CHAPTER V.

DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST COAST.

1543-1775.

BARTOLOMÉ FERRELO-DID NOT PASS THE FORTY-SECOND PARALLEL-FRAN CIS DRAKE-HIS VOYAGE-DIFFERENT VERSIONS-THE FAMOUS VOY. AGE- THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED - FLETCHER'S FALSEHOODS - THE LIMIT CANNOT BE FIXED-DRAKE POSSIBLY REACHED LATITUDE FORTYTHREE-AND WAS THE DISCOVERER OF OREGON-GALI'S VOYAGE NOT EXTENDING TO NORTHERN WATERS-SEBASTIAN VIZCAINO AND MARTIN AGUILAR-POINT ST GEORGE, IN 41° 45', THE NORTHERN LIMIT-REVIVAL OF EXPLORATION UNDER CARLOS III.-EXPEDITION OF JUAN PEREZ TO LATITUDE FIFTY-FIVE-INSTRUCTIONS AND RESULTS-NAMES APPLIED-INTERCOURSE WITH INDIANS-DISCOVERY OF NOOTKA-THE WHOLE COAST DISCOVERED-SECOND EXPLORATION UNDER BRUNO HECETA TO THE FORTY-NINTH PARALLEL-FIRST LANDING IN OREGONSEVEN SPANIARDS KILLED BY INDIANS-DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA— VOYAGE OF BODEGA Y CUADRA, AFTER PARTING FROM HECETA, TO THE FIFTY-EIGHTH PARALLEL.

We now come to the actual exploration of the Pacific coast above latitude forty-two. The first epoch of that exploration extends chronologically down to 1774, and includes four expeditions only: those of Ferrelo in 1543, of Drake in 1579, of Gali in 1584, and of Vizcaino and Aguilar in 1603. These are the only voyages, if we except the apocryphal one of Juan de Fuca in 1596, in which European navigators reached, or claimed to reach, with any degree of plausibility, the Oregon Territory. All of them belong more closely to the annals of the south than of the north, and have therefore been fully described in earlier volumes of this series.

Bartolomé Ferrelo, the successor of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, commanding two small vessels, the San

Salvador and Victoria, despatched by the Spanish government to explore as far northward as possible, being the first European craft to sail on Californian waters, left Cape Pinos, in latitude 39° as he believed, February 25, 1543. For three days he ran north-westward, one night's sailing meanwhile being southward, with a strong south-west wind, until on the 28th he was in latitude 43°. During one night he kept on north-westward, but on March 1st was struck by a gale and driven north-eastward toward the land and destruction. Before the vessels struck, however, there came a storm with rain, which drove them back and saved them. The highest latitude as estimated by Ferrelo was 44°. It does not appear that any land was seen above a point some twenty leagues from Cape Pinos; but at the northern limit birds and floating wood indicated the nearness of land, hidden by the fog; and farther south, between latitude 41° and 43°, indications of a large river were seen or imagined. On the return Cape Pinos was sighted on March 3d. The northern cruise had lasted six days.1

The narrative supplying no description of landmarks in the north, Ferrelo's northern limit must be determined by his latitude and by his sailing from Point Pinos. Taking his highest observation in 43°, deducting an excess of from 1° 30' to 2° noted in all his latitudes on the Californian coast, and accepting his own estimate of progress after the observation of February 28th, we have 42° or 42° 30' as the highest point reached. The result of the other test depends mainly on the identity of Pinos. If that point was

The source of all real information about this voyage is the Cabrillo, Relacion, or original diary, probably written by Juan Paez, and printed in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiv. 165–91, and in Florida, Col. Doc., 173-89. Other works that may be consulted on the subject, containing comments and slight variations, are: Herrera, dec. vii. lib. v. cap. iii.-iv.; Venegas, Not. Cal., i. 181-3; Laet, Novus Orbis, 306–7; Navarrete, in Sutil y Mexicana, Viage, xxix.-xxxvi.; Id., Viages Apóc., 32-4; Taylor's First Voyage to the Coast of Cal...by Cabrillo; Burney's Chron. Hist., i. 220-5; and Evans and Henshaw, Translation and Notes, in U. S. Geog. Surv., Wheeler, vii. arch., pp. 293-314. There are plenty of further references, but they lead to no addi tional information.

as high as Point Arena of the present maps, as has been claimed by some, then perhaps latitude 42° is not too high for Ferrelo's position on March 1st; but if Pinos was the point still so called at Monterey, as the evidence most convincingly indicates, then it is tolerably certain that no higher latitude than that of Cape Mendocino was attained. To present the arguments would be to repeat needlessly my account of the voyage to California, to which I refer the reader." At the most Ferrelo, without seeing land, passed some thirty miles beyond the present Oregon boundary; but it is almost certain that he did not enter Oregon waters; and it is my opinion, as expressed in a former volume of this series, that he did not pass Cape Mendocino.

Francis Drake's claims to be considered the discoverer of Oregon are in some respects better than those of the Levantine pilot, though not beyond the reach of doubt. The English corsair, having entered the Pacific by way of Magellan Strait, and having well-nigh loaded his vessel, the Golden Hind, with Spanish plunder on the coasts of South and Central America, set sail from Guatulco, on the coast of Oajaca, in 15° 40', on April 16, 1579. His purpose was to find if possible a northern passage by which he might return to England, thus avoiding not only the long and stormy southern route, but also possible risky encounters with the Spaniards he had robbed. His course lay far out into the ocean north-westward until early in June, when he approached the land somewhere between 42° and 48°, according to his own. observations or estimates. He even anchored in a bad harbor; but on account of rough weather, and particularly of excessive cold, very grossly exaggerated in the narrative, decided to abandon the search for a strait and to return southward, which he did, following the coast down to 38°, or thereabout, to a Californian

2

1 See Hist. Cal., vol. i. chap. iii., this series, where also a long list of references is given.

port respecting the identity of which I have had much to say elsewhere.

In the first printed account, that published by Hakluyt in 1589, it was stated that the northern limit of Drake's voyage was latitude 42°, reached on June 5th;3 and there was an inscription to the same effect on Hondius' map, made before the end of the century, which I have already reproduced. As early as 1592 the English annalist Stow, as quoted by Twiss, wrote: "He passed forth northward, till he came to the latitude of forty-seven, thinking to have come that way home, but being constrained by fogs and cold winds to forsake his purpose, came backward to the line ward the tenth of June 1579, and stayed in the latitude of thirty-eight, to grave and trim his ship, until the five and twenty of July." Again, in 1595 John Davis the navigator wrote: "After Sir Francis Drake was entered into the South Seas, he coasted all the western shores of America until he came into the septentrional latitude of forty-eight degrees, being on the back side of Newfoundland."5 Löw in 1598 gave the limit as 42°, probably following Hakluyt, as did Camden in 1615.6 In an anonymous discourse of the century, written perhaps by one of Drake's associates, we read: "Here Drake watered his ship and departed, sayling northwards till he came to 48. gr. of the septentrionall latitud, still finding a very lardge sea trending toward the north, but being afraid to spend long time in seeking for the straite, hee turned backe againe, still keping along the cost as nere land as hee might, vntill hee came to 44. gr.," that is, Drake

3 Hakluyt's Voy., London, 1589. I have not seen this edition, but take the statement of Twiss, Hist. Or., 26–57.

*See map before given. The dotted line shows Drake's route, and the inscription, not copied, is opposite the northern termination of that line. I take the map from the Hakluyt Society reprint of Drake's World Encompassed, the editor of which work states that it was originally attached to a Dutch narrative of the voyage, Corte beschryvinghe, etc., apparently a condensed translation of a document similar to the World Encompassed.

5 Davis' World's Hydrog. Discov., as cited by Greenhow and Twiss. Low, Meer oder Sechanen Buch, 48; Camden, Annales Rervm Angli carum, cited by Twiss.

DRAKE'S LYING PREACHER.

7

141

Bay, on the California coast. In his edition of 1600 Hakluyt made a change in the latitude and wrote: "Hee beganne to thinke of his best way to the Malucos, and finding himselfe where hee now was becalmed, hee saw that of necessitie hee must bee enforced to take a Spanish course, namely to saile somewhat Northerly to get a winde. Wee therefore set saile, and sayled 600. leagues at the least for a good winde, and thus much we sailed from the 16. of April, till the 3. of June. The 5. day of June, being in 43. degrees towards the pole Arcticke, wee found the ayre so colde, that our men being grieuously pinched with the same, complained of the extremitie thereof, and the further we went, the more the colde increased upon us. Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seeke the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till wee came within 38 degrees towards the line."

Hakluyt's account was followed by Purchas and by most other early writers, except De Laet, who made latitude 40° the northern limit.10 The author of the Famous Voyage is not known; but it is not unlikely that Hakluyt himself compiled it from papers and verbal statements of Drake's companions. A new account was compiled and published in 1628 by Drake's nephew from the notes of Francis Fletcher, who accompanied the corsair as chaplain or preacher, and of others."1

I proceed to quote all of this narrative relating to

"A discourse of Sir Francis Drakes iorney, MS. of British Museum, in Hakluyt Soc. ed. of Drake's World Encompassed, 183-4.

Here we notice the search for a northern strait is ignored altogether. The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, in Hakluyt's Voy., iii. 440, 736-7.

10 Laet, Novus Orbis, 307. Greenhow cites Laet as following Hakluyt. "Drake, The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, Being his next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios formerly imprinted; Carefully collected out of the Notes of Master Francis Fletcher, Preacher in this imployment, and diners others his followers in the same, etc. London, 1628; also eds. of 1632 and 1635. The latest and best is that of the Hakluyt Society of 1854, with appendices and introduction by W. S. W. Vaux. The appendices include the Famous Voyage, from Hakluyt, and also several MS. narratives or fragments on the subject-in fact all the evidence existing on the voyage.