John Meares (c. 1756 – 1809) was an English navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.

[3] He sailed from Calcutta on 12 March 1786, in the Nootka, a vessel of 200 tons (bm), with which he explored part of the coast of Alaska.

Twenty-three of his men died of scurvy and the remaining ten were saved only by the timely arrival of Captain George Dixon, a British trader with proper licences, in the Queen Charlotte.

[4] The land and building aside, there is no doubt that Meares' men, and a group of Chinese workers they brought, built the sloop North West America.

He took Tianna to Guangzhou (Canton), China, where Meares found a Hawaiian woman by the name of Wynee, who had been left there by captain Charles William Barkley of the Imperial Eagle.

"[9] During the winter of 1788–89 Meares was in Guangzhou (Canton), China, where he and others formed a partnership called the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast of America.

Plans were made for more ships to sail to the Pacific Northwest in 1789, including the Princess Royal, under Thomas Hudson, and the Argonaut under James Colnett.

On a 1788 voyage to Alaska, Esteban José Martínez had learned that the Russians were intending to establish a fortified outpost at Nootka Sound.

[10] This, in addition to the increasing use of Nootka Sound by British fur traders, resulted in the Spanish decision to assert sovereignty on the northwest coast once and for all.

Spain hoped to establish and maintain sovereignty on the entire coast as far north as the Russia posts in Prince William Sound.

The other two ships were American, the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington, under John Kendrick and Robert Gray, which had wintered at Nootka Sound.

The North West America was renamed Santa Saturnina and used by José María Narváez to explore the Strait of Georgia in 1791.

He arrived in April 1790, confirmed various rumors, claimed to have bought land and built a settlement at Nootka before Martínez, and generally fanned the flames of anti-Spanish feelings.

He submitted a report to the Home secretary William Wyndham Grenville, in which he exaggerated the permanence of his settlement in Nootka Sound and the financial losses sustained by his company.

of Frome, [Cornwall], to Miss Mary Anne Guilleband, at the Abbey church, Bath" was noted in The Whitehall Evening Post of 9 July 1796.

The death of John Meares, "a Commander in his Majesty’s Navy", at Bath on 29 January 1809, was noted in a newspaper advertisement by his solicitors inviting his creditors to a meeting at the George and Vulture Tavern, Cornhill, London, to take consideration of the state of his affairs.