CLAIMS TO THE NORTHWEST COAST. 29 



States that she ckiimed the coast to the Columbia 

 River.^ 



On the other hand, Great Britain early kitl .i^i'tisiicompeti- 



' "J tiuu. 



claim to portions of this same Northwest Coast. 

 Drake is believed I^y some to have touched it in 

 his discoveries in 1579.^ The famous British 

 navigator, Captain Cook, appeared there in 1778, 

 visited Prince William Sound and Cook's Inlet, 

 and (as already noticed) passed into Bering Sea. 

 Cook's voyages were followed by those of Port- 

 lock, Dixon, Meares, and Vancouver. English 

 traders, and especially the powerful Northwest 

 Company (which in 1821 became united with 

 the Hudson's Bay Company), were rapidly es:- 

 tending their enterprise to the coast between the 

 Columbia River and latitude 56° N. and thus 

 coming into competition and conflict with the 

 merchants and traders of other countries, includ- 

 ing those of Russia.^ 



. So, also, Spain, following up the occupation of Spanisii competi- 

 California, soon after the middle of the eighteenth 

 century began laying her plans for a complete 

 occupation of the whole of the western coast of 

 America washed by the waters of the Pacific 



' American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. V, p. 442. 

 See, also, generally, "Russia's Early Title to the Coast of 

 America," Vol. I, p. 12. 



*Bur:iey's History of Discoveries in the South Sea, London, 

 1803, vol. I, p. 356. See, also, Greenhow's Memoir, p. 37. 



^Loudon Quarterly Review, vol. XXVI, pp. 344-347. 



