179^. J VANCOUVER MEETS GALIANO AND VALDES. 239 



officers are not expected to be minutely acquainted with diplomatic 

 affairs, yet Captain Vancouver, who was sent to the North Pacific 

 as commissioner to execute the convention of October, 1790, should 

 have recollected that, by the stipulations of that convention, every 

 •part of the north-ivest coast of America was rendered free and open 

 for trade or settlement to Spanish as well as British subjects ; and 

 that, consequently, no claim of sovereignty, on the part of either of 

 those nations, could be valid. It may seem pedantic, if not unjust, 

 to make this remark with regard to what may have been nothing 

 more than the result of an exuberance of loyal feeling in the officers 

 and crews of the vessels ; but this talcing possession by Vancouver 

 has been since gravely adduced, by the representatives of the British 

 government, in support of its claims to the dominion of the terri- 

 tories above mentioned.* 



On returning to the Strait of Fuca, the English examined several 

 other passages opening into it, some of which were found to ter- 

 minate in the land, at short distances from their mouths, and others 

 to be channels between islands. Through one of these latter chan- 

 nels, opening immediately opposite the entrance of Admiralty Inlet, 

 they passed into a long and wide gulf, extending north-westward ; 

 and, after proceeding a few miles within it, they, on the 23d of June, 

 unexpectedly met the Spanish schooners Sutil and Mexicana,f com- 

 manded by Lieutenants Galiano and Valdes, which had left Nootka 

 on the 4th of the month, and had advanced thus far along the 

 northern shore of the strait. The meeting was, doubtless, vexatious 

 to the commanders of both the parties, each being naturally anxious 

 to secure to himself all the merit which might be acquired by deter- 

 mining the character of this famous arm of the sea : they, however, 

 received and treated each other with the utmost civility, mutually 

 exhibiting their charts and journals, and comparing their obser- 

 vations ; and, having agreed to unite their labors, they remained to- 

 gether three weeks. During this time, they surveyed the shores of 

 the great gulf above mentioned, called by the Spaniards Canal del 

 Rosario, and by the English the Gulf of Georgia, which extended 



* See statement of the British commissioners, among the Proofs and Illustrations, 

 in the latter part of this volume, under the letter G. 



t Vancouver describes these vessels as " each about forty-five tons burden, mount- 

 ing two brass guns, and navigated by twenty-four men ; bearing one lieutenant, with- 

 out a single inferior officer. Their apartments just allowed room for sleeping-places 

 on each side, with a table in the intermediate space, at which four persons could with 

 difficulty sit ; and they were, in all other respects, the most ill-calculated and unfit 

 vessels that could possibly be imagined for such an expedition." 



