Exploration
1791 voyage commanded by George Vancouver
The Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) was a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration and diplomacy, commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. The British expedition circumnavigated the globe and made contact with five continents. The expedition at various times included between two and four vessels, and up to 153 men, all but 6 of whom returned home safely.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Vancouver Expedition”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) was a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration and diplomacy, commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy. The British expedition circumnavigated the globe and made contact with five continents. The expedition at various times included between two and four vessels, and up to 153 men, all but 6 of whom returned home safely.
Several previous voyages of exploration including those of Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook, and the Spanish Manila-Acapulco galleons trade route active since 1565, had established the strategic and commercial value of exploring and claiming the Pacific Ocean access, both for its wealth in whales and furs and as a trade route to the Orient. Britain was especially interested in improving its knowledge of the Southern Pacific whale fisheries, and in particular the locations of the strategically positioned Australia, New Zealand, the legendary (and non-existent) Isla Grande, and the Northwest Passage. A new ship was purchased, fitted out, and named HMS Discovery after one of Cook's ships. Her captain was Henry Roberts and Vancouver his 1st Lieutenant.
Plans changed when the adventurer John Meares reported that the Spanish had impounded his ship and seized hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of goods at Nootka Sound. Although it is now known that his claims of loss were somewhat exaggerated, Britain had recently waged war against Spain and seemed ready to resume hostilities; the Parliament readied the fleet in the Nootka Crisis. Roberts and Vancouver left Discovery to serve in the Channel Fleet while Discovery became a depot ship for processing those taken in by the press gang. The Spanish backed down from their earlier stance in the Nootka Sound Convention, whose terms resulted in inconsistent instructions for the British and Spanish officers sent to implement them.
Vancouver returned to Discovery as the expedition's commander. Vancouver understood from the discussions he had with ministers and officials in London prior to his departure that his task was to receive back from the Spanish commander at Nootka Sound land and property confiscated from the British fur traders in July 1789 and to establish a formal British presence there to support and promote the fur trade. Proposals to establish a British settlement on the Northwest Coast had been discussed in commercial and official circles in the 1780s, encouraged by the success of the similar project at Botany Bay and Norfolk Island. During the war scare with Spain that resulted from the arrest of the British fur traders at Nootka Sound, plans were made for a small party of convicts and marines to be sent from New South Wales to make a subsidiary settlement on the Northwest Coast: one of the ships to be used for this task was to have been the Discovery, which Vancouver afterwards commanded during his expedition. He believed that once he had accepted restitution of Nootka Sound and its associated territory he was to make preparations for founding a British colony there that, at least initially, would have had a close connection with the New South Wales colony. Supplies and materials for establishing the colony were sent on the Daedalus storeship. He was also instructed "to receive back in form a restitution of the territories on which the Spaniards had seized, and also to make an accurate survey of the coast, from the 30th degree of north latitude northwestward toward Cook's River; and further, to obtain every possible information that could be collected respecting the natural and political state of that country." These explorations were in part to discover water communication into the North American interior (whether a Northwest Passage or, more likely, navigable rivers existed) and to facilitate the research of the expedition's politically well-connected botanist, Archibald Menzies. A change to a more conciliatory British policy toward Spain after he left England in April 1791, a result of challenges arising from the French Revolution, was not communicated to Vancouver, leaving him in an embarrassing situation in his negotiations with the Spanish commander at Nootka. Although Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra were friendly with one another, their negotiations did not go smoothly. Spain desired to set the Spanish-British boundary at the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but Vancouver insisted on British rights to the Columbia River. Vancouver also objected to the new Spanish post at Neah Bay. Bodega y Quadra insisted on Spain retaining Nootka Sound, which Vancouver could not accept. In the end the two agreed to refer the matter to their respective governments.
Following the Mutiny on the Bounty, the Admiralty had ordered the precaution that ships not make such long voyages alone; therefore the armed tender HMS Chatham was assigned to the expedition. The chartered merchant ship, Daedalus, would rendezvous at Nootka Sound a year later with supplies. The expedition was supposed to take two or three years.
The Muster of the expedition lists 153 men. Most were naval officers or sailors, many of whom would distinguish themselves in future service, including Peter Puget, Joseph Baker, Joseph Whidbey, William Broughton, Zachary Mudge, Thomas Manby, and Robert Barrie. There was a large detachment of Marines; whether these were to assist with exploration in hostile territory or to discourage mutiny is not recorded. Two 16-year-old aristocrats, the Honorable Thomas Pitt (nephew of the British Prime Minister, William Pitt The Younger) and the Honorable Charles Stuart (son of a Marquis), were brought aboard as able seamen; they proved troublesome.
Among the supernumeraries were Menzies (who kept a meticulous journal of the expedition) and his servant John Ewin (or Ewing). A Hawaiian man named Towereroo, whom Captain Charles Duncan had brought to England, was put on Discovery that he might return home. Finally, the Muster includes a widow's man, rated able seaman, but in fact merely an accounting fiction.
On 1 April 1791, Discovery and Chatham set sail from Falmouth, England. They reached Santa Cruz in Tenerife on 28 April; this was intended as a rest stop and opportunity to study the botany of the region, but ended in a drunken brawl in which several members of the crew were thrown into the bay or suffered injuries.
On 7 May, the two ships left Tenerife; Chatham arrived at Cape Town on 6 June and Discovery two days later. After more botanizing, socializing, and recruiting replacements for deserters, the ships left on 17 August. The surgeon took ill during an outbreak of dysentery (one sailor died); Menzies assumed his duties for the rest of the expedition.
On 29 September, they landed in Australia, at what Vancouver named King George the Third's Sound. They quickly surveyed the south coast of Australia and landed at Dusky Sound, New Zealand on 2 November for resupplying and botanising, before departing on 21 November. The ships proceeding separately, both discovered the sub-Antarctic Snares Islands (23 November) which Vancouver considered a severe shipping hazard (hence, the name). En route to Tahiti, the crew of Chatham furthermore discovered the Chatham Islands (29 November) before reaching Tahiti on 26 December; Discovery meanwhile discovered Rapa Iti (which Vancouver called "Oparo") and arrived at Tahiti on 30 December.
Putting in at Tahiti, Vancouver enforced rigid discipline to avoid the personal connections that had led to a mutiny on the Bounty. Pitt was flogged for exchanging a piece of ship's iron for the romantic favours of a lady. Towereroo, not subject to such discipline, decided he preferred the comforts of Tahiti and had to be made to leave.
Proceeding to winter in Hawaiʻi, Vancouver arrived in March 1792. He had been a young midshipman on Cook's fatal landing 13 years earlier, so avoided coming ashore at Kealakekua Bay. He was disturbed by the frequent request for firearms, and tried to avoid escalating the ongoing civil war, spending the winter in Oʻahu, where, however, three of his men were killed in a skirmish (or possibly following it; taken to Puʻu o Mahuka Heiau to be ritually sacrificed). He made arrangements for his tiny fleet to winter and re-supply in Hawaiʻi for the duration of the expedition.
Discovery and Chatham proceeded to North America. On 16 April they made landfall at about 39°N and started a detailed survey northward. On 28 April, they encountered the American Captain Gray of the Columbia Rediviva with which they had a fruitful sharing of information; much of what Meares had told them about Gray's explorations, the latter said, was fiction.
In June 1792, Discovery and Lieutenant Broughton's Chatham lay anchored in a bay they named Birch Bay. Historians believe that HMS Chatham lost a 900 lb. anchor off Whidbey Island on 9 June 1792. In June 2014, an anchor was raised and will be assessed to see if it is actually the sole remaining relic of Vancouver's 1792 voyage into Puget Sound.
In the expectation of receiving from the Spanish at Nootka Sound title to a large tract of the coast and of forming a settlement to sustain the fur traders, on 4 June 1792, the King's Birthday, at Admiralty Inlet (the entrance to Puget Sound) Vancouver took formal possession, near Possession Point at the southern end of Whidbey Island, of all the coast and hinterland contiguous to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, including Puget Sound, under the name of New Georgia.
Vancouver had decided to use his ships' small boats for the detailed exploration and surveying of the region's complex and sometimes shallow waterways. On 12 June, Vancouver, along with Puget and some of the crew, sailed north from Birch Bay in Discovery's two smaller sailing yawls. In four days they found and charted a number of points and inlets, such as Point Roberts, Point Grey, Burrard Inlet, Howe Sound, and the Jervis Inlet. On 13 June, near Point Roberts, Chatham encountered the Sutil and Mexicana, of the Spanish exploring expedition.
On 21 June 1792, dealing with poor weather and dwindling food supplies, Vancouver decided to head back to HMS Discovery some 84 miles away; on their return they encountered the Spanish ships under the respective commands of Capt. Galiano and Valdés (whom Lt. Broughton had already met), near present-day Vancouver, British Columbia. Both were exploring and mapping the Strait of Georgia, seeking a possible Northwest Passage and a determination of whether Vancouver Island was an island or part of the mainland. The two commanders established a friendly relationship and agreed to assist one another by dividing up the surveying work and sharing charts. They worked together in this way until 13 July, after which each resumed circumnavigating Vancouver Island separately. Galiano's ships reached Nootka Sound, completing the circuit, on 31 August. Vancouver's ships had arrived earlier. Thus Vancouver was the first European to prove the insularity of Vancouver Island (Meares' claims on the matter having been ignored), while Galiano was the first to circumnavigate it. Vancouver had not set out from Nootka but rather began at the Strait of Juan de Fuca, while Galiano began his circumnavigation at Nootka.
In August, while Vancouver was exploring in small boats to the north, Daedalus arrived in Nootka Sound and dispatched the brig HMS Venus with the news that her Captain, Richard Hergest, and William Gooch, sent as astronomer for the expedition, had been murdered on Oahu. Vancouver and Whidbey shared astronomer duties, which later led to friction over pay. On 11 August, the expedition sailed south, reaching Nootka Sound on 28 August, where they exchanged friendly 13-gun salutes with a Spanish frigate commanded by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.
Relations between Bodega y Quadra and Vancouver were very cordial and even friendly, but they could not reconcile their conflicting instructions and interpretations of the Nootka Convention. They agreed to meet again at the Royal Presidio of Monterey, California. On 21 September Bodega y Quadra left Nootka Sound and Salvador Fidalgo became the commandant of the establishment there. Vancouver sent Lieutenant Mudge back to England on the Portuguese-flagged merchantman Fenis and St. Joseph to get further instructions.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Vancouver Expedition”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.