Ear in the 1740s that had sent Lord Anson’s squadron into the Pacific to raid Spanish villages and ships took place after Spain’s garda costa in the Caribbean seized a British ship they claimed was a privateer. Parliament had been tipped into a frenzy to declare war when the alleged severed ear of the ship’s captain, Robert Jenkins, was displayed in a jar in the House of Commons.
While taking any ship was a sensitive matter, the success of the American mission depended on Martinez’s goodwill. At this point Kendrick wanted nothing more than to keep his favor and to push the British traders off the coast. The strategy was consistent with the view of Thomas Jefferson and other leaders who believed that Britain posed the greatest threat to the United States and that it was better to keep the western lands in the hands of the weakening Spanish Empire and then take it later piece by piece.
ON MAY 12, MARTINEZ’S MISSING CONSORT, the San Carlos, came in from the fog at the mouth of the sound, guided by boats from the Princesa. The Spanish vessels saluted one another with five cannon salvos, and the Iphigenia responded as well. Hearing the rumbling cannons, Kendrick and Martinez came down from Mawina to Friendly Cove in the afternoon.
Officers of all the ships were invited to lunch on the San Carlos. With reinforcements from the sixteen-gun support ship now on hand, Martinez wrote an affidavit recording why he would seize the Iphigenia. She was anchored in Spanish waters without a license from the king, and her instructions were in direct conflict with his own. The Princesa’s orders were to intercept and evict foreign ships from these waters. Douglas’s Portuguese instructions ordered him to take any Spanish, Russian, or English ship that might oppose him. He was to bring the belligerent ship to Macao and sell it as a prize. The officers and crew were to be punished as pirates. Martinez saw these instructions as an extreme insult and direct challenge to Spanish claims and honor.
Martinez sent for Douglas, who later wrote, “As soon as I was on board he took out a paper, and told me, that was the king of Spain’s orders to take all the vessels he met with on the coast of America; that I was now his prisoner.” Douglas argued that Martinez misinterpreted his Portuguese instructions, and “to take me prisoner, in a foreign port that the king of Spain never laid claim to, was a piece of injustice that no nation ever attempted before.” Although the angry Scottish captain said he would leave Nootka, Martinez ordered his men to seize him.
Forty armed Spanish men then climbed into longboats and rowed the short distance to the moored Iphigenia. The crew was utterly surprised, and surrendered as soon as the Spanish came on board. Once the ship was disarmed, the Portuguese flag came down and the Spanish colors ran up amid cheers and a salvo from the Princesa. Martinez divided Iphigenia’s crew, imprisoning them below deck on the two Spanish ships. Douglas was enraged, railing at Martinez, saying that if he had entered any other port in Spanish America with a ship in similarly poor condition, he would have been granted assistance and allowed to go on his way. He also ranted at the double standard that allowed Kendrick and the American ships to remain free, and he accused Kendrick of plotting with Martinez.
The Spanish commander had fallen into a dangerous game, in which any action he took was open to criticism. The Treaty of Paris concluding the Seven Years’ War in 1763 made it illegal for British ships to trade in Spanish waters. But Viceroy Flores had also instructed Martinez to stay clear of harsh contention with other nations where it could be avoided. Seizing the Iphigenia could make him appear either bold and prudent, or a blundering fool. Letting her go posed the same problem. He may have been aware that the governor of Juan Fernándes Island had been stripped of his post for not taking the Columbia when she came to Cumberland Bay, and she was much less of a threat to Spanish dominion than British ships with false Portuguese papers. Martinez had no easy answers, and he began to document his actions with great care, taking an extensive inventory of the contents of the Iphigenia. His plan was to send her and her crew south to San Blas to see if she would be condemned by the viceroy as a legal prize.
The seizure of the ship and the imprisonment of Douglas and his men shocked Maquinna’s people. They became increasingly worried as the Spanish presence changed the atmosphere of the cove. The problems went far beyond the hostility between foreigners. In the hasty preparations for sailing at San Blas, the Princesa had not been fumigated to reduce the number of rats she carried. On her arrival, the infestation had swarmed ashore and attacked food stored in the longhouses. More than two hundred Spaniards and British had also fouled the waters of the cove and the tidal flats with the sewage and garbage they dumped overboard. The sound of woodcutting parties echoed out from the forests, and armed soldiers ranged along the beach. Women were said to have been assaulted, and fish in the cove were disappearing.
The seizure of the Iphigenia was the final straw. Maquinna expressed concern over whether Douglas and his men were now slaves and worried about other ships coming to the cove and trading. Almost overnight, most of the Mowachaht packed up and abandoned Yuquot. They resettled at an inlet three miles up the west side of the sound at a village known as Coaglee. Prisoners from the Iphigenia who had friends among the Mowachaht sent verbal messages to them, asking that they warn the Northwest American and any approaching ships from Meares that they had been captured.
Over the next two weeks, prisoners from the Iphigenia watched the Spanish fortifications take shape on the rocky islets enclosing Friendly Cove. Martinez named the rough log and stone-terraced castillo on Observatory Island San Miguel and planned to put ten cannons there to face over the sound and the cove. Across a marshy tidal creek by the western shore, the Spanish built a barracks, a forge, and a warehouse to store supplies. They also began work on the commandant’s house. In a crash effort to get the port’s defenses in order, Martinez set
any man who could wield an ax to work. A half-dozen structures were under way, including a second gun emplacement called San Rafael, holding seven cannons and a lookout on the crest of Hog Island, facing the sea. Martinez knew that Meares’s ships would be coming, and the Russians by the end of July or early August. He needed to be ready.
Douglas kept arguing with Martinez, refusing to select from his men those who would help sail the Iphigenia to San Blas under Spanish command. He also refused to sign an inventory for the ship. And he refused at first to see Kendrick. He noted in his journal that the Spanish commander had told him in confidence that “his orders were to take Captain Kendrick, if he should fall in with him any where in those seas; and mentioned it as a great secret that he would take both him and the sloop Washington as soon as she arrived in port.”
It’s not clear whether Kendrick caught wind of this, or if Martinez was lying to placate Douglas, but regardless, Martinez was in no position to take the Americans. Already, he brooded over the Iphigenia prisoners consuming his provisions at a rapid rate and began to have second thoughts about seizing the ship. The Iphigenia was in poor condition for a long voyage and would have little value as a prize. Recalling the viceroy’s warnings to be cautious, Martinez perhaps listened to a suggestion of compromise from Kendrick that would force Douglas from the coast. He began to reconsider his interpretation of the Iphigenia’s instructions, and finally conceded that maybe the translation of the Portuguese orders was not as clear as it first appeared.
Douglas and his crew were released after he and Viana agreed to sign a bond stipulating that the value of the Iphigenia and its contents would be surrendered if she were found by the viceroy to be a legal prize. Joseph Ingraham and Kendrick witnessed the agreement, and appeared to mediate the deal. To ensure payment, Martinez tried to pressure Douglas to sell the Northwest American to him at a price set by Kendrick. The schooner was still somewhere to the north, and Douglas told Martinez ambiguously that “he might act as he thought proper” on her return. Trying to ameliorate Douglas’s resentment, Martinez provided him with supplies that would take the Iphigenia to the Sandwich Islands.
Kendrick and Ingraham attended a dinner Martinez hosted for the glowering Scot and his officers. The Spanish commander ordered him not to cruise the coast for furs and never to trade in these waters again. Douglas vaguely acquiesced. That afternoon the Iphigenia was towed out through the entrance of the sound. Once he was beyond sight of land, Douglas immediately broke his word and turned northward to trade for furs to carry to Macao. As he sailed the coast, he also searched for the Northwest American to stop her from returning to Nootka. There was no way he would yield the schooner to Martinez. He said he would bring her crew and cargo on board and “set her on fire, if I find I cannot carry her with me” to the Sandwich Islands.
Somewhere along the storm-and fog-laden coast, Douglas missed the schooner. A little more than a week later, on June 8, she appeared at the mouth of Nootka Sound. Martinez sent out boats. He was wary of Douglas’s vagueness in accepting his decree, and so he confiscated the ship as security for payments for the repairs and supplies given to the Iphigenia. As he had done with the Iphigenia, he made the Northwest American’s crew prisoners and divided them between the Princesa and the San Carlos.
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON ON JUNE 17, nine days after the Northwest American was captured, Robert Gray brought the Lady Washington into the sound on a following wind. Much had changed in the six weeks since he left. The crude bastion called San Miguel stood on Observatory Island at the entrance to Friendly Cove, and the gun emplacement called San Rafael was under way on the crest of Hog Island. Cannons to defend the cove and the bay were nearly in place. Along the shore southwest of the village, buildings under construction were visible. As they passed by the entrance channel, Haswell wrote that “the Spanish Ship [Princesa] was laying in the Cove with a Spanish Snow [San Carlos] and an English Sloop …” The Princesa fired a gun to halt the American sloop, but Gray ignored the shot. Not knowing what might have happened to Kendrick, he hurried his damaged and leaking vessel toward hoped-for sanctuary at Mawina.
During the cruise northward, once again he had almost lost the sloop, this time venturing too close to shore and grounding on a rock ledge where the surf pounded her. A lesser ship would have gone to pieces. It was another touch-and-go situation, but she held, and they finally warped themselves off with an anchor.
Gray came along under the steep, rugged slopes of the six-mile stretch of shore, anxious about what he might find. With great relief he saw the American flag flying amid the treetops of St. Clair Island. Gray should by now have recognized John Kendrick’s wisdom in setting up Fort Washington in this cove removed from Yuquot. More sheltered from the squalls off the ocean, and with a better source of fresh water, the rough-hewn compound also offered a semblance of protection from the Spanish. Moreover, Kendrick and the “Boston Men” had developed strong alliances among the Mowachaht that made them formidable. Kendrick had a reputation for fairness, and people from other villages across the sound came to Fort Washington to trade without going through Maquinna. The log house and forge and gun emplacement had quickly become the first American outpost on the Pacific.
While Gray had cruised up and down the coast seeking furs, Kendrick had gathered hundreds of skins here. And from the native people he had learned vital information: they were not on the mainland coast of America, but on an island. A trail led eastward from the village at the head of Tahsis Inlet to vast waters filled with many islands. Maquinna purchased furs there for a trifle and carried them back overland to Nootka in two days and a night. The image of an “inland sea” to the east fit with what the Washington had found in her first cruise to the south to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and offered a tantalizing prospect for finding the Northwest Passage.
As Gray approached Mawina he could see that the Columbia was finally ready for sea. A puff of smoke billowed from the deck, and then came the delayed boom of a salute. Gray was happy to answer. Before he could work the Washington into the cove, a boat came out carrying Kendrick and—much to his surprise—the Spanish commander and a British captain, Thomas Hudson.
TWO DAYS EARLIER, ON JUNE 15, Hudson had appeared with the sloop Princess Royal, the first of Meares’s ships. She was a low-slung vessel, a third smaller than the Washington, and carried a crew of only fifteen. She was highly vulnerable, and Hudson concealed from Martinez that Meares was one of her owners and that Hudson was bringing instructions for Douglas and the Northwest American. He also did not disclose that his command ship, the Argonaut, would soon arrive. At the urging of Martinez and the Americans, Hudson accepted Spain’s dominion over the region. After 116 days at sea from Macao, all he wanted was permission to undertake repairs and replenish his water and wood and then depart. Martinez saw this small vessel as no threat and was most likely relieved by Hudson’s willingness to comply with his orders. After viewing the ship’s charts, the Spanish commander began to focus on talk of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the Princess Royal had sailed in the summer of 1788 under a previous captain, Charles Duncan.
When Gray arrived, Martinez recalled that Kendrick had told him the Washington would be searching for the Straits of Admiral de Fonte. He asked if they had found them. Haswell said they had. Two weeks after Gray encountered the Princesa, they had taken the Washington into a broad bay and Haswell noted, “we discovered that the straits of Adml de font actually exist … I believe all the Range of coast North of Juan de Fuca Straits as far north as we went is a vast chain of Islands and entrances …” Reflecting the images on contemporary maps, Haswell believed that “it is probable when [the straits] shall be penetrated … large rivers and Lakes may be found that may overlap the western bound of the Lakes that have their vent in our Eastern coast …” Haswell and Gray most likely related what they had seen in the broad bay to the north and mentioned that in their earlier trip south they had found and coasted into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and seen the mythical “inland
sea.”
Martinez was enthralled and alarmed at what American and British traders had discovered in the bay to the north and at Juan de Fuca. Just a few days before, on June 14, he had noted in his diary (perhaps backfilling and revising after seeing Hudson’s charts from the Princess Royal or talking with Gray):
I have recalled that in the year ’74, when I was in this harbor on my return to the Department [San Blas], while sailing close to the coast, I had sighted in this sound in latitude 48 degrees 20 minutes, though at a distance, an opening of considerable size extending inland. At that time I was not able to reconnoiter it, since I was under orders of the first pilot and frigate’s ensign Don Juan Perez, who did not wish to approach the coast… Considering now, according to the reckoning which I made then, that the opening must be some forty leagues, a little more or less, distant from this port, I determined to carry out the reconnaissance. For this purpose, I planned to avail myself of the schooner [the Northwest American] … This must, I am persuaded, be the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the existence of which the European nations, and particularly the English, have denied.
The parallel myths of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the south and the Straits of Admiral de Fonte to the north of Nootka offering a gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific must have stirred Martinez’s thoughts of glory. Charles Barkley, commanding the Imperial Eagle under Austrian colors, was reportedly the first fur trader to sight the unusual column of rock marking the entrance to Juan de Fuca in 1787. Believing the column consistent with the ancient myth, he bestowed the legendary name on the strait. Charles Duncan with the Princess Royal visited the mouth in 1788. Within weeks of Duncan, John Meares supposedly used Barkley’s charts to follow his track to the mouth of the strait. Gray entered with the Lady Washington in April 1789. However, none of these ships penetrated farther than the first twenty miles of the strait. For Martinez, discovery seemed to beckon. Reaching the strait and the inland sea and proving James Cook wrong would ensure him great honor from his king and a place in seafaring legend. But he had some catch-up to play with the British and the Americans in this search.