NAME OF THE OREGON COUNTRY 333
accounts of that expedition; that the first party of Spanish
i^f ^ u ndCr RiV6ra reached San Die S on May 14th, 1769; and that before 1775 the Spanish colonies in upper Cali- fornia enjoyed an abundance of means of subsistence, such
MA' < ? ttle ' and a S ricultural Products; and that between 1774 and 1779 three exploring voyages of the west coast were made by order of the Spanish Government and under the direction of the Marine Department of San Bias, at the entrance of the California Gulf, established for the purpose of promoting active exploration of the Northwest Coast. 3
The Russians, having in 1711 subjugated the whole of North Asia, were looking for more something beyond their recently fixed ocean boundaries further east in the direction of the Spanish, French and British settlement in America. To this end were directed the efforts of Bering and Tchirikoff during the years 1728-1729, and of Lieutenant Synd, Captains Kremnitz and Levascheff between 1766-1774. But, like the Spanish Government, the wise men who governed Holy Russia for some reasons systematically suppressed all accounts of these voyages until 1774, when J. L. Staehlin, Councillor of State to Empress Catherine, prepared a circumstantial account of the principal voyages between 1741 and 1770 from the orig- inal records in possession of the Russian government. 4
While Spain and Russia were thus actively engaged in secur- ing by right of discovery and possession the extension of their sovereign claims on the Northwesterly coast of America, Great Britain, it seems, directed every possible effort towards consolidating her interests on the Eastern or Atlantic coast. In 1771 Samuel Hearne, an agent of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, acting under its instructions to investigate the North- west Country, made three journeys between 1769 and 1772;
3 The First Voyage, under Ensign Juan Perez, reached the 54th parallel on July 18, 1774; the Second voyage under Captain Bruno Heceta sailed March IS, 1775, discovered the entrance of the Columbia on August 15th, reached the 58th parallel, found it very difficult to proceed further and turned southward on November 20th (Heceta's Discoveries are unquestionable) ; and the Third voyage, under Captain Ignacio Artega and Lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, sailed on February 7th, 1779, returning on November 2ist without, how- ever, adding to what was accomplished by Perez and Heceta.
4 The records are curious and interesting, but they throw very little light on the great geographical questions relative to the part of the world which then remained unsolved, and the accompanying chart only serves, at present, to show more conspicuously the value of the discoveries effected by other nations- Robert Greenhow, The History of Oregon and California and the Other Terri- tories on the Northwest Coast of America, Chap. V, p. 138, D. Appleton, N. Y.,
