California and the North-west Coast. 253 



the true geography of the Pacific ocean : and to him we 

 are indebted for the destruction of the geographical fictions 

 so readily embraced by many preceding geographers. 



While Cook was preparing for his voyage, the viceroy 

 of New Spain sent out an expedition for the same purpose 

 underBruno Heceta, Juan de Ayala and Iuan de la Bodega 

 y Quadra, in 1775. The account of this expedition was 

 written by Maurelle the pilot of one of the vessels. Mau- 

 relle went as far north as 57°, and he obtained a tolerable 

 outline of the coast to that point, and sent home a note of 

 alarm regarding the progress of Russian settlement. 

 Maurelle had no better charts than the conjectural ones of 

 the French, such as Bellin's of 1766, and he was on the 

 lookout for DeFonte's pretended straits, which were in full 

 faith still retained upon those charts. In 1779, another 

 Spanish expedition, accompanied also by Maurelle, and 

 De la Bodega y Quadra, was sent over the same track, 

 apparently unconscious that Cook had preceded them 

 during 1778. This voyage went no farther north than 59°. 

 . In 1774 and 1755, Perez and Martinez, under the Span- 

 ish flagr, anchored at ISTootka sound and sailed as far as 58°. 

 The discoveries of Capt. Cook were not published until 

 1784. They produced a great excitement in favor of free 

 trade in furs, hitherto a monopoly of fur companies; and 

 the rivalry for this trade led to numerous voyages of ships 

 of all nations. The most prominent of these were those 

 of Portlock and Dixon in 1786 and 1787, chiefly for the 

 purpose of trading in furs : when a detour for discovery 

 was made, it was for the sake of finding new regions to 

 buy furs of the natives. Dixon chronicles our still exist- 

 ing ignorance of the continent by the observation, that " so 

 imperfectly do we know the coast that it is in some mea- 

 sure to be doubted whether we have yet seen the main 

 laud ; whether any land we have been near is really the 



