266 EARLY HISTORY OF OREGON. 



between the native hunters, along the northwest coast of 

 America, and the Chinese, as early as 1786. The attempt 

 of the Spaniards to suppress this trade, by the seizure of the 

 vessels engaged in it, in 1789, led to the dispute between the 

 Crowns of Spain and Great Britain, in respect to the claim to 

 exclusive sovereignty, asserted by the former power over the 

 Port of Nootka and the adjacent latitudes, which was brought 

 to a close by the Convention of the Escurial, in 1790. 



The European merchants, however, who engaged in this 

 lucrative branch of commerce, confined their visits to stations 

 on the coasts, where the natives brought from the interior the 

 produce of their hunting expeditions ; and even respecting 

 the coast itself, very little accurate information was possessed 

 by Europeans before Vancouver's survey. Vancouver, as is 

 well known, was dispatched in 1791 by the British Govern- 

 ment to superintend,* on the part of Great Britain, the execu- 

 tion of the Convention of the Escurial, and he was at the 

 same time instructed to survey the coast from 35 to 60, with 

 a view to ascertain in what parts civilized nations had made 

 settlements, and likewise to determine whether or not any 

 effective water- communication, available for commercial pur- 

 poses, existed in those parts between the Atlantic and Pacific 

 Oceans. A Spanish Expedition, under Galiano and Valdes, 

 was engaged about the same time upon the same object; so 

 that from, this period, namely, the concluding decade of the 

 last century, the coast of Oregon may be considered to have 

 been sufficiently well known. 



The interior, however, of the country had remained hitherto 

 unexplored, and no white man seems ever to have crossed the 

 Rocky Mountains prior to Alexander Mackenzie in 1793. 

 Having ascended the Unjigah, or Peace River, from the At- 

 habaska Lake on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains to 



