Vancouver Expedition

Britain was especially interested in improving its knowledge of the Southern Pacific whale fisheries, and in particular the locations of the strategically positioned Australia, New Zealand, the legendary (and non-existent) Isla Grande, and the Northwest Passage.

[1] Plans changed when the adventurer John Meares reported that the Spanish had impounded his ship and seized hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of goods at Nootka Sound.

Proposals to establish a British settlement on the Northwest Coast had been discussed in commercial and official circles in the 1780s, encouraged by the success of the similar project at Botany Bay and Norfolk Island.

During the war scare with Spain that resulted from the arrest of the British fur traders at Nootka Sound, plans were made for a small party of convicts and marines to be sent from New South Wales to make a subsidiary settlement on the Northwest Coast: one of the ships to be used for this task was to have been the Discovery, which Vancouver afterwards commanded during his expedition.

He was also instructed "to receive back in form a restitution of the territories on which the Spaniards had seized, and also to make an accurate survey of the coast, from the 30th degree of north latitude northwestward toward Cook's River; and further, to obtain every possible information that could be collected respecting the natural and political state of that country."

These explorations were in part to discover water communication into the North American interior (whether a Northwest Passage or, more likely, navigable rivers existed) and to facilitate the research of the expedition's politically well-connected botanist, Archibald Menzies.

A change to a more conciliatory British policy toward Spain after he left England in April 1791, a result of challenges arising from the French Revolution, was not communicated to Vancouver, leaving him in an embarrassing situation in his negotiations with the Spanish commander at Nootka.

Spain desired to set the Spanish-British boundary at the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but Vancouver insisted on British rights to the Columbia River.

Following the Mutiny on the Bounty, the Admiralty had ordered the precaution that ships not make such long voyages alone;[citation needed] therefore the armed tender HMS Chatham was assigned to the expedition.

A Hawaiian man named Towereroo, whom Captain Charles Duncan had brought to England, was put on Discovery that he might return home.

[6] They reached Santa Cruz in Tenerife on 28 April; this was intended as a rest stop and opportunity to study the botany of the region, but ended in a drunken brawl in which several members of the crew were thrown into the bay or suffered injuries.

[10] He was disturbed by the frequent request for firearms, and tried to avoid escalating the ongoing civil war, spending the winter in Oʻahu, where, however, three of his men were killed in a skirmish (or possibly following it; taken to Puʻu o Mahuka Heiau to be ritually sacrificed).

On 21 June 1792, dealing with poor weather and dwindling food supplies, Vancouver decided to head back to HMS Discovery some 84 miles away; on their return they encountered the Spanish ships under the respective commands of Capt.

[18] In August, while Vancouver was exploring in small boats to the north, Daedalus arrived in Nootka Sound and dispatched the brig HMS Venus with the news that her Captain, Richard Hergest, and William Gooch, sent as astronomer for the expedition, had been murdered on Oahu.

Thus enlarged, the expedition moved south; Whidbey in Daedalus surveying Grays Harbor while the other two ships dared the bar of the Columbia River.

Vancouver sailed south along the coast of Alta California, visiting Chumash villages at Point Conception and near Mission San Buenaventura.

During their winter in Hawaii, the Discovery sailed around the north side of the Island of Hawaiʻi, and the Chatham the south, meeting at Kealakekua Bay.

Over the winter, Vancouver ordered numerous improvements to the small boats that did the detailed survey work, to provide better shelter and supplies for the crew.

On the 21st they were hit by a storm, only being saved by the timely arrival of a whaleboat sent out from the Butterworth of London, under William Brown, whose merchant squadron was safely anchored off the north coast of Stephens Island.

While Vancouver explored to the heads of Portland Canal, Fillmore and Nakat Inlets, and Boca de Quadra and circumnavigated Revillagigedo Island (during which he was attacked by Tlingit near what was named Escape Point, having two of his men injured), Johnstone and Barrie explored the channels to the southeast, including Work Channel and Khutzeymateen and Quottoon Inlets.

Vancouver continued to negotiate with Kamehameha; on 25 February, the King made a formal proclamation of accession, declaring that they were "Tanata no Britanee" (People of Britain).

The weather was often freezing, as a result of which not only their store of live turtles (kept for meat) but Menzies' quarterdeck greenhouse froze, killing all his plants.

Brigadier General José Manuel de Álava, the new Governor of Nootka, was cooperative and friendly, but no instructions had arrived to enable the commanders to resolve the situation.

Vancouver therefore put into Valparaiso in the Viceroyalty of Peru and present day Chile, on 25 March for five weeks of repairs with the help of the Spanish.

The expedition's officers enjoyed an official visit to the Capitan General and Royal Governor of Chile, Don Ambrosio O'Higgins de Vallenar, at the capital Santiago.

The onset of Southern Hemisphere's winter and the badly worn condition of the ships made further survey of the Chilean coast impractical and passage for Cape Horn hazardous.

About this time, Lt. Broughton and Lt. Mudge left England in HMS Providence to assist Vancouver; they reached Monterey long after the expedition made its final departure.

On 2 July, Discovery and Chatham put in at St. Helena and learned that the nation was at war; their battered ships were nearly the weakest vessels in the Atlantic.

Off the Cape Verde Islands, Discovery caught up with a British convoy escorted by HMS Sceptre and, in relative safety, arrived at Shannon.

Vancouver departed the ship to report; Baker brought Discovery safely home to Long Reach on the Thames, completing her four-and-a-half-year mission on 20 October 1795.