1789.] THE IPHIGENIA RETURNS TO CHINA. 193 



vessels with respect ; but the contingency of his meeting with a 

 Portuguese vessel at Nootka, furnished with such instructions as 

 those carried by the Iphigenia, could not have been foreseen ; and 

 the only grounds upon which he could have excused himself to his 

 government for releasing her, even under the pledge given by 

 her officers, must have been, that, at the time when those instruc- 

 tions were written, it was not anticipated, by her proprietors, that 

 Spain would take possession of any place on the north-west coast 

 of America. 



That the detention of the Iphigenia by the Spaniards was not 

 injurious to the interests of her owners, is clearly proved. The 

 distressed condition in which she reached Nootka has been already 

 shown from the accounts of her officers ; and she must have 

 remained at that place, unemployed, during the greater and better 

 part of the trading season, had she not been refitted and supplied 

 as she was by the Spaniards. According to the narrative of Meares, 

 she sailed from the sound on the 1st of June, to the coasts of Queen 

 Charlotte's Island, where she collected a number of valuable furs 

 in a few weeks : the trade was " so brisk," writes Meares, " that 

 all the stock of iron was soon expended., and they were under the 

 necessity of cutting up the chain plates and hatch-bars of the vessel,'' 

 in order to find the means of purchasing the skins offered ; thence 

 she departed for the Sandwich Islands, and, after a short stay there, 

 continued her voyage to Macao, where she arrived in October, with 

 about seven hundred sea otter skins, all collected since leaving Nootka 

 Sound. Mr. Meares, in his Memorial, however, presents a very 

 different picture of these circumstances : he there says, " During 

 the time the Spaniards held possession of the Iphigenia, she was 

 stripped of all the merchandise which had been prepared for trading, 

 as also of her stores, provisions, nautical instruments, charts, &c, 

 and, in short, of every article, except twelve bars of iron, which they 

 could conveniently carry away, even to the extent of the master's 

 watch, and articles of clothing ; " he then goes on to state that, 

 "on leaving Nootka Sound, the Iphigenia, though in a very unfit 

 condition for such a voyage, proceeded from thence to the Sandwich 

 Islands, and, after obtaining there such supplies as they were 

 enabled to purchase with the iron before mentioned, returned to 

 China, and anchored there in the month of October, 1789" — thus 

 omitting all notice of the trip to the northern coasts, and of the 

 brisk trade with the natives, in which the whole stock of iron 

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