Part 10

Referring to what Drake had done for England, and De Fuca for Spain, the one tacking a name to the coast here, the other there, we find little for more than a century going to show that Europeans thought the discoveries of either worth following up.

What do we then see? Not Spain, not England putting forth a steady hand to grasp the prize each already claimed as its own, but a new power, coming not from the East, but from the West. It is a power hardly known in Europe. It is Russia.

The Czar Peter, Peter the Great in history, determined to know whether the two grand continents, Asia and America, were joined in one, or separated by a northern ocean. Peter died before the orders given for this purpose could be carried out, but Catherine, his empress and successor, sent Captain Behring[1] of the royal navy to execute them.

Sailing from Kamschatka (1728), Behring followed the coast of Asia round to the north-west, finding open water everywhere, and so determining the separation of the continents. In a second voyage (1741) he put out to sea, this time falling in with the American coast, discovering Mt. St. Elias and the Aleutian archipelago.

During this voyage Behring's vessel was thrown upon an island and wrecked, and he himself died miserably there, but some of his sailors built themselves a vessel out of the wreck, in which they succeeded in getting back to Kamschatka, bringing with them the furs of the sea-otters and foxes they had killed and eaten while living upon the desert island.

From the time of these discoveries, Russian adventurers, who were little better than daring freebooters, crossed over the narrow seas to the Aleutian Isles, to kill the sea-otters for their fur, thus opening between them and Ochotsk, and between Ochotsk and the Chinese frontier, next Siberia, by means of caravans, a trade in the valuable furs for which these islands are so famous.

In time, these roving traders were followed by a few actual colonists, who were brought over from Siberia or Kamschatka to aid in establishing permanent trading-posts[2] at suitable points. But the country possessed no other resources except its fur-trade. The early traders had cruelly oppressed the natives, hence the first colonists were looked upon as enemies, and treated as such by them. Some missionaries of the Greek Church were also sent over to care for the souls of these poor people, who before had no knowledge of Christianity.

There were no elements of thrift in this colony, consequently it could never make healthy progress. At best the people were little better than vassals, while the Indians were hardly more than slaves. The land is too cold for agriculture. The people have but one occupation, that of seal-hunting.

The fur-trade was at first conducted by private persons, but eventually the control passed to one large company, sanctioned by the crown under the form of The Russian American Company, with headquarters first at Kodiak and then at Sitka.[3]

This company claimed the whole coast of America, on the Pacific, with the adjacent islands, from Behring Straits southward to, and beyond, the mouth of the Columbia River.

FOOTNOTES

[1] BEHRING STRAITS, and Sea, take their name from this navigator,—Vitus Behring, or Bering. According to a map published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, Behring touched his farthest southerly point on our coast closely under the sixtieth parallel, at what is called, on some maps, Admiralty or Behring's Bay. His consort Tchirikow's track is extended to 55° 36´. In the narrowest part of Behring's Straits it is only thirty-six miles from Asia to America, showing how slight were the obstacles to communication, as compared with the three thousand miles separating America from Europe.

[2] PERMANENT TRADING-POSTS were begun on Oonalaska about 1773, and Kodiak 1783. In 1789 there were eight of these posts, with two hundred and fifty Russians. A Russian post was also established at St. Michael's, Norton Sound.

[3] SITKA was founded to check the encroachments of the Hudson's Bay Company. Alaska was purchased by the United States in 1867, during the presidency of Andrew Johnson.

ENGLAND ON THE PACIFIC.

"_Ye mariners of England!_"—_Campbell_.

England's conquest of Canada[1] (1763) put a wholly new face upon the situation in America. She was now, beyond dispute, the foremost power of this continent.

Hardly had the echoes of this conflict died away, when a new power arose to contend with England for what she had just torn from the grasp of France. This was her own American colonies, whose people had now been driven to take up arms (1775) against the mother country, in defence of their dearest political rights. So England gained Canada, but lost her own colonies. She wrested power from France, only to see it snatched from her own grasp in the moment of victory, though, after all, it was no less a victory for the English-speaking race over all her Latin-speaking rivals. It must be seen that events like these would have far-reaching effects in shaping our history.

Yet while the conflict with her colonies was going on, and both parties were in the thick of the actual fighting, England was putting forth efforts to control the commerce of the North-west Coast.

For this purpose it would be essential to have accurate surveys of all important harbors and sounds, in order to select sites for future settlements, and above all of any navigable rivers flowing from the east out upon the coast, that might afford a practicable route into the interior, and so connect this coast with the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company.

With this end in view, two discovery ships were sent out (1776), in command of Captain James Cook,[2] with orders to search the coast of New Albion for any navigable river north of the forty-fifth parallel. England clearly meant to re-assert her claim to sovereignty,[3] set up so long ago in her behalf by Sir Francis Drake.

On board Cook's ship were two persons with whom our story will have to deal. One was Midshipman Vancouver, the other Corporal Ledyard of the marines.

Cook first discovered and named the Sandwich Islands.[4] Shaping his course thence for the American coast, he fell in with (1778) and named Cape Flattery.[5] Steering now northward with the coast always in sight, Cook at length found a broad basin, which the Indians called Nootka, and which has since been known as Nootka Sound.[6] The ships lay here all the month of April, refitting, and getting ready for the coming cruise in the arctic seas, which Cook was instructed to explore for the wished-for passage into Hudson's Bay.

Except for their propensity to steal, which nothing could control, Cook found the natives of Nootka a friendly people, though they were no longer abashed in the presence of white men, or afraid of their loud-roaring cannon, as in the time of Drake. Many wore brass or silver trinkets. Most of them had tools of iron which they had made for themselves, and could use with skill. Passing ships would therefore seem to have brought these tribes into unfrequent communication with Europeans, so that Cook's coming neither surprised nor intimidated them; while the articles in their possession acquainted him with the fact that other navigators had passed that way before him, perhaps with views similar to his own.

Upon again setting sail, Cook was blown off the coast by contrary winds. When he again saw it, he was far to the north of Nootka. He saw and named Mt. Edgecumbe as he sailed; then Mt. St. Elias rose in solitary grandeur before them, giving Cook notice that he was now crossing the track of the Russian discoverers.

The ships continued to skirt the coast until its westward trend forced them to put about, and steer south-west, along the shores of the Alaskan peninsula. Cook had missed both the Columbia River and the Straits of Fuca, thus losing his one chance for making known to the world the great water systems of the north Pacific.

Getting clear of Alaska, Cook came to Oonalaska, of the Aleutian group, which he doubled. Then, finding the coast beyond him to bend in the desired direction, again he sailed on through Behring's Straits into the Arctic Ocean as far as Icy Cape (70° 29´), at which point his ships were stopped by ice. Finding he could go no farther, he put about and returned to Oonalaska, where, in October, he anchored.

From this anchorage Corporal Ledyard was sent on shore in search of the Russian traders, then known to be living on the island, whom he found, and brought back with him to the ships. Getting little from these people, for want of interpreters, Cook sailed back to the Sandwich Islands, where the natives of Owyhee treacherously killed him while he was on shore.

The furs which Cook's sailors obtained from the natives of Nootka, in exchange for knives, buttons and other trifles, were sold at Canton, China, for more than ten thousand dollars. This was the beginning of a trade between Nootka and Canton, which, during the next decade, was the means of bringing many British vessels to the North-west Coast.

It is instructive to remember that, at the very time when the American colonies were throwing off their allegiance, Cook was quietly exploring the North-west Coast, in the interests of peaceful expansion, which, in the end, was to inure to the benefit of those colonies.

FOOTNOTES

[1] CONQUEST OF CANADA was the result of the Seven Years' War in Europe. Nearly all the powers were involved in it. When peace was made, all that France held east of the Mississippi River, under the names Louisiana or Canada, except New Orleans, was given up to England. New Orleans, with all that France claimed west of the Mississippi, had already (1762) been privately ceded by France to Spain.

[2] JAMES COOK entered the navy as a cabin boy. He stood at the head of English navigators since Drake. The government kept his discoveries secret till after the close of the war. To their honor, all the belligerents gave orders that he should not be molested by their forces.

[3] HER CLAIM TO SOVEREIGNTY. It was known in England, before Cook sailed, that Spanish navigators were again working their way up the coast. (See voyages of Juan Perez 1774, Bruno Hector and Bodega 1775, in Bancroft.) The Spaniards knew the value of the fur seal in commerce.

[4] SANDWICH ISLANDS, so named for the Earl of Sandwich, then first lord of the Admiralty.

[5] CAPE FLATTERY, on the mainland, at the south entrance to the Straits of Fuca, and landmark of those straits.

[6] NOOTKA SOUND, Vancouver Island. Taken possession of by Spain, 1789. The English navigators Cook, Meares and Vancouver, being unable to find another good harbor between Cape Mendocino and Cape Flattery, hit upon Nootka as possessing the requirements of a port for their nation. Upon this a quarrel arose with Spain, which claimed Nootka in virtue of prior discovery. In the end Spain was obliged to relinquish Nootka to England. VANCOUVER, who gave his name to the large island to which Nootka Sound belongs, reached the coast April, 1792, near Cape Mendocino, but strangely missed the Columbia River, though he carefully looked for any opening in the coast line, which he declared to be unbroken from Mendocino to Cape Flattery. Vancouver's surveys were to fill the gap left open by Cook when he was blown off the coast. His passage through the Straits of Fuca had been anticipated by Captain Kendrick, of the American sloop "Washington," in 1790, thus first verifying the long-disputed fact of the existence of those straits.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Though Elizabeth was so well calculated to govern with ability, and even with that glory and advantage to her people which England had never witnessed under any of its preceding sovereigns;—though her administration was so vigorously and equitably exercised, and all her plans and negotiations so ably and successfully conducted;—though, in short, she was equally revered and obeyed, as a sovereign, at home, and she was feared and respected abroad;—yet was Elizabeth a very weak and silly woman in trifling concerns. She seemed a Goliath in the conduct of the mighty affairs of empires; but dwindled into a very woman, when the color, fancy, or fashion of a dress became the topic. Nor was she free from the little petty vexations, jealousies, and rivalship of beauty, so natural to her sex. Indeed, it appears that she hated and envied her cousin, the beautiful Mary of Scots, less on account of her pretensions to the crown, than for her superior charms. When Mary sent Sir James Melville to London, to endeavor to establish a good understanding with Elizabeth, he was instructed by Mary to sound her cousin on subjects that would interest her rather as a woman than a queen. "He accordingly succeeded so well," says Hume, "that he threw that artful princess entirely off her guard, and made her discover the bottom of her heart, full of those vanities, and follies, and ideas of rivalship, which possess the youngest and most frivolous of her sex. He talked to her of his travels, and forgot not to mention the different dresses of the ladies in different countries; and she took care thenceforth to meet the ambassador every day apparelled in a different habit; sometimes she was dressed in the English garb, sometimes in the French, sometimes in the Italian; and she asked him which became her most? He answered, the Italian,—a reply that he knew would be agreeable to her, because that mode showed to advantage her flowing hair, which he remarked, though more red than yellow, she fancied to be the finest in the world. She desired to know of him what was reputed to be the best color of hair; she asked whether his queen or she had the finest color of hair; she even inquired which of them he esteemed the fairest person,—a very delicate question, and which he prudently eluded, by saying that her majesty was the fairest person in England, and his mistress in Scotland. She next demanded which of them was tallest. He replied, his queen. 'Then she is too tall,' said Elizabeth, 'for I myself am of a just stature.'"

It is a saying, that the greatest heroes are not so in the opinion of their valets; and it may with equal truth be said of this celebrated princess, that, however she might appear a great heroine to the world, she was still nothing more than a frail woman in the eyes of those who best knew her private and undisguised thoughts, feelings and actions.—_Anon._

INTERLUDE.—WHAT JONATHAN CARVER AIMED TO DO IN 1766.

It so happened, that after the conquest of Canada, an American, and veteran of that war, named Jonathan Carver, conceived the idea of crossing the continent by way of the Great Lakes and tributaries of the Mississippi. After attentively studying the French maps, and reading the accounts of Hennepin and Lahontan, he believed this could be done.

Carver's avowed purpose was, first, to ascertain the breadth of the continent. If successful in reaching the Pacific, he meant to have proposed to the English government the establishment of a permanent port on that coast. He was convinced that this was the true way to the discovery of the North-west Passage, which Drake had attempted so long ago, justly reasoning that it would be easier to sail from the west than from the east, while the loss of time consequent upon the long voyages from England, with the delays and perils incident to Arctic navigation, would be much lessened by having such a dépôt as he proposed. And it would also greatly facilitate communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific.

Carver thought further, that a settlement on that side of the continent would not only open up new sources of trade, and, to use his own words, also "promote many useful discoveries, but would open a way for conveying intelligence to China and the English settlements in the East Indies with greater expedition than a tedious voyage by the Cape of Good Hope, or the Straits of Magellan, would allow of."

Whether it originated in his own brain or not, so far as known, Carver was the first boldly to set before the English people the idea of going across the American continent to India,—the idea that has eventually solved the whole problem.

Convinced that his undertaking was practicable, Carver started from Michilimackinac in September, 1766, in company with some traders who were going among the Sioux by the old route leading through Green Bay, Fox River and the Wisconsin. What he could learn about the upper tributaries of the Mississippi seems to have determined Carver to fix his final starting-point somewhere about the Falls of St. Anthony.

These falls were reached on the 17th of November. When Carver came to the point overlooking them, his Indian guide surprised him by beginning to chant aloud an invocation to the spirit of the waters. While doing this he was stripping off first one, then another, of his ornaments, and casting them from him into the stream. First he threw in his pipe, then his tobacco, then the bracelets he wore on his arms and wrists, and lastly his necklace and ear-rings. When he had thus divested himself of every article of value he possessed, the Indian concluded his prayer of adoration with which his propitiatory offerings were so freely joined. Carver's journey, in this direction, ended at the River St. Francis. Returning south he ascended the St. Peter's, or Minnesota River, by his own account, for a distance of two hundred miles, to the villages of the Sioux with whom he passed the winter.

But after thus penetrating far into what is now the State of Minnesota, Carver found himself unable to proceed. The gifts that were to be sent after him, and which were essential to securing a safe-conduct among the Indian nations on his route, did not come. No alternative therefore remained but to go back to Prairie du Chien, the great Indian trading-mart of all that region, where the explorer finally gave up the attempt to go west at this time. He then returned to Canada by way of the St. Croix and Lake Superior, bringing with him the information gained by a seven months' residence among the Sioux.

Carver's Travels were published in England in 1778, ten years after his return, although his notes and maps had been in the government's possession for some years, permission to publish them having been refused him.

It is here that we first find the name of Oregon,[1] given to the great river of the Pacific slope. Carver speaks of it repeatedly as "the river of the West that falls into the Pacific Ocean."

This explorer afterward (1774) decided to renew the effort to cross America, his indicated route being up the St. Peter's to its head, thence across to the Missouri, up this stream to its source, and, after discovering the source of the "Oregon or River of the West, on the other side the summit of the dividing highlands," to descend it to the sea. His purpose was frustrated by the war between England and the colonies. He has, however, put on record his opinion touching the future of the great Mississippi valley. This is his prophecy:

"To what power or authority this new world will become dependent, after it has arisen from its present uncultivated state, time alone can discover. But as the seat of empire, from time immemorial, has been gradually progressive towards the west, there is no doubt but that at some future period, mighty kingdoms will emerge from these wildernesses, and stately palaces, and solemn temples, with gilded spires, reaching the skies, supplant the Indian huts whose only decorations are the barbarous trophies of their vanquished enemies."

FOOTNOTE

[1] OREGON. What were Carver's sources of information about this river? The Sioux told Father Charlevoix forty odd years earlier (1721), that by going up the Missouri, as high as possible, a great river would be found running west, into the sea. Carver, we know, had read Charlevoix's work. Yet the Sioux may have told him the same story, which he so constantly reiterates in his own narrative, and we know it to be a true story. Substantially, Carver followed the same route which Marquette, Hennepin, and others had before him. This may have cast doubts upon the validity of all he has given, as of his own knowledge. But the main facts came within the ken of so many persons, who could have stamped them as spurious, but did not, that we think their validity must be granted.

But what is the origin of the name OREGON first used by Carver? Here we are all at sea. Bonneville says the word comes from Oregano, which he asserts to have been the early Spanish name for the Columbia River country—derived from oreganum, the botanical name for the wild-sage plant, or artemisia. This seems hardly conclusive. Again, we know the Spaniards gave the name Los Organos (Organ Mountains) to a range of the Sierra Madre, so it is possible they may have applied it indefinitely to the whole chain, north of New Mexico. But the Sioux could hardly have known of either derivation, or Carver have invented the name.

JOHN LEDYARD'S IDEA.

CORPORAL JOHN LEDYARD'S[1] fancy had been taken captive by the exploits of Captain Cook, which for a time fairly renewed the enthusiasm Drake's bold dash into the far South Sea had created so long before.

Ledyard was a born explorer. Every thing he saw while under Cook's command was jotted down from day to day in his diary. He was quick-witted, restless, and ambitious of making his way in the world, nor was he slow to see the advantage that the north-west coast offered to whomsoever should be first in the field. But Ledyard had been wearing King George's uniform, though himself an American, whom thirst for new scenes had led to enlist under a hostile flag. When, however, after his return to England, Ledyard was sent out to America, rather than fight against his country he deserted.

His mind was filled with crude projects for securing the commerce of the north-west coast, not for England, but for America, and America was now a free republic. So he had imbibed at least the spirit of what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Ledyard first tried to get American merchants to fit out a ship for him. Failing in this he went to France, thinking to secure there the help he wanted.

It happened that while Ledyard was trying to get up a company to carry on his schemes, Louis XVI. was fitting out La Peyrouse to follow up Cook's track in the Pacific, and so make good what that eminent navigator had failed to make complete.

Ledyard importuned everybody. Haunting those who would listen to him, borrowing money first from one and then another in order to live, sometimes without a crown in his pocket, always repulsed, but never despairing, the would-be explorer woke and slept on his one ever-present idea.

"I die with anxiety," he says to a friend, "to be on the back of the American States, after having penetrated to the Pacific Ocean. There is an extensive field for the acquirement of honest fame. The American Revolution invites to a thorough discovery of the continent. It was necessary that a European should discover America, but in the name of love of country let a native explore its resources and boundaries. It is my wish to be that man."