INTRODUCTION.
Beforesetting sail from Southampton, it may perhaps be as well to devote a few pages explanatory of the early history and discovery of Vancouver Island; why we are going there; and the object of the Commission to which I belong.
In the year 1587, we learn, that a Captain Cavendish, in order to repair his shattered fortunes, fitted out three ships for the purpose of plundering on the high seas. After many unsuccessful raids, we next hear of him lurking in his ship behind a spit of land, Cape St. Lucas, on the Californian coast (a prominent rocky bluff, not unlike ‘the Needles,’), waiting for the ‘St. Anna,’ a galleon freighted with rich merchandise and a hundred and twenty-two thousand Spanish dollars. She heaves in sight, little dreaming of her danger; is pounced upon, boarded, and taken, her treasure transferred to the hold of the buccaneer; the crew rowed ashore, and their ship set on fire. Death seemed inevitable, when a breeze, which soon increased to a gale, drifting the burning hull on the rocks providentially proved a means of escape, for a raft was made, and launched. Upon this the men stood out to sea.
After enduring frightful privations, a friendly ship picked them up, and they eventually reached Europe in safety. Amongst the sailors rescued from the raft was a Greek, Apostolos Valerianos, who for some reason was nick-named by his shipmates Juan de Fuca. Nine years after his escape from the raft we hear of him in Venice.
In 1596 Mr. Locke, a merchant, and his friend John Douglas, a sea-captain, were residing in Venice, and nightly smoked their pipes at a snug wine-shop, the resort of sea-faring men. A constant visitor at this house of entertainment was a pilot on the Greek seas, who had attracted Douglas’s attention by the wonderful stories he related; so much so that he induced his friend, Mr. Locke, to listen to the old man’s adventures.[1]
The story of the raft we already know. The remainder was to the effect that he entered into the service of the Viceroy of Mexico, by whom he was sent, in a smallcaraval, to explore the Californian coast. He managed to reach lat. 47° N., and finding the coast inclined towards the N. & NE., and that a wide expanse of sea opened out between 47° lat., his position, and 48°, he entered the Strait, and sailed through it for twenty days. Finding the land still tended to NE. & NW. and also E. & SE., he proceeded, passing through groups of beautiful islands, and so sailed on until he came into the North Sea; but being quite unarmed, and finding the natives very hostile, he made his way back, and reported his discovery of the entrance to what he believed the North-West Passage.
But the Viceroy was not impressed with the value of the old man’s report, and paid him nothing for it. Disgusted with the government and all belonging to it, he worked his way back to the Mediterranean, and we next meet with him as a pilot on the Adriatic.
Master Locke at once wrote to Sir Walter Raleigh, Master Hakluyt, and to Lord Cecil,asking for 100l.to bring over the mariner who possessed such a knowledge of the north-west coast. All thought the information invaluable, but no one felt disposed to pay the money. Time wore on; the old storm-worn pilot, growing feeble, left for his native island. Locke again and again urged his request. At last the long-coveted means came, but too late, the old sailor was no more.
This strange story was current in England long after he who told it was dead and forgotten. A few believed it, but the many thought it an entire fabrication.
In 1776, Captain Cook missed the entrance to the Straits, and, mistaking the west side of Vancouver Island for the mainland, reported the story to be a fiction as told by the old sailor. It will suffice for explanation to skip a crowd of events, and take up the narrative of the discovery of the island in 1792, when Captain Vancouver was sent to Nootka Sound, for what purpose does not matter now. Coasting southwards, he entered the Straits, and eventually came out at Queen Charlotte Sound: which settled the question. The Island bears the name of itsdiscoverer (Vancouver Island), the Straits that of the old sailor (Juan de Fuca).
By the treaty of Washington, the 49th pl. of lat. N. was to be the recognisedBoundary Line, the course through the sea to be the centre of the Gulf of Georgia, and thence southward through theChannelwhich separates the continent from Vancouver Island, to the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
The duties of our Commission were to mark the Boundary line from the coast to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.
May 1866.