as a free-
booter or pirate, plundering Spanish merchant vessels, and as such, his acts could not confer any title on the English government ; and for that reason his govern- ment never took advantage of any discoveries he made.
And notwithstanding the fact, that the Spaniards were the first discoverers of the Oregon coast, for some reason, never explained, they did not make these dis- coveries known to the world at that time ; but waited until after Captain James Cook, as the representative of Great Britain, made his famous voyage to the Oregon coast in 1778. Cook sailed from Plymouth, England, eight days after the American Declaration of Independence had been signed up by the Continental Congress ; a fact which could not have been at that time known in England. These dates are given to show that the new born nation of the United States, had not, at the time the Spanish and English claims to Oregon were set up, yet achieved a national organization, existence or recognition before the world ; and was not therefore bound by the comity laws of nations which gave away great countries on rights of discovery.
But Captain Cook saw no part of the coast of America on this voyage, which had not been previously seen by the Spanish navigators, Perez, Heceta and Bodega.
The question was raised later on by England, that Spain had negotiated away its rights to Oregon, by a treaty entered into October, 1790; which provides that Spain should restore to Great Britain, the possession of property and ships taken from the British by force at Nootka Sound, by the Spanish Captain Martinez, in May, 1779. And as this incident has figured prominently, not only in the history of those times, but also in the diplomacy and treaty rights of the United States and England, a resume of the facts therewith connected, will now be given. From a trifling incident of Captain Cook's voyage to the west coast of Oregon in 1778, the attention of all the trading nations was attracted to this country. Cook got from the Indians, and carried away to China, a small bale of furs, which on being ofifered for sale, at once dazzled the eyes of all traders in Chinese ports for their superiority to anything of the kind ever seen before, and the vast fur trade to northwest America started right there.
But when the British sea-rovers and independent traders sought to go into the fur trade, they were handicapped by the regulations and franchise grants of their own country. In pursuance of its immemorial policy of granting spe- cial privileges to royal favorites, the British government had divided up the earth between two chartered companies, and had granted to the South Sea Company the sole right to trade in all seas and countries westward of Cape Horn ; and to the British East India Company, the sole right to trade in all seas and countries east of the Cape of Good Hope; and by these grants all British subjects, not connected with either one of these great monopolies, were prohibited from trading in all seas, territories and islands in that vast portion of the world lying between the Cape of Good Hope eastward to a line drawn north and south through Cape Horn, or vice versa, westward from the merid- ian of Cape Horn to the meridian passing through the Cape of Good Hope; and British subjects desiring to engage in Pacific ocean commerce or Pacific coast fur trade in America, or in the China or East India trade, were obliged to obtain permission of one of these great companies and fly their flag, or not trade at all. If old England has not set the pace for monopolies, where did they begin? /
Of course, these monopolies could not prevent the Chinese, as an indepen- dent nation, from trading here ; or from granting ships rights to trade. But old China was not slow at a bargain, and put up the price of grants and port charges to excessive prices on everybody except the Portuguese.
To evade these exactions of the Chinese, and the prohibitions of these Brit- ish charters, several British merchants residing in India, desiring to engage in the rich fur trade to America, associated themselves together under the name of a Portuguese merchant, and procured from the Portuguese gove
