Russian explorers as well as anxiety about possible use of a supposed northwest passage incited the Spaniards to activity in exploration beginning in 1774. In the next few years under Perez, Heceta and Cuadra a cursory inspection of the coast was made from the 55th parallel south. No Russian trespassers were detected nor was the fabled northwest passage or Straits of Anian discovered. However, Heceta in 1775 did detect evidences of the mouth of a large river in latitude 46° 9′, but did not succeed in entering it. At this time James Cook, the English navigator, was dispelling the darkness that was still hovering over the south Pacific region. On his third voyage of discovery spurred by an offer of Parliament of 20,000 for the discovery of a northwest passage through the continent of North America he passed up along the northwest coast in 1778 and made a landing in Nootka Sound. The immediate and moving outcome of his voyage was the disclosure of the opportunity of riches through trade in sea-otter furs to be secured from the northwest Indians for trifles and marketed in China. Beginning in 1785 the grand rush in this maritime fur trade was on. The flags of half-a-dozen nations were soon in evidence in these waters. Some of the English fur traders took steps looking towards a permanent occupation of the shore at Nootka Sound. This was resented by the Spanish authorities as they had priority in discovery and had occupied the coast, though their post was some 750 miles to the south. Seizures and a diplomatic controversy followed that seriously threatened war between Spain and England in 1790. In the meantime inlets offering means of trade contacts with the Indians were being spied out and visited more and more frequently by vessels plying back and forth and up and down the coast. "In the year 1792, there were twenty-one vessels under different flags," writes Washington Irving, "plying along the coast and trading with the natives." Log books and seamen's journals were kept and reports were made. As they pertained to the affairs of a lucrative trade and some of them had to do with a hot international controversy they were in part preserved and not a few, especially those whose authors had public commissions, and those that had a bearing on disputed
