1791.] VOYAGE OF MARCHAND. 223 



points between Mount San Jacinto and Nootka Sound, where they 

 arrived on the 13th of August. 



The visit made to the north-west coasts of America, in the summer 

 of 1791, by Captain Etienne Marchand, in the French commercial 

 ship Solide, from Marseilles, is only mentioned on account of the 

 Introduction by Fleurieu to the Journal of her voyage, to which 

 allusion has been often made in the preceding pages. Marchand 

 landed on the shore of the Bay of Guadalupe, or Norfolk Sound, 

 near the 56th degree of latitude, where he remained two weeks, en- 

 gaged in trading with the natives ; after which he sailed along the 

 coasts southward, occasionally landing and making observations, to 

 the entrance of the Strait of Fuca, and thence took his departure 

 for Canton.* 



In the mean time, nine vessels from England and seven from the 

 United States were engaged in the trade on the north-west coasts 

 of America. Of the movements of the English traders few accounts 

 have been made public : the most active and enterprising among 

 them appears to have been Captain Brown,f of the ship Butter- 

 worth, from London, to whom Vancouver acknowledges himself 

 indebted for useful information on several occasions. In what man- 

 ner the British navigator treated citizens of the United States, from 

 whom he derived information much more important, will be shown 

 hereafter. 



* Respecting the places thus visited, very little exact information is to be derived 

 from the Journal of Marchand, though hundreds of its pages are devoted to philosoph- 

 ical speculations (doubtless by the editor) on the origin and capacity of the north- 

 west American Indians, their languages and political and religious institutions, and 

 political and religious institutions in general. The Journal, indeed, seems to have 

 been published merely in order to afford a frame-work for the comments and disqui- 

 sitions of the editor, Fleurieu, which, with all their faults, are the only parts of the 

 work of any value. 



The Introduction to this Journal is a memoir read by Fleurieu before the National 

 Institute at Paris, in 1797, on the subject of the discovery of the north-west coasts of 

 America, in which he presents a history, with reviews of all other accounts, of the 

 several exploring voyages made by people of civilized nations along those coasts, 

 from the period of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards to the year 1790, when 

 Marchand began his voyage. For such a task, Fleurieu was well fitted, by his 

 previous labors, his general science, and his acquaintance with geography and mari- 

 time affairs : his memoir is elegantly written, and his accounts and opinions are, for 

 the most part, clear, fair, and liberal towards individuals and nations. This praise is, 

 however, not to be awarded to every portion of his work. He was extravagant in 

 generalizing, and often careless in the examination of his authorities, in consequence 

 of which he committed numerous errors ; and his devotion to his own country, and 

 his contempt for the Spaniards and their government, led him frequently to make 

 assertions and observations at variance with justice and truth. 



t Brown was killed by the natives, at Woahoo, one of the Sandwich Islands, 

 in January, 1795. 



