CONTENTdm
British Columbia Historical Books Collection
The Canadian historical studies, a library of historical research
Dixon, George, -1800?
Meares, John, 1756?-1809
Howay, F. W. (Frederic William), 1867-1943
"(Half-title: The Canadian historical studies, a library of historical research...). 500 copies printed. A reprint of the three pamphlets (nos. 148, 148A, 362) each with a separate t.p., with introduction and footnotes by Howay."-- Strathern, G. M., & Edwards, M. H. (1970). Navigations, traffiques & discoveries, 1774-1848: A guide to publications relating to the area now British Columbia. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 133.
156 pages : frontispiece (illustration), maps ; 25 cm
application/pdf
THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES fi t THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES A LIBRARY OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH General Editor Lorne Pierce, Toronto Associate Editors Lawrence J. Burpee, Ottawa Louis Carrier, Montreal ^Egidius Fauteux, Bibliotheque Saint-Sulpice, Montreal His Honour F. W. Howay, New Westminster George H. Locke, Chief Librarian, Toronto Chester Martin, University of Manitoba Duncan McArthur, Queen's University C. W. Jefferys, University of Toronto Pierre-Georges Roy, Archiviste, de la Province, Quebec Colonel William Wood, Quebec Of this edition of THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY, edited by His Honour Judge F. W. Howay, five hundred copies only have been printed, of which four hundred and fifty are supplied to subscribers. This is number t^J\f\3 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Containing, Remarks on the Voyages of John Meares by George Dixon, An Answer to Mr. George Dixon, by John Meares, and Further Remarks on the Voyages of John Meares, by George Dixon Edited by F. W. HOWAY THE RYERSON PRESS TORONTO LOUIS CARRIER & CO MONTREAL — NEW YORK — LONDON Copyright, Canada, 1929, by THE RYERSON PRESS, Toronto AND LOUIS CARRIER & CO, Montreal PRINTED IN CANADA i GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD THIS volume initiates a historical series of unusual interest and importance. Possibly at no other period in Canadian history has so much attention been given to painstaking research. The wealth of our national and provincial archives is being realized and explored. Documents and original studies of international value are coming to light, but with no adequate, medium available for their publication. Our historical journals are not suited to works of an extended nature, while publishers are chary of assuming unnecessary risks. Learned societies are likewise restricted in the materials which they can advantageously include in their transactions and monographs. The fringe of our historical treasures has scarcely been touched. An increasing amount of worth-while material will be produced, to the credit of students in Canadian history, and much of it will be worthy of publication. The Canadian Historical Studies, therefore, meet a real need. Original documents, not easily accessible, and authoritative studies of outstanding importance, by scholars of recognised ability, will be included in this Series from time to time. No sectional interest will be served, but rather the interests of Canadian history as a whole, east and west, and from the earliest times to the present. There is scarcely a national character or event upon which more light is not needed. Until this candid inquiry is made, no appreciable advance can be recorded in any general history of the Dominion. His Honour F. W. Howay, LL.B., F.R.S.C., F.R. Hist. S., the editor of this volume, is one of the best known historians of xii GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD Canada. In his chosen field of North-West Coast history he is unrivalled. For many years he has contributed to the transactions and journals of the learned societies of Canada and the United States. Both the Oregon and Massachusetts Historical Societies have elected him to honorary membership. His published works include, British Columbia from the Earliest Times to the Present, four volumes (with E. O. S. Scholefield), Early History of the Fraser River Mines, and British Columbia: The Making of a Province. In the following work the side pagination reproduces that of the original brochures, and the references in the nrjtes are invariably to it. The notes indicated by asterisks appear in the original pamphlets. As they were originally printed the long "s" was used throughout, but it has been considered advisable to conform to the modern practice, except in Further Remarks, which closely follows the old style. The title pages preceding each pamphlet are facsimile reproductions of the originals. The italicization also follows that in the originals. LORNE PIERCE CONTENTS GENERAL EDITOR'S FOREWORD .... xi INTRODUCTION 1 DIXON'S REMARKS 25 MEARES'S ANSWER 53 DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 91 w LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page FRONTISPIECE: THE LONG BOAT OF THE FELICE SECTION OF CAPTAIN COOK'S CHART ... 26 SECTION OF JOHN MEARES'S CHART: THE TRACK OF THE WASHINGTON .... 39 SECTION OF JOHN MEARES'S CHART: COOK'S RIVER AND VICINITY .... 44 TRACK OF THE SNOW EXPERIMENT ... 98 CAPTAIN DUNCAN'S SKETCH OF THE ENTRANCE OF THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA Ill CAPTAIN JAMES HANNA'S CHART .... 122 JOHN MEARES'S MAP: JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO COOK'S RIVER 147 I INTRODUCTION "Varius Sucronensis ait; Aemilius Scaurus negat. Utri creditis Quirites ?" THERE is always something alluring in stories of the genesis and development of quarrels, especially where the disputants are well known. Some may see in this attraction the remains of man's inherent love of contest; others may ascribe it merely to the common interest in gossip. All music lovers know of the rivalry, developing into intense and heated controversy, that arose*between Handel and Bononcini. The veriest tyro in English Literature has heard of the disputes that chequered the life of Pope, "The wicked wasp of Twickenham;" his quarrels with Addison, with Curll the publisher, with Colley Cibber, and all the rest. The wordy contest between Bentley and Boyle enriched our litera- ture with "A Dissertation on the Epistles of the Ancients" from the pen of the greatest classical scholar that England has ever produced, and in reply a work almost as famous: Boyle's Examination of Bentley's Dissertation. Usually these inky conflicts arose from a difference of opinion between author and critic as to the real merit of some literary composition with, in Pope's case, the added factor of constitutional crankiness. In the by-ways of the history of British Columbia lies the quarrel between Captain Dixon and Captain Meares. But, differing from the disputes amongst literary men, this does not arise from a variance of opinion. It is a plain case of disagreement on the facts; those stated by one are denied by the other. Both of these men had been in command of trading: vessels in the early days of the maritime trade when sea-otter skins 1 2 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY were, as Falstaff said of reasons, "as plenty as blackberries." But Dixon had been on the Northwest Coast before the sea- otter trade had even been dreamed of; at that time (1778), he was armourer on the Discovery, one of Captain Cook's ships. Dixon and Meares were contemporaries in the maritime fur-trade., Dixon arrived on the coast in July, 1786 and Meares in August, 1786. On that visit (1786-1787) Meares was in command of the Nootka, an ill-starred venture, flying the British flag. In 1788 he commanded the expedition of the Felice and the Iphigenia which, though in reality British ships, were masquerading under the colours of Portugal. In the following year two of his vessels flying the British flag and two others that of Portugal, yet all four actually British, were seized by Spain for illegal trading in Nootka Sound, which she claimed to be a portion of her territorial waters. Dixon sailed from England in 1785 in charge of the Queen Charlotte, the consort of the King George under Portlock who was the commander of the expedition. These ships, both British and flying the British flag, were on the Northwest Coast in 1786 and 1787. At that time two great monopolies closed the Pacific ocean to British commerce. The South Sea Company had the sole British trade of the western coast of America and within three hundred leagues thereof; while the East India Company had a similar privilege of exclusive trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. The King George and Queen Charlotte were operating under licenses from the two monopolizing companies. Both Portlock and Dixon published accounts of their voyage, but Dixon only became embroiled in the subsequent acrimonious discussion. Out of the seizure of Meares's ships came the international dispute known as the Nootka trouble which, at one time, threatened to precipitate an European war. It may be explained that, though the vessels are always called "Meares's," they INTRODUCTION 3 were in fact owned by the "Associated Merchants trading to the North West Coast of America," who were: John Meares, John Henry Cox, Richard Cadman Etches, John Etches, William Etches, William Fitzhugh, Henry Lane, and Daniel Beale. Meares, however, was throughout the spokesman for the association. The dispute involved two questions: Was the Pacific ocean a closed sea, whose commerce, fishery, and navigation belonged exclusively to Spain? Could the sovereignty of waste lands be obtanied by mere discovery and formal taking of possession without actual occupation and use? These main points of the international complication were amicably settled in favour of Britain, October 28, 1790, by the Nootka convention. Thereafter there remained, amongst other matters, the ascertainment of the amount of damages that Spain should pay to Meares and his associates for the seizure of their vessels and the destruction of their trade. Soon after the convention was signed Meares published his Voyages, z. pretentious quarto volume. On its appearance Dixon attacked him furiously in his Remarks on the Voyage of John Meares, charging him with half statements, false statements, and false pretences in claiming for himself the credit that belonged to others. Meares in An Answer to Mr. George Dixon endeavoured to free himself from these imputations, while admitting that Dixon's accusation of the appropriation of others' work was, in part, true. To aid him in drawing the proverbial red herring across the track he introduced some quibbling, many personalities, and a few counter charges, as, for instance, that Dixon had failed to obey his owners' instructions, was an incompetent seaman, and other irrelevant topics. To support some of his assertions he announced his willingness to abide by the testimony of Captain Duncan, who had been on the coast in command of the Princess Royal. Dixon re-entered the contest in Further Remarks on 1 m THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY the Voyages of John Meares, Esq., in which he condescended to notice many trifling inaccuracies in Meares's volume and finally routed his opponent by publishing a lengthy letter from Duncan completely sustaining him and categorically denying many of Meares's statements. These three pamphlets, now amongst the rarest in Northwest Americana, form an interesting episode in the history of the Pacific coast. They cast grave doubts not only upon the veracity of Meares as regards the disputed facts, but also upon the whole of his statements. Incidentally they are of great value for the numerous important items which they contribute to our knowledge of the early days of the maritime fur-trade. The person who casually reads Meares's huge quarto and these pamphlets may well say with Omar that he has "heard great Argument About it and about; but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went." It may therefore be well in considering this quarrel, since the two men are constantly at issue on the facts, to show the opinions that their contemporaries held of them respectively as well as their agreement or dis-agreement with the disputants upon other matters, and thus to obtain some assistance in determining which of them is, probably, stating the truth. II First, then, as to Meares's conduct and his reputation for veracity. The American vessels, Columbia and Washington, met Meares, in 1788, at Nootka sound, and Haswell in his Log of their voyage under the date of September 16, 1788, writes: "Capt. Mears protested that both vessels {Felice and Iphigenia) ever since they had been on the coast had INTRODUCTION 5 not collected fifty skins; on our smiling (for we had been differently informed) he said it was a fact upon his sacred word of honour. So intent was this gentleman on deceiving us that he hesitated not to forfeit his word and honour to what we were convinced was a notorious falsity." A little later Haswell has another complaint against Meares. He says that Meares, when about to sail to China in September 1788, offered to carry there any letters that the Americans wished to send; but as soon as his ship was clear of the sound Meares returned the packet, saying that he did not know to what port he might sail. In this conduct Haswell sees a deep diplomatic scheme to prevent the Americans from communicating with China: for had Meares refused to take the letters he knew full well that they would have been sent through some member of his crew. "Therefore," says Haswell, "(for I take him to be a man of deep penetration) he seemed obliging on that score that he might make sure of no letters going by any other conveyance." Meares in his Memorial states that his vessels, the Felice and the Iphigenia, had permission "to navigate under, or claim any Advantages granted to, the Portuguese Flag." Nowhere does he openly say that, for Portuguese purposes, they were the property of Juan Cavalho; though this appears to have been set out in the passport issued by the Governor of Macao. According to Meares the Portuguese flag was merely used "to evade the excessive high Port Charges demanded by the Chinese from all other European Nations, excepting the Portuguese." But when the American vessels arrived at Nootka, in September, 1788, Haswell says: "We found riding here the Felice Adventurer, John Meares, and the Iphigenia NuBiana, William Douglas, 1 i-iJi J 6 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY commanders, fitted from Macao in China and under Portuguese colours." A letter from Captain Gray of the Washington, dated July 13, 1789, says: "I arrived on the 16th of September and found two English snows and one schooner under Portuguese colours." And Captain Duncan tells that when he met Meares in the Felice off Nootka she was "under Portuguese colours" and that "On my first hailing him whence he came, I was answered, from Lisbon, and that she was commanded by Don Antonio Pedro Mannella, or some such stuff, which I knew to be false." This use of the Portuguese flag on the American coast could only have been, as Dixon claims, to evade the South Sea Company's monopoly. It certainly could not, there, have had anything to do with the alleged purpose of deceiving the wily Oriental. In his Voyages Meares shows the launching of the North West America with a British flag on the schooner and another on the fort; in his Memorial he states: "He built a House for his occasional Residence, as well as for the more convenient Pursuit of his Trade with the Natives, and hoisted the British Colours thereon." But Captain Duncan asserts in his letter that Meares informed him he had "At that time a small vessel on the stocks at Nootka; where he told me he had a fort, guns mounted, and Portuguese colours flying." According to Beresford, the author of Dixon's Voyage, Meares could not even tell the same story as his mate: "At one time they had purchased two thousand sea-otter skins; at another, not more than seven hundred." INTRODUCTION 7 In his journal Duffin records that Meares's longboat reached Port Hawkesbury (port San Juan) eleven leagues up the strait of Fuca even that distance was greatly over-estimated; but when Meares tells the story in his Voyages he expands this to "near thirty leagues." Meares in his Voyages and in his Memorial alleges that he purchased land at Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, from Maquin- na, the chief of the region; and in his amended claim, dated September 7, 1790, he includes a sum of £1,000 as the value of the goods given to the Indians in exchange. On the other hand Ingraham's manuscript journal asserts that, in September 1792, Maquinna made "a declaration that he had never sold any lands whatever to Mr. Mears or any other person except Captain Kendrick ,whom he acknowledged to be the proprietor of lands around Mawhinna. Captain Magee and Mr. Howell witnessed this declaration. If Mr. Mears did purchase the land he mentions no doubt a man of his penetration knowing the laws of his country had a deed drawn at the time . . ." In this connection the evidence of Ingraham and Gray, to be found in the appendix to Greenhow's History of Oregon, is to the same effect, even after allowing for its manifest bias. Roquefeuil, in his Voyage, declares that Maquinna told him, in regard to the alleged purchase by Meares, that "there had not been any act of cession or treaty between them." Meares in his Voyages says that Duncan complained to him of scurvy treatment by Dixon; Duncan comes forward and in his letter denies this categorically, and supports that denial by reference to the surrounding circumstances. In his "Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage" Meares refers to Juan de Fuca's alleged voyage and actually cites as a proof of its having been made, that de 1 if uea 8 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Fuca mentions the custom amongst certain Indian tribes of flattening the head. This is a pure invention by Meares; no such statement, or anything like it, is to be found in de Fuca's account. To crown all, Meares is not even consistent with himself. In pages 151 to 156 of his Voyages., he claims to have discovered, or re-discovered, the strait of Juan de Fuca; but on page lv he had written the truth: that Captain Barkley discovered that strait. Mrs. Barkley, in her manuscript "Reminiscences," had evidently this in mind when she wrote: "Captain Meares, however, with the greatest effrontery, published and claimed the merit of my husband's discoveries therein contained, besides inventing lies of the most revolting nature tending to vilify the person he thus pilfered." The evidence of the Spaniard, Martinez, is not introduced here as further contradiction of Meares, because there may be question whether either of them is telling the truth. These instances, which are not by any means all that could be adduced, are deemed sufficient to establish, as Manning says, "this gentleman's tendency to distort the truth," and to justify the student in doubting any important and uncorroborated statement made by Meares. They support the Indian chief, Maquinna, who, according to Mozino, dubbed him "Aita- aita Meares," which being interpreted, means "the lying Meares." As regards Dixon on the other hand his ability as a navigator has never been challenged by any one except Meares. Of him Mozino wrote in his Noticias de Nutka that he has "always been accredited with genius in navigation." The whole of the records of that period, both printed and written, save only those that came from the pen of Meares, will be searched in vain for the slightest contradiction of any of Dixon's state- INTRODUCTION 9 ments, or the least suggestion that he was not a man of honour and of scrupulous accuracy of expression. Milet-Mureau, the editor of La Perouse's Voyage, says in a note in volume II, page 288, (edition of 1799) that he has "embraced every occasion of proving with impartiality the confidence which is due to Dixon." Before passing from this subject it may be well to glance at the conduct of these men in their respective publications. Meares places on his chart the words: "Chart of the N. W. Coast of America and N. E. Coast of Asia, explored in the years 1778 and 1779 by Captn. Cook, and further explored in 1788 and 1789 by John Meares." The natural inference therefrom is that after Captain Cook's departure, Meares in 1788 was the first person to explore on the coast. The fact is that in the interval some ten vessels had been trading there to his knowledge. All of their charts and the sketches that were available had been used by Meares in the compilation of his chart, but he failed to acknowledge his indebtedness. Dixon, on the contrary, in the introduction to his Voyage takes responsibility for the chart therein, and then proceeds to indicate in detail the sources from which it had been compiled, and to give credit to the different persons whose work he had used in its construction. It is probable that not one of these three pamphlets was written by its nominal author. The following quotations from Meares's Answer, and from Dixon's Further Remarks, afford a certain support to that belief. In his Answer, on page 20, Meares says: "At the moment you were writing that curious piece of information or instructing others to write it . . ." And in his Further Remarks, page 11, Dixon retorts: "And here let me entreat you if hereafter you should publish any- 1 M m 1 mi- 10 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY thing of the kind first to get some person to write your account." At the end of the pamphlet, page 80, Dixon returns to this phase: "Let me recommend to you in future to employ a person who is master of his subject. Men can easily be found who can write in easy language and with flow of words on every subject without being master of any subject or science whatever." The internal evidence gives some colour to the view that the three pamphlets are the composition of hack writers. There is a felicity of expression, a skilful use of sarcasm and invective, together with a bountiful dispersion of biting adjectives and epithets, that indicate the practised dialectitian. They show the hands of people who, as Mr. Tulliver puts it in The Mill on the Floss, "know how to wrap things up in words as aren't actionable." Ill Next, as to the genesis of the trouble. Why did Dixon, of all the people in England who had been on the Northwest Coast, interest himself in exposing the falsity of many of the statements contained in Meares's Voyages} Even the most cursory reading of the pamphlets discloses a strong mutual personal animus. This had its origin in the meeting of Meares and Portlock and Dixon. Meares left Bengal in March, 1786, and, sailing by way of Japan, reached the Northwest Coast so late in the season that he determined to winter in Prince William's Sound on the Alaskan coast. Scurvy attacked his crew, and before the arrival of spring twenty-three of his ship's company had died. While the Nootka, Meares's vessel, lay ice-fast, Portlock and Dixon arrived from their wintering in the "Paradise of the Pacific." They appear to have rendered such assistance as humanity dictated and their means permitted. The versions left us by INTRODUCTION 11 1 § Portlock and Dixon on the one hand and by Meares on the other scarcely agree on any point of conduct; and the tones do not harmonize at all. Meares was a British subject in command of a British vessel, trading without a license in the monopoly territory of the South Sea Company — in plain English, a poacher. Portlock and Dixon were British; their ships also were British; but they had a license from the Company permitting them to trade in the region. They were lawfully, while he was unlawfully, on the coast. It may be said that they "chid his wanderings, but relieved his pain." They required from Meares a bond that he would sail for China without further trading. Meares complains of the exaction of this bond as harshness. He leaves the impression that Portlock and Dixon adopted this method, taking advantage of his forlorn situation, to rid themselves of a competitor. Nowhere does Meares refer to the fact that, being without a license, he was illegally in the trade. Nicol, who was a seaman on the King George, says in his Adventures, page 89: "Captain Portlock could have made a fair prize of him (Meares) as he had no charter and was trading in our limits; but he was satisfied with his bond not to trade on our coast." In telling the story of the dire distress of the Nootka Beres- ford, the author of Dixon's Vogaye, asserted that the scurvy had been aggravated by the free and unrestrained use of spirits which Meares had permitted. Hinc illae lacrimae. Meares took umbrage at this statement, which according" to Nicol's Adventures was true, and in his Voyages gave his version of the occurrences at Prince William's Sound; but always concealing the basic fact that he had been caught poaching and, instead of having his ship seized, had been allowed freely to depart on promising to poach no further. Whether he kept his bond or not cannot be ascertained, for, in his account of his 12 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY II Hn subsequent movements, he gives no data whereby his course and conduct can be exactly followed. That, however, is not unusual: it is always difficult, if not impossible, to identify the places he mentions. In his immense volume Meares lost no opportunity to belittle both Portlock and Dixon, but especially the latter, because, presumably, of the above remark. He even went so far as to remove the name of Dixon's Straits, which had been given by Sir Joseph Banks, and to substitute that of Douglas's Entrance. Meares was not only lacking in veracity; he was also addicted to the bad, and closely-allied, habit of stating as facts things of which he had no knowledge. Vancouver, in his Voyage (1801 ed., Vol. V, page 339), complains of him in this respect. In disagreeing with Meares's statements regarding the native habitations and population near Prince William's Sound, Vancouver mildly remarks that "in this respect he was certainly not well informed." His volume was, probably, as he says, hurriedly prepared — if that be a justification for either failing. It was, moreover, a brief to support his exorbitant claims for damages against Spain. Some figures touching those damages may throw further light upon Meares's character. In his Memorial, April, 1790, he claimed $653,433; six months later, September, 1790, he increased it to £469,865, 12s; and yet he accepted $210,000 in full. In his computations he was like the "milkmaid who poised a full pail on her head." For example, he estimated that the Argonaut would have obtained 2,000 skins saleable at $100 each, though no vessel had collected any such number or sold at any such price. By the time that the damages were being adjusted the British Government had formed an opinion upon the value of Meares's unsupported statements. Lord St. Helens shows this feeling when he writes: INTRODUCTION 13 "Nor can I persuade myself that the claimants themselves would wish to carry matters to that extremity (an arbitration) notwithstanding the language which they now affect to hold." Meares indulged in some "Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage," in which he argued in favour of such a waterway, either by Cook's river or the strait of Fuca and the northern archipelago. Meares himself had never seen Cook's river, but Dixon had been there in 1778 with Captain Cook, and again in 1786 in command of the Queen Charlotte. He left himself open to attack on this subject by his manipulation of the maps and charts. As part of his bases of belief Meares introduced the alleged voyage of the Washington in the circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. It is difficult to understand how a real navigator — and whatever else Meares might have been, he was a navigator — could have accepted such a statement without the observed latitudes and longitudes, or the charts, or some other support. Meares not only accepted it; he embroidered it. This is on the basis of giving faith to his assertion that he had received the story from Mr. Neville; and Meares's word, as has been shown, is an unsafe foundation. A strong case can be made out in support of the view that Meares had invented the whole story. His informant, Mr. Neville, lie says, in one version returned to England on the Chesterfield, and in another on the Duke of Buccleugh. The first form of the story is in a "Memorandum by Lieutenant Meares" dated July 4, 1790, and in the Foreign Office Miscellaneous Papers. It is printed on page 26 of The First Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, by the late C. F. Newcombe. It states: "Mr. Neville an Officer in the Et India Company's service came home from China in the Duke of Buccleugh. He was some weeks at Macao, and frequently in com- _ 14 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY 7 m\ pany with Capt. Kendrick of the Washington, from whom he learnt — That the Washington left Nootka in the latter end of September, that she afterwards went up de Fonti's Strait (Dixon entrance or Hecate strait) and passing thro' a Sea came out at the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Kendrick named the Island formed by these Straits, Washington/' This farrago may be regarded as a confused and greatly distorted account of Kendrick's voyage in the Washington in the autumn of 1789; but in June of that year Gray in the Washington had named Washington Island, i.e. Queen Charlotte Islands. The story is next met in Meares's Memorial of July 30, 1790. It is now quite transformed; much has been added to it, and the route of the voyage has been reversed. It is reproduced as an appendix to The First Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. It now reads: "That the above mentioned Sloop Washington did enter those Straits to the Southward of Nootka Sound, which your Memorialist distinguished by the Name of John de Fuca, and having: sailed therein a considerable distance, did arrive in an open channel or Sea, and having Coasted that part of the land which forms Nootka Sound, did re-enter the Pacific Ocean between the Latitudes of 54° and 55* North, and having completely ascertained that Nootka Sound, and all the land adjacent, to be an Archipelago of Islands, and not the Continent of America ,she did arrive in China as above mentioned." Emboldened, as it would seem, by his success, the next form of the story contains further details and considerable embellishment. It will be found in his Voyages, page lvi. And finally he places the track of the Washington upon his chart, indicating that there was open sea to the eastward with land to be seen at one point on the horizon. Kendrick never made any INTRODUCTION IS such claim. He had circumnavigated Nootka Island in March, 1789; he had visited and traded at Queen Charlotte Islands in the autumn of 1789; and the Washington under Gray had, in the spring of 1789, entered the strait of Juan de Fuca for a distance of twenty-five miles. These are the simple facts, of which the first and last were known in China before Meares sailed to England. The story has grown like the number of Falstaff's men in buckram. These matters afforded Dixon the opportunity of attack. He assembled the evidence to show that Meares, in the preparation of his map, had used the charts of Barkley, Lowrie, and Guise who had preceded him, as well as those of Duncan, Port- lock and himself; and that Meares had taken to himself the credit for the discoveries of all. In his Answer, Meares admitted the use of these charts as he wished to give the public the best and latest information; but he missed entirely, or at any rate avoided, any mention of the gravamen of the charge, which was that in his Voyages he had endeavoured to pose as the only discoverer on the Northwest Coast since the days of Captain Cook. IV The main point of Dixon's attack was upon the damages, the price of sea-otter skins. Meares had claimed $100 each for the hypothetical skins, then still on the backs of their original occupants, that his ships would, or might, have obtained had the haughty Spaniard not seized them. He estimated that in the season of 1789 the four captured vessels would have gathered 5,000 sea-otter skins, though in 1788 his two ships,, the Felice and the Iphigenia, had only collected 750. One hundred dollars was a very high price for a single prime skin; of the 750 obtained in 1788 only 100 were prime; yet the hypothetical 5,000 that were to have been got in 1789 were all to be prime. i.U wmm 16 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY I On this matter of price many interesting facts are brought out. Dixon by his figures strove to show that about $30 would be an average price in cargo lots; Meares endeavoured to prove that the price should be about the $100 that he was claiming. When Meares was operating in 1788 under the Portugese flag, he was, as he says, a free agent to sell his skins as he saw fit; he carefully refrains from mentioning the deception involved. But Dixon, to obtain the license of the East India Company, had entered into a bond of £5,000 to allow that Company either to buy his skins at a fair price, or to handle their sale on commission. And Meares conveniently forgets that in the venture of 1789 (being that for which the damages are claimed) he was operating under a license granted by the East India Company to the King George's Sound Company, of which the Messrs. Etches were the leading spirits; and that in consequence, had no seizures occurred, he would have been compelled to sell his skins through the Company in exactly the same way as Portlock and Dixon and Colnett and Duncan had done. Bishop, in his manuscript "Log of the Ruby" epitomises the terms under which, in 1794, the East India Company issued a license to his vessel. They show the handicap which that monopoly placed upon the British trader. It is presumed that in the main these terms would correspond with those exacted in 1786, except with regard to the sale of the sea-otter skins. "They give us license for three years under the following restrictions commencing from the seventeenth September 1794. That the business of our voyage shall in no instance interfere to the prejudice of their trade. That on a ship's arrival at Canton or any other place within the Empire of China we are to obey all orders and instructions we may receive from the East India Company's supercargo or agents with respect to our behaviour to the Natives. INTRODUCTION 17 That we must give a faithful manifest of our cargo before we attempt to dispose of it, to the supercargo; any stores, provisions, &c not contained in the manifest to be liable to seizure. We are not to obstruct their searching the ship when they please; none of the crew are to be left behind without permission of the Supercargo. We are not permitted to sell anything but the produce of the North West coast of America. All gold or silver we receive from the Natives is to be paid into the Company's treasury taking their Bills at the usual rate of exchange. We must not go to the South'd and West'd of Canton nor to the West'd of New Holland. We are not to ship any goods or merchandise without the express license of the Supercargo. We are answerable for any ill behaviour towards the Natives to the supercargo, and must submit to his decision. We must return direct to Great Britain at the expiration of the license. We must within 14 days after our return to England deliver to the East India Company the original Log Book and Journal of the voyage which are not to be made public without our permission except to Government. For the true and faithful performance of these we give bonds of twenty-five thousand pounds." Meares's tale, in his Answer, of selling sea-otter skins to the Hoppo, an official whom he describes as having autocratic powers of expropriation, at $250 each must be regarded as pure fiction. He produces nothing except his own word, which is quite worthless where his interest is concerned. There is no record of any one else having received any such price. In 1779 Captain King, after much haggling, sold 20 sea-otter skins for 18 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY $800. "A few prime skins, which were clean and had been well preserved, were sold for one hundred an4 twenty (dollars) each." (Cook's Third Voyage/Book vi, cap. ix.) That was the pioneer shipment and the market was hungry. In February, 1790, the cargo of the Columbia, consisting of "700 indifferent skins and 300 pieces," sold for $21,400 (12 Washington Historical Quarterly pages 260 and 264). In the autumn of 1791 John Bartlett sold 17, presumably prime, skins for $600 {The Sea, The Ship, and The Sailor, page 319). Both of these sales were free from any control of the East India Company, and occurred about the time that Meares's skins would have been sold. In December, 1791, Ingraham was glad to get $25 for his prime skins. The price, it thus appears, fluctuated at this time between $25 and $45; but it never soared to anything near $100. V Meares's theory of a North West Passage by way of Cook's river, or the northern archipelago, comes in for severe handling. Dixon points out that to make the way easier Meares has altered the longitude of the northern archipelago and the latitude of Hearne's sea. Meares defends the former by saying that he preferred the observations of his employe', Douglas, to those of Duncan; and to justify the latter he relies upon the statements of the "Canadian Traders" — a cryptic expression that appears to mean only poor, ignorant Peter Pond. Dixon then attacks the possibility of Cook's river being the mouth of a passage to Hudson Bay, and joins issue with Meares upon its depth. He then passes on to jeer at the track of the Washington, as shewn on Meares's chart, entering the strait of Juan de Fuca and emerging to the northward of Queen Charlotte islands, and showing open sea to the eastward. Of it Dixon sneeringly remarks that it reminds him of nothing: so much as the mould of ml INTRODUCTION 19 a good old housewife's butter pat. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in a note on page 351 of his Voyages could not refrain from expressing "surprise at his assertion that there was an inland sea or archipelago of great extent between the islands of Nootka and the main." From these the criticism descends to insignificant matters. The title page of Meares's Answer asserts that therein Dixon's Remarks are considered and refuted; but, despite this large claim, the reader will find it a poor performance and not at all equal to the advance notice. Some of Meares's answers have been already considered, in connection with the price of sea-otter skins, the alleged voyage of the Washington, and the . possibility of a North West Passage. Dixon had denied Meares's assertions in the Voyages that he had not contributed suitable aid to Duncan who commanded a vessel belonging: to the same owners, and that Duncan had complained bitterly of his parsimony. Meares, in his Answer, said: "I most willingly rest my credit with the public on his (Duncan's) testimony." Duncan unexpectedly returned from Hudson Bay and, being called upon for his version of his conversation with Meares, denied ever having: made the statements attributed to him, and ended his letter with the following: "How far Captain Mears may have misled the public I have taken no further notice of than relates to myself." Meares is on better ground in his defence of his "Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage"; fiyj though he cannot escape from his mis-statements — "not to a1 1 them by a stronger name," as Dixon says — yet there were many who shared his opinion that the passage really existed, clinging tenaciously to the last fragments of that badly-shattered belief. Captain Cook, it is true, had expressed the view that Coo!:'* river was not the North West Passage; but that, after all, • ;as an inference — merely his opinion, and Meares, too, wrs fe mm I m 20 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY titled to have an opinion. No one knew the truth until, in 1794, Vancouver explored that so-called river to its head and proved it to be a mere inlet. It is doubtful how much reliance is to be placed on the documents that Meares flaunts so bravely in the discussion of the prices of sea-otter skins. Dixon claims that on two occasions Meares tampered with them by inserting words and making changes. It is not difficult to believe this charge when he is found to have altered a printed document, to wit: the story of de Fuca. Professor Manning, who made a scholarly study of the Nootka question, has no hesitation in suspecting Meares of tampering with any 'document, if thereby he might strengthen his case. (Manning's Nootka Sound Controversy, page 322). VI Besides these relevant matters Meares enters, as has been mentioned, into a series of counter charges. They are of no avail, however, for the question in which we are, and the public of his own day were, interested is his veracity and the amount of reliance to be placed in his Voyages. Dixon's failure, if such be the case, to obey his owner's orders or his ability as a seaman do not touch the discussion. On the first charge Dixon shows in reply that Meares has omitted an essential portion of the instructions. On the second: that Dixon spent a fortnight in a simulated effort to enter Nootka Sound and acted like a craven; we must, first of all, remember that Meares was not within thousands of miles of Nootka at the time, so that the charge is either pure invention or mere gossip, Dixon's log book, quoted in Further Remarks, shows that, after five days' fruitless effort, the attempt was abandoned. Nicol, in his Adventures, says: "We now stood for Nootka Sound, but encountered a dreadful gale and were blown off the coast and suffered INTRODUCTION 21 much damage in our sails and rigging which caused us to stand for the Sandwich Islands to refit." Meares himself had a somewhat similar experience; he was abreast of the entrance to Nootka Sound on May 11, 1788; but owing to tempestuous weather, it was the 13 th before he cast anchor in Friendly Cove. Then came Dixon's Further Remarks; but Meares's Answer had been so feeble on the main points of the controversy that Dixon, in response to his challenge, went afield and introduced a considerable number of mis-statements culled from the Voyages. These were of no importance except to show what was already rather patent; that Meares wrote carelessly, or mendaciously, or perhaps both. The great value of Further Remarks lies in the letter from Captain Duncan, which gives the only account, so far as is known, of the movements of the Princess Royal in the season of 1788. The three pamphlets disclose a curious situation as the result of the business amalgamation that had taken place. The vessels commanded by Dixon and Duncan, in 1787 and 1788, were owned by the Messrs. Etches trading as the King George's Sound Company. In 1789 the Etches interests and the Meares interests were united as the "Associated Merchants Trading: to the North West Coast of America;" and it was their vessels that were seized by Spain. Meares, in his endeavour to singe the Don's beard by making a strong case for large damages for himself and his associates, was trying to prove that sea-otter skins were worth much more than his partner's ventures had realized. This forced him almost to sneer at their ill success and to cast aspersions upon the business ability of those to whom the ventures were entrusted. When in the dispute he blandly offers to appeal to Dixon's former employer, Richard Cadman Etches, he is.at the same time offering to appeal to his own co-adventurer. Ill 22 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY The conclusion of the whole matter so far as Meares is concerned is that he endeavoured to magnify his own explorations at the expense of his predecessors; that he made many statements, important and unimportant, without any knowledge of the facts, with a reckless disregard of the truth, or with knowledge of their untruth; that in the discussion of the price of sea-otter skins (which was to him the subject of importance) he has omitted material factors, falsified documents, and made knowingly untrue statements; and that, in consequence, he is not entitled to have credence placed in his unsupported testimony. This opinion has been shown to be in accord with that of his contemporaries. F. W. HOWAY New Westminster, B. C. December 31, 1928. REMARKS on the VOYAGES O F JOHN MEARES, Efq. IN A LETTER TO THAT GENTLEMAN, Uffi \l\ , GEORGE DIXON. LATE COMMANDER OF THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE, IN A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR. THE AUTHOR, AND SOLD BY JOHN STOCKDALE. PICCADILLY . AND GEORGE GOULDING. JAMES STREET, COVENT GARDEN M.DCC.XC. PRICE TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE. .in T O JOHN MEARES, Esq. SIR: WHEN voyages, of whatever nature, whether for the purposes of exploring countries hitherto unknown, or of promoting useful and important branches of commerce, are undertaken, and the result of them is deemed of sufficient importance to be publicly communicated to the world, we naturally expect to meet both with entertainment and instruction. It has indeed been the custom perhaps formerly, for travellers both by land and water, to indulge their ideas in describing countries which perhaps never existed but in their own imagination, and this from a supposition that no one would be hardy enough to contradict them p. 6. by actual observation; and consequently when mankind were agreeably entertained, their end was answered. However, in this enlightened age, we naturally expect, not only agreeable entertainment, but information which may be depended on; and more especially in works where to discovery, is added the elucidation of a branch of commerce, which, thoug:h yet in its infancy, may hereafter be of the utmost importance to this country. Of this nature I conceived the work lately published by you, entitled, "Voyages made in the years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North-west coast of America. To which are prefixed, An Introductory Narrative of a Voyage performed in 1786, from Bengal, in the Ship Nootka; Observations on the probable Existence of a North-west Passage; and some Account of the Trade between the North-west coast of America and China, and the latter country and Great Britain," to be, and accordingly perused it with eagerness and attention; and more especially, as having myself been engaged in the same Jf 26 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY H < u w o o tr * & , 1 <u o 3 •° o o O 5r V 5 S *> ** I I § a ^ *3 £ ° SI'S « rl 1 S U « -3 ;i O oo to to * © A .h +* H » 1 i o i 2 * *.* 5 °£* w Egg w i si ° © »3 a o #.v - _ <j O 00 Ph+3 puj 6 | &-s 0.3 rt > ^4 a.'©' 2 DIXON'S REMARKS 27 employment,1 I naturally expected to find my knowledge of the geography of the North-west coast of America increased, and that your labours had been properly devoted to encourage 7. discovery, navigation, and commerce. Guess, then, Sir, my surprise, when I found your pompous publication scarcely anything more than a confused heap of contradictions and misrepresentations. To point out half your absurdities, would fill a volume large as your own, and require much more time than I at present can spare; however, the duty I owe the public and myself, obliges me not to pass them over in silence: I shall, therefore, without further preface, point out some of your numerous errors, as they occurred to me on perusing them. In page 38 of your Introductory Voyage, you say, "Before I conclude this note, I shall remark on the declaration of Captain Dixon, in the account of his voyage, that the disorder which so severely afflicted my crew, arose from their uncon- trouled application to spirituous liquors.2 "In the first place, the assertion is not founded in fact; and secondly, Captain Dixon's crew and himself being visited by a similar affliction, I have an equal right to retaliate the same accusation upon him."3 8. As I am not the author of the above declaration, whether true or false, I have nothing to do with it. I remember, on reading that part in the book alluded to, that I enquired of Mr. Beresford, on what authority the passage was inserted; his answer was, From Captain Meares's own people] Mr. Beresford is at present in London, and can, I doubt not, give 1 Both Meares and Dixon were on the Northwest Coast in the maritime fur trade from 1786 to 1787. 2 See Dixon's Voyage, p. 157; also, note 4 to Meares's Answer, post. 3 He refers probably to the outbreak of the scurvy on Dixon's vessel, Queen Charlotte, during her voyage from England; see Dixon's Voyage, p. 49. A ship on such a lengthy voyage never escaped the disease until Captain Cook's remedies became general. 1 J 28 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY a satisfactory answer to any question that may be asked him on this head.4 In page 201, Voyages to the North-west coast of America, you have the following note: "On enquiring of Captain Duncan, concerning his distressed condition, he told me that he had met Captain Dixon, in the Queen Charlotte; and, though that ship was on her return to China, and abundantly stocked with every thing; and though she belonged to the same owners with the Princess Royal,5 the provident commander thought it much better to carry all his stores back to China, than to spare any of them to the latter vessel, though they would have been so great an alleviation to the hardships of the voyage." Any person, on reading the above note, would naturally conclude, that, at the time I met with Captain Duncan, I had lately come from China with plenty of stores of every kind p. 9. on board, and yet so inhumane as to refuse any of them to a fellow-creature and countryman in distress; especially as you say in the note, "carry them back to China." The fact, however, was directly to the contrary. I fell in with Captains Duncan and Colnett near the place where you met them,6 after having been from England twenty-three months, and never near China during that period. They had been from England only eleven months. I supplied them with a puncheon of molasses, a hogshead and a harness-cask of Sandwich Island pork, what trade they wanted, and a copy of my charts. 4 Dixon's Voyage is in the form of a series of letters, signed W.B.: William Beresford, the supercargo. Dixon only takes responsibility for the preface, introduction, and chart. 5 The King George's Sound Company, a partnership in which the Messrs. Etches were largely interested . 6 Meares met the Princess Royal, Captain Duncan, off Nootka, August 8, 1788; according to Duncan the date was August 7, 1788. The difference arises, doubtless, from the fact that one had come from India and the other from England. Dixon had met the Princess Royal and her consort off Nootka exactly a year before, August 8, 1787. fit DIXON'S REMARKS 29 Captain Duncan had also a copy of whatever part of my log-book he chose; for which purpose, he was on board the Queen Charlotte, together with Mr. John Etches,7 all one night. Wine, tobacco, and portable soup, they had procured from Captain Barclay, when in King George's Sound8 (which place they had left only two or three days), and for which I afterwards paid him near 400 Spanish dollars in China, agreeable . to the request of Mr. John Etches. My sour krout was all expended, and I had neither porter nor cheese: Indeed I never had much of either; the greatest part of that I had on leaving England was sent me as a present by my late worthy commander, John Gore, Esq. of Greenwich Hospital,9 and Captain Stephenson of Wapping. In page 54 of your "Observations of the probable existence of a North-west passage, &c." speaking of the King George and Queen Charlotte, after giving a pompous account of their outfits, &c. you observe, that "their voyage was tedious and dilatory; and their success, both with respect to commerce or discovery, by no means adequate to their superior equipment." In order to ascertain what additions I made to the geography of the North-west coast, be so kind, Sir, as take the trouble of comparing my chart with any former one; a copy of which, extending from lat. 51° N. to 55° 30' was given to you I believe by John Henry Cox, Esq. of Canton, some time 7 A brother of Richard Cadman Etches, managing owner of King George and Queen Charlotte. See on this subject: Meares's Answer, p. 8, and Dixon's Further Remarks, p. 17. 8 Captain Charles William Barkley, of the Imperial Eagle. King George's sound was the name first given by Captain Cook to Nootka sound. See on this matter: Meares's Answer, p. 9. 9 Gore sailed with Captain Cook on his third voyage as first lieutenant of the Resolution. On the death of Cook he became captain of her consort, the Discovery, on which Dixon was armourer. A son of Captain Gore was one of the boys on the King George. 1 M i i 30 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY before you sailed for the coast of America ;10 at the same time, he gave you a copy of Captain Barclay's chart from Nootka Sound to the Southward, along the coast as far, or nearly p-n. so, as you went;11 together with a chart of the coast, or at least that part of it, which Don Francisco Maurelle12 had touched at, and all the information that could be obtained from Captains Hanna, Lowrie, and Guise.13 A short statement of what I did respecting commerce, will easily settle that point. I collected on the North-west coast, 2000 sea-otter skins, 100 fur-seal, several land-beaver, land-otter, martin, fox, bear, mar- mott, and other skins; besides a large quantity of inferior pieces of sea-otter skins. Now, Sir, these, according to your probable arithmetic, should have been sold in China for considerably more than 200,000 Spanish dollars; but, strange to tell, even with the addition of Captain Portlock's, which made the number of sea-otter skins 2552, and considerably added to the number of other sorts of inferior value, they only fetched 54,857 Spanish dollars at the Chinese market; yet believe me, Sir. / neither divided any of them amongst my people, nor sold 10 This is admitted by Meares in his Answer, p. 13. John Henry Cox was a prominent figure in the early maritime fur trade. In 1789 he was a member of the "United Company of Merchants trading to the North West Coast of America," the owners of the ships commonly called Meares's vessels, which were seized by Spain. 11 In his Answer, p. 13, Meares meets this charge by saying that Bark- ley's chart ended at 47° north latitude while he went to 45° 30'. 12 The pilot of the Spanish vessel, Sonora, in her voyage in 1775 under Bodega y Quadra. His journal was published in Barrington's Miscellanies, pp. 471 ff. 13 James Hanna, the pioneer in the maritime fur trade, was on the coast in 1785 in the Harmqn, a brig of sixty tons. In 1786 he was again on the coast in command of the Sea Otter. Lowrie and Guise, commanding the Captain Cook and the Experiment were trading on the Northwest Coast in 1786. Meares's Voyages, pp. Hi and liii, contains short accounts of their operations. DIXON'S REMARKS 31 any on my own account}* If you would wish to be informed why they sold for so small a sum, please to enquire of Mr. Richard Cadman Etches, as you seem to be well acquainted p. 12. with him; he, I doubt not, can give you every satisfaction on that subject. As a further proof of our "success in commerce," I shall here present you with a comparative statement of the quantity of sea-otter skins brought to China by different ships, which Mr. Cox very obligingly favoured me with. Sea-otter skins Captain Hanna, first voyage 560 Ditto second ditto 100 And of slips and pieces 300 sold as 60 skins. Captains Lowrie and Guise 604 Captain Meares, first voyage 357 Captain Barclay 800 2481 Captains Portlock and Dixon 2552 5033 Total number of sea-otter skins 5033; all which, including: 434 cub, and 34 fox (belonging to King George and Queen p is. Charlotte), sold for 146,842 Spanish dollars in China; and, taken at a mean, makes nearly 29 1/6 dollars per skin. I should have been happy to have included in the above statement, the furs brought to the Chinese market by yourself your second voyage, and also those belonging to the Prince of 14 In his Answer, p. 29, Meares acknowledges the two italicized charges, and says that it was merely an effort to compensate them for the horrors and sufferings of his voyage of 1786-87, when he lost so many men by scurvy. Captain Portlock states: "We were not at liberty to dispose of one material article; the sole management of it being vested in the hands of the East India Company's supercargoes." 9il;I 32 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Wales and Princess Royal.15 These accounts you had it in your power to have laid before the public; but, for reasons best known to yourself, you have thought proper to keep them secret. However, from what I have already done, the world will be able to judge whether your statement of real and probable losses is accurate, or fallacious.16 In the paragraph just quoted, you say, "They (the King George and Queen Charlotte) were authorized to make settlements, and form factories." I should be glad to be informed by you, Sir, how it was possible for this to be done, when all my people, to a man, had signed articles to return with the ship?17 You proceed in the same page, "After these ships had separated, the Queen Charlotte proceeded to the southward of Prince William's Sound; and continuing her course to that p. i*. part of the coast named by Captain Cook, Behring's Bay, she entered a port which then received the name of Port Mulgrave. Captain Dixon then proceeds to the Cape Edgecumbe of Cook, and from thence traces the coast till he arrived in a port which was honoured with the appellation of Port Banks ;18 and finally discovered the northern part of those islands, whose southern 15 Meares in his Answer, pp. 23 ff, says that the Felice in 1788 returned with 750 skins which sold for $38,000 and that the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal had 1959 skins and 65 cloaks, which brought $56,000. 16 Meares's Memorial places the losses from the seizure of the vessels at $653,433 Spanish; but in a memorandum of 7th September 1790 the claim is expanded to £469,865. In the end Meares and his associates accepted 210,- 000 hard dollars. 17 In his Answer, pp. 10 f, Meares quotes (in garbled fashion) paragraphs of the instructions to Portlock and Dixon on this subject; and Dixon in his Further Remarks, pp. 36 ff, shows the garbling. 18 Behring's bay is in reality no bay; though from a distance, as Captain Cook saw it, it has the appearance of a bay with an island therein. It is now called Dry bay — a mere shallow lagoon. Port Mulgrave is a snug and easily accessible harbour, near the entrance of Yukatat bay, Alaska. Cape Edgecumbe at the northern entrance to Sitka sound (Dixon's Norfolk sound), Alaska. Port Banks, the most important anchorage in Whale bay, Baranoff Island, Alaska; see a sketch of this port in Dixon's Voyage, p. 192. n DIXON'S REMARKS 33 H m) W extremity was first discovered, as has been already mentioned, by Captains Lowrie and Guise. The ship then takes her course down the western side of these islands, and, rounding the southern extremity of them, proceeds partly between them, and what was at that time supposed to be the Continent of America; but, apprehensive of being entangled among these islands, she quitted them at once, and proceeded on her voyage to China."19 For what I did, after parting company with Captain Port- lock, I refer to the Account of my Voyage; and shall only remark, that, after being on the coast of Queen Charlotte's Islands for a month, the time drew near (Aug. 15, 1787) when I was, by my instructions, to expect Captain Portlock in King George's Sound. This circumstance, and not the "apprehension 5. of being entangled among those islands," induced me to leave them, and steer for that place; off which I fell in with Captains Colnet and Duncan, as has already been related. They informed me, that Captain Portlock was not in the Sound, neither were there any furs to be procured; as a Captain Barclay had lately left it, and sailed to the Southward; in consequence of which, I determined to steer for the Sandwich Islands. That Captains Lowrie and Guise saw the Southern parts of Queen Charlotte's Islands in 1786 I do not dispute; and I hope you will admit, that both Captain Portlock and myself fell in with these islands in company the same year, near Hippah Island; but if this is to be called a discovery, I am inclined to think the Spaniards may claim a right to it; for it appears by the general chart of Captain Cook's last voyage, that they must have seen this land in the year 1775,20 and I dare venture to 19 The quotation is from Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage in Meares's Voyages, p. liv. The islands mentioned are Queen Charlotte islands. 20 Hippa island on the western coast of Queen Charlotte islands, discovered and named by Dixon July 7, 1787. The Spaniards in 1774 had discovered the northern part of Queen Charlotte islands; see the journals of Crespi and Pefia in Publications of Historical Society of Southern California, 1891, pp. 83 ff. In 1775 Maurelle saw land in about that latitude: Barring- ton's Miscellanies, p. 510, p. 513 fill IMLBI W 34 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY say knew as much of it then as either Captains Lowrie, Guise, Portlock, or myself did in 1786. What I observed of them the ensuing year is fairly stated, both on my chart, and in the voyage to which it is annexed. In the voyages to the North-west coast of America, P. i6. speaking of Owhyhee, p. 343, you observe, that "Though several European vessels have been off the island, yet the Iphigenia alone had anchored in Karakakooa Bay, &c." As it appears by a note in p. 38 of your Introductory Voyage, that you have read the voyage performed in the Queen Charlotte, and consequently an account of her transactions at Owhyhee, it appears strange that you should so roundly assert, that no vessel, the Iphigenia excepted, had anchored there since the death of Captain Cook.21 This, however, is but of a piece with the rest of your misrepresentations; and to refute it, I shall only refer to the account of my voyage, page 50, &c. A little further (page 354) you tell us of Captain Douglas being informed by a chief at Owhyhee, "That Taheo had been furnished by the Captains Portlock, Dixon, &c. with a quantity of arms and ammunition, on the express condition that he would not afford any supplies whatever to Captain Meares or his associates." Pray what could induce you to insert so pretty a story ? p. m It certainly must be from a firm belief of its being a fact; but you ought first to have considered the corroborating circumstances ; which as you seem not to have done, I will endeavoui to do for you. When I was last at the Sandwich Islands, you must have been at, or near China, and, as I thought, had taken leave of 21 The King George and Queen Charlotte were at Kealakekua (Karakakooa) bay on May 26, 1786; the Iphigenia did not arrive there until December 1788. On p. 31 of his Answer Meares admits this error, charging it to lapse of memory. Hi DIXON'S REMARKS 35 them for ever; neither at that time had I the most distant idea of seeing them again.22 Admitting this to be the case, is it probable that I should give arms and ammunition to Indians, on the "express conditions" of not affording support to a person whom I had every reason to think would never come near the place? The supposition is ridiculous, and scarcely deserves a serious refutation: But I declare, that I never gave or traded away at the Sandwich Islands, or any other place, to an Indian, either musquet, pistol, or a grain of powder; and I defy you to prove the contrary. Yourself and your associates,23 however, seem not to have been very delicate in this respect; for it appears by p. is. your own account,* that you have furnished the Indians with dangerous and destructive weapons, and the consequence was "a most shocking scene of blood and massacre." Pray how do you reconcile actions like this with that "milk of human kindness" which you endeavour to make the public believe you are possessed of?24 In your "Observations on the probable Existence of a North-West Passage," speaking of Captain Barclay, you observe, that "he performed the whole of the voyage in twelve months, which employed the King George and Queen Charlotte upwards of two years." * Voyages to the North-west Coast of America, page 196, &c. n 22 Taheo (Kaeo) was a chief or King of Atooi (Kauai), one of the western isles of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) group. The Queen Charlotte was at Atooi in December 1786 and September 1787. Meares in his Answer, p. 30, claims that this is from Captain Douglas's journal. The trade in firearms was always a sore spot in the maritime trade. 23 Those associates in 1789 were John Henry Cox, William Etches, John Etches, Richard Cadman Etches, William Fitzhugh, Henry Lane, and Daniel Beale; and before that probably the same with the exception of the Messrs. Etches. 24 See Meares's Answer, p. 30. In Mortimer's Voyage of the Mercury, John Henry Cox, commander, p. 85, mention is made of some of these guns: Two two-pounders and two swivels, properly mounted on a stone platform, before the residence of Kamehameha, the king of Hawaii. (ins mm K?: 36 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Have you forgot, Sir, that Captain Barclay went no farther to the Northward than King George's Sound, and was only three months on the coast, and that the King George and Queen Charlotte were there two season?25 Pray, good Sir, recollect yourself, and I trust I shall hear no more of such invidious comparisons. Your misrepresentations are not, however, confined to me alone. Captain Duncan next comes in for his share. You observe, that "He occupies almost a whole summer in this station, (Queen Charlotte's Isles), and yet, strange as it p. 19. may appear, quits the coast of America without knowing that Captain Douglas had already taken the same course." — Vide Observations on the probable Existence, &c. page 54. I acknowledge myself entirely at a loss to know what you mean by this assertion; for, if you wish it to be understood that Captain Douglas was gone to China, that certainly was not the case; and if you mean to insinuate that he was in the Archipelago before Captain Duncan, there again you must be wrong; for at the time you saw Captain Duncan off King George's Sound, in his way to China, we find Captain Douglas at Cross Cape by your own account.*26 In your Introductory Voyage, page 10, speaking of skin- canoes, are these words: "The canoes of this make, extend from the straits of the two continents along the coast as far as Cape Edgecumbe." * Voyages to the North-west Coast, page 353 [323]. 25 Captain Barkley in the Imperial Eagle left Ostend November 23, 1786; arrived at Nootka sound June 1787; traded during three months; and reached China in December, 1787. The King George and Queen Charlotte left England in August 1785; spent two seasons trading on the Northwest Coast; reached China in November 1787; and returned to England in September 1788. 26 To meet this insinuation of incompetence Duncan gives an account of his movements in the Princess Royal from March to August, 1788. See his letter in Dixon's Further Remarks, pp. 26 ff. *>^k DIXON'S REMARKS 37 Here you ought to have added, "for anything you knew to the contrary;" for I assert it as a positive fact, that the wood p- 20. canoe brought to England by me, and which I presented to Sir Joseph Banks, came from Port Mulgrave, which is situated in 59° 33' North latitude, and 140° West longitude; and that during the whole of my stay there, I never saw one skin-canoe.21 But your knowledge is certainly unbounded, and such as I believe no mortal before yourself ever possessed; for I find in your Introductory Voyage, page 4, the following remarkable passage: "It had, indeed, been one continued fog ever since we crossed the latitude 35°; and from that time we had not been able to make more than two observations. We very fortunately had a time-piece on board, which proved of the greatest utility." It would be of the utmost service to the world, and more particularly those who are any way interested in navigation, if you would inform them what became of your invaluable time-piece. Pray, what were her principles, and who was the maker ? For she certainly must have been wonderfully constructed. I had a pocket time-piece, made by Mr. John Arnold of London, who I have hitherto thought to be one of the first makers in that line in this kingdom, if not in the world;28 but I now find myself mistaken; for I am free to confess, that mine was not of the least utility to me at sea, unless I could see both the sun and the horizon. p. 21. In your Introductory Voyage, page 38, you take notice of a very extraordinary race of people, and add, "They had never 27 Meares made an egregious blunder in stating that the skin canoe or baidarka was used as far south as Norfolk sound (Sitka) Alaska. In his Answer, p. 31, he practically admits it. Sir Joseph Banks was then the President of the Royal Society. 28 Vancouver's vessel the Discovery carried a Kendall chronometer that had been used by Captain Cook, while the Chatham had a chronometer "lately made by Mr. Arnold." In his Answer, p. 31, Meares tones down his "one continued fog" to one in which "momentary gleams of the sun appear and transient views of the horizon are obtained." fffl_ {Sun 38 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY been before seen by any navigator; and had not a favourable wind sprung up in the night, we intended to have passed a few days among them. The latitude of this part of the coast is in 56° 38' North, and the longitude 223° 0' 25" East of Greenwich." According to the latitude just quoted, this should be near the North side of the entrance into Port Banks; but the land, as laid down both in your chart, and mine, must err 1 ° 30' in longitude, as we differ that distance from your own observation, which I make no doubt must be very accurate, as you have set is down to the greatest minutiae, viz. seconds: But as to your being the first navigator that ever saw these extraordinary people, is to me by no means equally clear; for I had been for some time at anchor in Norfolk Sound, trading with the natives there; had left that place, and even Port Banks, by the 26th of June, and you did not arrive there before the 1st or 2d of July. I also saw the same kind of people at Port Mulgrave in May:* besides all this, the Spaniards must certainly have seen them so early as 1775.29 We are told in page 56 of the "Observations on the probable p- 22. Existence, &c." that "The Washington entered the straits of John de Fuca, the knowledge of which she had received from us." You also observe, that "The track of this vessel is of great moment." Be so good, Mr. Meares, as to inform the public from what authority you introduce this track in your chart ? I have read your amusing and instructive book again and *Vide Dixon's Voyage, page 172. 29 These "extraordinary people" are those Indians who use the labret — i.e. all the coast Indians from Yukatat bay to Milbarik sound. The Spaniards under Perez in 1774 had seen this hideous ornament; Crespi and Pefia's descriptions will be found in Publications of Historical Society of Southern California, 1891, p. 123, p. 192. See Meares's Answer, p. 31, DIXON'S REMARKS 39 I SECTION OF JOHN MEARES'S CHART A portion of John Meares's "Chart of the N. W. Coast of AMERICA . . . . . explored in the Years 1778, and 1779, by CAPTN. COOK; and further explored in 1788, and 1789." Drawn by J. Heywood, No. 3 St. Martin's Church Yard, and published, in 1790, in Meares's Voyages. This is the chart which Dixon attacks, as having been prepared by Meares in part from the charts of earlier explorers without giving credit therefor. The track of the Washington is purely imaginary. 1 f HP if I 40 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY again, and cannot find any account of it; I therefor strongly suspect it never was taken from any actual survey, but has been introduced into your chart merely as a pretty variety to fill up a blank; and I cannot think of anything it resembles so much as the mould of a good old housewife's butter pat.30 In your Account of the Trade between North-west America and China, (page 68), you observe, that "Two, of the small number of ships which have sailed hither, have been wrecked, and others have proved unfortunate, either from the bad management or ignorance of their conductors."31 I beseech you, in the next edition of your valuable book, to p. 23. alter this passage; for, as it stands at present, I am afraid it is rather too pointed at your own conduct. The reception you met with at the Sandwich Islands, on your return from the Western coast of America to China, was very flattering; your account of it* says, "We remained here a month, during which time the islanders appeared to have no other pleasure, but what arose from shewing kindness, and exercising hospitality to us." And what return, I would wish to ask, did you make for all this kindness and hospitality? If your answer is not at hand, I can furnish you with a true one; you fired four-pound shot amongst them on shore. Should you wish to know from what authority I make this assertion, I answer, from Mr. Ross your chief mate. The last time I was at Onehow,32 the natives gave me to understand something about the matter, though I could not rightly comprehend what ship had done it; but on my mentioning the circumstances to Mr. Ross, he frankly owned it was Captain Meares's, and that * Introductory Voyage, page 39. 30 This voyage was one of Meares's inventions or, at any rate, exaggera- *tions. See the subject discussed in the introduction hereto. 31 The two vessels are the Lark, which was lost on Copper island in 1786, and the Sea Otter, which was never heard of after sailing from Prince William's sound in the autumn of 1786. Hanna's second voyage in 1786, when only one hundred skins were obtained, is doubtless the unfortunate one. 32 Niihau, one of the western isles of the Hawaiian (Sandwich) group. DIXON'S REMARKS 41 it was in consequence of a quarrel which originated on some p. 24. of the Indians stealing either the cat-block or fish-hook, I do not at present recollect which: Mr. Ross added, that he and several of your people were on shore the day after this affray happened, when the inhabitants produced some of the shot you had ordered to be fired amongst them, and wanted much to know for what reason you had done it;33 at the same time they used him and the people with him exceedingly well. I should have imagined that a person of Mr. Meares's feeling and humanity, might have settled a business of that kind amicably, or at least without adopting such rigorous measures: your conduct, however, on this occasion, clearly points out the reason for their cool behaviour to you the last time you visited them, and which has already been noticed. In your "Observations on the Probability of a North-west Passage, &c." speaking of Captain Cook, you say, "The weather in this important part of the voyage was so unfavourable, that the ships were prevented from approaching the coast; for, though the Felice and Iphigenia did explore these latitudes, (56° to 47° North) yet there is every reason to lament that Captain Cook was himself prevented from such an examination as would have proceeded from him." p. 25. Give me leave here, Sir, to compliment you on your modesty; you say that the Felice and Iphigenia "did explore" the latitudes just mentioned; yet, in the same breath, you lament that Captain Cook was prevented from doing it. — No notice however is taken by you of what either Captains Duncan or Barclay have done towards surveying this part of the coast; this country is indebted only to the Commanders of the Felice 33 Meares, in his Answer, pp. 30 f, admits this charge, saying that the natives were trying to steal his anchor and he fired one four-pound shot over their heads to terrify them; but in Dixon's Voyage, p. 257, (Letter xl) it is stated that several of them were killed. llli i Ml mat » 42 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY and Iphigenia; for you tell us, (page 17), "Thus has been unveiled the whole of the American coast, particularly those III parts between the latitude 50° and 55° North, and 47° and 48° North; and surely this survey gives room for something more than conjecture on the subject."34 I find in the same Observations, (page 50), speaking of the Straits of John de Fuca, the following passage: '"If it should be asked why these Straits were not penetrated, or at least some attempt made to penetrate them ? the answer is at hand; — the destruction of our commercial enterprize by the ships of his Catholic Majesty." What a pity! the Dons should be made to pay well for this; for long before this time, you would probably have been in England by way of the North-west passage; for discovering p. 26. which, there is a reward of £20,000:35 I hope and trust you will not forget to include this, either in the actual or probable losses you have sustained. Having in your "Observations, &c. on the probable existence of a North-west Passage," page 48, favoured us with an attempt to prove the probability of a communication between Cook's River and the Southernmost part of Baffin's Bay, or the Northernmost part of Hudson's Bay, into the Atlantic Ocean, you proceed, "For it should be remembered, that in the highest known latitude of Cook's River, no impediment was observed to 34 Meares leaves the impression that no vessel had been on the coast between Cook's visit in 1778 and his arrival in the Felice in 1788. There had been eleven: In 1785 Hanna in Harmon; in 1786, Hanna in Sea Otter, Meares and Tipping in Nootka and Sea Otter, Lowrie and Guise in Captain Cook and Experiment, and Portlock and Dixon in King George and Queen Charlotte; in 1787 Barkley in Imperial Eagle, Portlock and Dixon in King George and Queen Charlotte, and Colnett and Duncan in Prince of Wales and Princess Royal. 35 This reward was offered by Act of Parliament in 1745; the Act was altered and broadened in 1776, so as to apply to ships sailing from the Pacific ocean and to ships of the Royal Navy. aaamm DIXON'S REMARKS 43 the further progress of ships, either from rocks, shoals, or want of a due depth of water; the channel on the contrary, appearing capacious and extensive, and abounding with whales." I should be glad to know on whose authority you make the above assertion? for I cannot find, after perusing your account of Captain Douglass's voyage, and your own also, that either of you were so high up this river, or higher than 60° 30' North latitude; or that you had boats higher than the narrows; and Captain Cook, in his chart of that river, {vide Cook's last voyage), evidently shews the contrary, for he has laid down a large shoal above the narrows, on which the ship grounded; and the depth of the water, as put down on the chart, (an authority which I presume you are not disposed to controvert) decreases.36 Neither do I find in his book the least notice taken of their seeing any whales. However, should any further navigator, on the credit of your assertion, (which, begging your pardon, I scarcely think they will), go up there to catch whales, and be disappointed, for their encouragement, I can venture to affirm, they may obtain plenty of fresh salmon.37 Again, at page 57, after producing a variety of what you call "corroborating proofs" of former writers, are these words: "If these particulars can be supposed to have any weight, how much will it be encreased when it is known that ships have reached between 61 and 62 degrees of latitude in Cook's River, o where a navigable strait of considerable extent appeared to their 36 In this discussion regarding Cook's river Dixon has the advantage; he was there with Captain Cook in 1778 and again in Queen Charlotte in 1786, when, as his chart shows, he anchored beyond the narrows. Meares had never been beyond the entrance. 37 "The salmon come into the river [Cook's river] in innumerable shoals at this season of the year and are caught by the natives in wears, with the greatest ease."—Dixon's Voyage, p. 63 (Letter xvi). Cook also mentions his being there supplied with "a large quantity of very fine salmon." See entry: 3rd June 1778 in Cook's Third Voyage. m 44 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY I SECTION OF JOHN MEARES'S CHART A part of John Meares's chart of the North West Coast of America, drawn by J. Heywood, No. 3 St. Martin's Churchyard, and published, in 1790, in Meares's Voyages. It shows the course of the Iphigenia on her voyage to the coast, in 1788, under Captain William Douglas. A comparison of this chart with that of Captain Cook's will show that Meares has added nothing to the knowledge of Cook's River. Captains Burney and Bligh,39 of the navy, were both of them with Captain Cook when he discovered the river just mentioned. Captain Bligh, at that time master of the Resolution, surveyed it, laid down the shoal and the various soundings which I have already noticed; and, I doubt not, is fully competent to determine, whether in the highest "known latitude" of Cook's River there are any impediments in the way of navigation. For the purpose of combating vulgar prejudices, and unpopular doctrines, you "beg leave to introduce the voyage of the Iphigenia."* Why produce that voyage, when you have it ♦Observations on the Probable Existence of a North-west Passage, page 45. 38 Cook has traced the river or inlet to 61° 30', more than seventy leagues, and congratulated himself that he had thus "prevented speculative fabricators of geography from assuming the existence of a passage thence to Baffin or Hudson bay." It is believed that no other ship had ascended the inlet further until 1794 when Vancouver traced it to its head. 39 James Burney was then a lieutenant on the Discovery. He was transferred to the Resolution in August 1779, after the death of Captain Clerke. Lieutenant Bligh, "Bread fruit Bligh," was then master of the Resolution Bligh is best known in connection with the mutiny of the Bounty and his great boat voyage thereafter. DIXON'S REMARKS 45 view, free from ice, or impediments of any kind, and where the rise and fall of the tide was so great that there must be other extensive channels for the reception of the waters which P. 28. can only be East ?" Had Captain Cook been living, what answer would he have made to this bold assertion ? or what reason could he have assigned, "when there was no impediment of any kind in his way," why he did not push boldly on, and at once make the passage so long looked for in vain? But though that illustrious navigator is no more, respectable authority may easily be found to controvert any assertions of this kind.38 II I 46 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY in your power to produce a much better? I mean Captain Duncan's.40 As you confess to have Mr. Arrowsmith's chart, on which p. 29. Captain Duncan's track is laid down, in your possession, it is but too plain that you have been furnished from it with the greatest part of the materials to construct your own; yet, in no part of your work do you acknowledge the obligation, except one; and, strange to tell! in that very place you differ from Mr. Arrowsmith's chart no less than 19° 45' to the westward.41 The part where you exercise your talents in so wonderful a manner, is the sea seen by Mr. Hearne. Go on, Sir, make one remove more, and you will open a North-west passage.42 Speaking still of the Iphigenia, you observe, "This ship enters so far to the East, that she passes, by three degrees, the western boundary of Mr. Hearne's sea in 72°, (but placed by Mr. Arrowsmith, in his chart lately published from Mr. Turner's charts and journals,43 in the latitude of 68° 15' North, and longitude of 228° East of Greenwich) when a clear and extensive passage is seen without impediments." Well might the ship be to the Eastward of that place; for, as I observed before, (when speaking of your own chart), that 40 Meares, in his Answer, p. 17, makes the unsatisfactory reply that he prefers the journal of the Iphigenia. In his Voyages, pp. 287 ff, is an account of the passage of the Iphigenia, under Douglas from China to Nootka by way of Alaska. 41 Meares's Answer, p. 19 admits that he made this alteration because he preferred Douglas's observations to those of Duncan which Arrowsmith had accepted. See Table vii in the Appendix to Meares's Voyages. 42 A jibe at Meares's distortion of the evidence in order to support his theory of a North West Passage. 43 Aaron Arrowsmith, noted English cartographer, born 1750, died 1823. His maps and charts were remarkable for the accuracy and care with which they were constructed. Philip Turnor, the astronomer of the Hudson's Bay Company; see a reference to him in Cook's Third Voyage, p. lxxxi. See on this subject Meares's Answer, p. 18. DIXON'S REMARKS 47 p. so. part placed by Mr. Arrowsmith in longitude 247° 45' East, vou have removed to 228° East, which is only 19° 45' to the westward of him; but ,not contented with that, you have laid down the land 1° 30' to the eastward at Princess Royal Island, Nepean's Sound, Bank's Island, and in general, all that side of the channel. On what authority you have deviated in your chart from Captain Duncan (as laid down by Mr. Arrowsmith) I know not, there being no reason whatever assigned for it in your publication; neither can I by any means learn why we are favoured with Capes Mendozino and Mendocino, in your very correct delineation of the American coast; as the most correct chart extant, so far as relates to that part of the coast, has only one Cape Mendocino; the other is called Cape Blanco, which cape you have been pleased to remove 1° 30' to the Northward of its real situation.44 By the same happy method (discovered I believe only by you) of removing land at pleasure, you have placed Port Sir Francis Drake in latitude 49° North, but which I presume can only be found in 47° 30' nearly.45 In your instructions to Captain Douglas,46 (Appendix No. 5.) are these words: "I recommend you to make the coast to p. 8i. the Southward: and as you have the credit of discovering the great island, the North-west side of which, comprehending near four degrees of latitude, is entirely undiscovered; I therefore recommend your making Cape Saint James, the Southern extremity of the great island, as the first point on the Continent 44 Meares's map shows a cape Mendocino in 40° and a cape Mendozino in 42° 30'. Meares was never that far southward. In his Answer, p. 19, he lamely replies that he found one on Arrowsmith's map and the other on Cook's map, so he set them both on his own. 45 These are typographical errors for 39° and 37° 30'. Meares in his Answer, p. 19, jeers back. 46 In command of the Iphigenia, one of Meares's vessels, in 1788 and 1789. § ffl 48 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY of America.47 As you steer along the North-west side of the great island, you will explore it minutely, to the height of 50° North; where resides a chief, whose district is large, and where Captain Dixon procured in a few hours, two hundred cloaks, or six hundred skins."48 In the passage now quoted, and other parts of the same instructions to Captain Douglas, concerning this great island, as you are pleased to call it, and to whom you give the honour of the discovery, you frequently make use of the name Cape Saint James. Pray how did the Cape obtain that name? And how came you to be informed that I had visited this great' island at or near the latitude 54° North, and where I purchased such a number of skins? Why not say at once to your associate, "I was favoured by Mr. Cox with an account of this place, together with a copy of a chart which Captain Dixon gave him in China?"49 This would have been telling the p. 32. plain truth at once; but this I presume did not suit your purpose; palpable falsehoods, or studied misrepresentations, seem to be the most striking traits of your very extraordinary performance. A little further on in the same instructions, you say, "Let your orders to Mr. Funter50 be clear and explicit. When you separate at Cape Saint James, he will proceed into the great channel, and steer up the North-east side of the great island, 47 The reference is to Queen Charlotte islands, which Meares seems to think Dixon did not discover because he did not actually circumnavigate them. See also Meares's Answer, p. 15. 48 Cloak bay, near the northern end of Queen Charlotte islands. Dixon there procured 300 (not 600) skins in half an hour. 49 Cape St. James named by Dixon July 25, 1787 (St. James's day). John Henry Cox already mentioned. He was interested in the maritime trade from 1785 till 1789. He had assisted in fitting out the ventures of both Hanna and Meares. 50 In command of the schooner North West America, built by Meares at Nootka sound in 1788 — the first vessel constructed on the Northwest Coast of America. ■ DIXON'S REMARKS ¥) as high as 54° 30' North, and be employed alternately between the island and the main land of America; a plan of which is now in your possession, as well as information of the various chiefs, and their places of residence: — the paper of intelligence respecting this, which I fortunately procured, accompanies these instructions." You will please to recollect, Sir, that you have told us, in the instructions just quoted, that you received some information from the Princess Royal; and, in another place you mention "Port Royal." So that it is no difficult matter to unveil your secret, and learn from whence you obtained your plan and information respecting the North-west side of the great island, and the opposite side of the channel. I have already mentioned Captain Barclay's chart, and shall now give the position of different places on the Northwest coast, as I have taken them from the Memoire of a Map published by Mr. Dalrymple in 1789 ;51 Captain Barclay's chart, given me by John Henry Cox Esq. not being at this time in my possession. The positions from Captain Barclay's chart just mentioned are: Lat. North. Long. West of Greenwich. 47 9 125 23 Point Fear 47 43 125 1 Destruction River 52 47 47 125 14 Pinnacle 5S 48 48 8 24 125 125 31 47 Cape Flattery Centre of Tallock Island 51 A well known Scottish hydrographer, publisher, and author, born 1737, died 1808. He issued some polemical pamphlets in connection with the seizure of Meares's ships. 52 A river near Destruction island, (probably the Quillayute river) on the coast of the state of Washington. 53 Pinnacle rock, near Cape Flattery. I w 48 26 125 48 33 125 48 50 126 49 0 126 127 50 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY 44 South point of De Fear's entrance.54 48 North point ditto 0 South point Barclay's Sound55 17 West point ditto 0 West point Nootka Whether or not this chart has been of service to you, p. 34. the most superficial reader of your voyage will be able to discover; but your gratitude seems to keep pace with your other intellectual endowments, as I do not find in the whole course of your work, the smallest acknowledgement made for the many advantages you derived from it. The same may be said respecting the use you have made of Captain Duncan's chart, different positions from which I would have given, but at present it is not in my possession. I now come to take some notice of the agreement of your own charts one with another, and here I confess myself entirely at a loss in regard to the interior part of America; for they differ from each other so very materially in this particular, that I cannot find any other method of reconciling them, than by supposing that parts of them are taken from different authorities, and the remainder probably laid down from your own survey when on the lakes of Canada; as, from the following passage in your Voyages to the North-west coast of America, page 222, I find you were stationed there in the early part of your life: "And here, I trust, it will not be considered as an impertinent digression, if I express my gratitude to that p- 35. example of professional rigor and perseverance, which in my early years were set before me, on the opposite side of this continent; where ability and courage alleviated, in some 54 A slip of the pen or typographical error; the strait of Juan de Fuca is meant. 55 Cape Beale, named in 1787 by Captain Barkley after John Beale killed by the Indians near Destruction island. The exact position is 48° 47' north latitude, 125° 13 "Yzr west longitude. 0 DIXON'S REMARKS 51 measure, the chagrin of unsuccessful war. The campaigns in Canada owe their only honour to the naval warfare on the lakes of that country; and it was my good fortune when a youth, to be inured in such a school to the hardships and difficulties of naval life, and to learn there, that temper and perseverance must be added to professional knowledge, in order to surmount them. I am ready to acknowledge, that for the little skill I may possess as a professional man, as well as the patience I have exercised, and the perseverance I have exerted in this or any other voyage, I am indebted to the rigid discipline which necessarily arose from the continual action, hazard, and conflict of the service in which I was first enp-acred." If you mean to shew the world the charts now in question for examples of your skill as a professional man, they, I am afraid, will give the nautical part of it, but an indifferent opinion of your abilities in that line of life which you were brought up in, and which you now profess; however, be all this p. 36. as it may, it never was my intention to find fault with, or cavil at you on that account: Few men arrive at perfection in any line of life, and the greater part of mankind seldom advance beyond mediocrity; yet, though we frequently find real merit MM and unaffected modesty joined together, we much oftener meet with two very opposite qualifications (if the old proverb is to be believed) "joined hand in hand." Whatever may be your abilities, it was surely in your power, (wherever you have found your own inexperience aided by the information of others), to acknowledge from what source you derived your information; or, if they fortunately succeeded in making any interesting discoveries, or throwing new lights on the branch of commerce in which you were engaged, you surely might have let them enjoyed their hard earned portion of merit in quiet, and not have endeavoured, by detracting from others, to add to your own. But, no, this you could not possibly do; 19 52 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY and therefore a spirit of envious detraction, and fastidious misrepresention, is met with almost in every page of your work. I could not therefore suffer it to be ushered into the world unnoticed. I am aware that my observations on the different passages P. 37. in your book do not proceed in a regular line; but I made them as they occured to me, or rather, I have selected as many of them as I have had leisure to do, for all your inconsistencies would (as I have already observed) fill a quarto volume. I am, Sir Yours, &c. &c. GEORGE DIXON James Street, Covent Garden; December 1, 1790. A N ANSWER Mr. GEORGE DIXON, Late COMMANDER of the QJJEEN CHARLOTTE- IN THE SERVICE OP MESSRS. ETCHES AND COMPANY. JOHN MEARES, Esq, IN WHICH THE REMARKS OF MR. DIXON ON THE VOYAGES TO THE NORTH WEST COAST OF AMERICA, &c LATELY PUBLISHED, ARE FULLY CONSIDERED AND REFUTED. LONDON: PRINTED AT THE £<>g0&r«vtiu ptefe : AND SOLO SV J. WALTER. N4 169. PICCAOILLY. OPPOSITE OtO 601*0 JTfUCT. SIR, YOU have thought proper to publish a Letter to me, containing remarks on the Voyages which I have lately offered to my country. It becomes me, therefore, to return an answer to them, that my silence may not be interpreted as an acquiescence in the folly of your observations, and the falsehood of your assertions. It is a duty I owe to the public, — and I fulfil it. In a work, entitled, A Voyage round the World, by Captain George Dixon,— and which is dedicated to such a respectable character as Sir Joseph Banks, by the same George Dixon; who, in the dedication of the Volume, represents himself as the Author,1— in this publication, it is asserted, that the disorders with which my crew were afflicted in Prince William's Sound, arose, in a great measure, from an uncontrouled use of spirituous liquors; I had, therefore, an undoubted right to presume . the falsehood was of your fabrication. The calumny which was propagated in print, when I was engaged in a distant and hazardous navigation, from whence I might never have returned to contradict it, struck at my character as a sailor and as a man. It implied that I was ignorant of my profession,— inattentive to the objects of the voyage,—careless of the lives of my crew,—and even regardless of my own.2 You, however, seem to be very glad to shift the charge from yourself, and leave Mr. Beresford, who was supercargo of the Queen Charlotte, and who now appears as the author of the book,3 to answer for the falsehoods of it. The passage is as follows: 1 Another of Meares's half truths. Dixon wrote the dedication and the introduction. The dedication might leave such an impression; but the introduction shows that the work is not his. See Dixon's Further Remarks, p. 15. 2 "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." 3 Beresford always appeared as the author of the book — Dixon's Voyage. Every letter bears his initials. 56 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Page 157 of Dixon s Voyage. "It was Captain Meares's intention to have completed his "voyage in twelve months; but the frost setting in sooner than "they expected, had unavoidably detained them in the Sound "during the winter. The great loss they sustained by sickness "has already been related: unfortunately, when the remaining "part of Captain Meares's crew were weak and enfeebled to the "last degree, they were greatly distressed for fuel; and, for "some time, it was with the greatest difficulty that they got "wood on board for their daily use. " On our inquiry whether the scurvy, unattended with any "other complaint, had made such fatal havoc amongst the "people belonging to the Nootka, we were informed, that a free, "unrestrained use of spirits had been indiscriminately allowed "them during the extreme cold weather, which they had drank "to such excess about Christmas, that numbers of them kept "their hammocks for a fortnight together; add to this, their "liquor was of a very pernicious kind; so that there is reason "to suppose its effects, when drank to such an extreme, were not "less fatal than the scurvy itself. Admitting this to be the "case, it was surely ill-judged in Captain Meares to suffer such "hurtful excesses amongst his people; and I am afraid that a "scanty supply of the various antiscorbutics absolutely necessary for these voyages, put it out of their power to check this "cruel disorder, so often fatal to sea-faring people." Without making any observations upon the artful, insidious P. and indecisive manner in which my name is here introduced, in order to fix a criminal conduct upon me, I shall proceed to declare, that the sickness of my crew arose, as I have described in the account of my voyage, from that extreme cold, which all the fires we could make, and all the means of protection we could employ, were not able to moderate, so as to prevent the cruel effects it had, more or less, upon us all. In Poland, MEARES'S ANSWER 57 Russia, and other northern countries, the scurvy is known to prevail with great severity, where every aid of medicine and regimen is to be easily obtained. That we, therefore, should suffer the most distressing afflictions of this disease, who were destitute of fresh provisions, vegetable productions, and every other means of alleviating application, is so natural a consequence of our situation ,that the most eager malevolence alone, could listen to and adopt any other. So far from allowing a promiscuous and indiscriminate use of spirits, I do affirm, that no more than half a pint a day per man was allowed, which was distributed by the purser, half in its raw state, and the other half in water; and, as the people fell sick, this allowance was instantly discontinued. I am ready to acknowledge, that the spirits on board the Nootka were of Bengal manufacture, and very inferior to those of the West Indies; but this circumstance relates to the imperfect nature of our equipment from an Oriental port, and has nothing to do with the false and malignant charge that you made, or, which is the same thing, permitted to be made against me.4 REMARK THE SECOND. AN accidental inaccuracy of expression, which arose from the haste with which my Voyages were prepared to meet the circumstances of the moment,5 has enabled you to make out a quibble that, to superficial readers, may wear the appearance of an argument. The note, page 201, of my book, which stings 4 John Nicol, a seaman on the King George, says in his Life and Adventures, p. 87: "She discovered the Nootka, Capt. Mairs, in a most distressing situation from the scurvy. There were only the captain and two men free from disease. Two and twenty Lascars had died through the course of the winter; they had caused their own distress by their inordinate use of spirits on Christmas eve." 5 In May, 1790, Richard Cadman Etches wrote that Meares's Voyages would not be issued within nine months; the book, however, appeared within six months. I 9 58 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY you so deeply, most certainly implies that you had already been p. 8. to China; but the error is of no consequence to the charge I . made, and still make, against you: for the question is not, whether you were going to China for the first or second time;— but whether you did not possess such an abundance of stores, as to afford a much more effectual assistance than you gave to the distressed crew of a ship in the service of the same owners with yourself!— I have asserted you did not; and I continue to assert it.— I shall state the offensive note in the form I am very willing to allow it ought to have appeared, and in which it shall appear hereafter. I On enquiring of Captain Duncan concerning his distressed "condition,6 he told me that he had met Captain Dixon in the "Queen Charlotte; and though that ship was proceeding to "China, and abundantly stocked with every thing;— and even "though she belonged to the same owners with the Princess "Royal, the provident commander thought it much better to "carry all his stores to China, than to spare any of them to the "latter vessel, though they would have been so great an allevi- "ation to the hardships of her voyage."* That you supplied the Captains Duncan and Colnett, in their distress with one puncheon of molasses, some Sandwich Island pork, articles of trade, a copy of your charts, and part of your log-book, may be very true.—But will you take upon you to say, that this supply was equal to their distressed condition, or to your power of alleviating it?7—If the latter,— from what * It may be proper to observe, that the distress of Captain Duncan arose from accidental circumstances, as both his ship and the Prince of Wales were originally equipped with the same commercial spirit as distinguished the outfits of the King George and Queen Charlotte.8 6 See Dixon's Further Remarks, pp. 22 ff, in which Duncan denies the distress and gives his version of the meeting. 7 Duncan was well satisfied with Dixon's conduct; see his letter in Dixon's Further Remarks, pp. 22 ff; Dixon also touches the matter in Further Remarks, pp. 17 f. 8 According to Duncan the owners (who were now Meares's co-adventurers) "merited every censure" for "the many deficiencies even of common necessaries," on the Princess Royal: See Further Remarks, p. 23. MEARES'S ANSWER 59 idle vanity did you make a boast, on your arrival at Canton, that, although you had been out twenty-three months, you had no occasion to purchase any article of stores or provisions for your homeward-bound voyage to England.9 At the time, therefore, you met Captain Duncan, you must, according to your own account, have had near a twelvemonth's stores, &c. on board; and were, besides, on your voyage to China, where every p. 9. kind of supply was to be obtained;—nevertheless, one puncheon of molasses, and an hogshead and harness cask of Sandwich Island pork, was all your cautious sympathy and provident humanity could spare to relieve the distresses of your fellow- creatures and countrymen, employed in the service of your common owners.—The Captains Duncan and Colnett both declared to me, that, in every part of their subsequent voyage, they sensibly felt and lamented, to use no harsher expression, the unfeeling parsimony of your conduct.10 You appear, Mr. Dixon, to infer, from the account you give of the supplies which the Captains Duncan and Colnett received from Captain Barclay, that they superseded the necessity of your further assistance; but those gentlemen, while they acknowledged their obligations to Captain Barclay, always represented his supplies as by no means sufficient to be of an) lasting service. Nor do I fear to hazard an opinion, that the return of the Princess Royal to China was owing to your avarice.11 Had she received from you, Sir, what you could so 9 Dixon deals with this alleged boast in Further Remarks, p. 18. 10 Duncan says that Meares "must have misunderstood" him — that his censure was of his owners' conduct, not of Dixon's; see Further Remarks, pp. 22 f. We have nothing from Colnett, who had just been released from confinement in Mexico and was wintering at Clayoquot sound, British Columbia. 11 This complaint is difficult to understand. The Prince of Wales and Princess Royal left England in September 1786; spent the seasons of 1787 and 1788 on the coast; arrived in China, December, 1788; the Princess Royal joined the Meares venture and the Prince of Wales, with Duncan on board, reached England, July 14, 1789. This was normal; two seasons were usually spent in trading. Dixon replies in Further Remarks, pp. 19 f. 1 1 i 60 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY well have spared, and, setting aside the common dictates of humanity, you ought to have bestowed, for the interest of your owners, that vessel might have remained another season on the Coast of America. Captain Duncan is now in London,— and I am most willing to rest my credit with the public, on his testimony respecting all I have said concerning the transactions between that worthy man and yourself.12 If you do not recollect the precise quantity of those spirits, stores, &c. which, after three years' voyage, you brought back to the Thames, the Mess. Etches, perhaps, will trouble themselves to re-inform you. As for the porter to which I alluded in pages 28, 29 and 30, of my Introductory Voyage, that charge rests wholly with your commander. He, indeed, promised to sell me a certain portion of it, at a time when it would have proved a nutritious, cordial and healing medicine to the afflicted crew of the Nootka; but, as may be seen in the pages to which I have just referred, he thought proper to break his word on the subject, and brought a quantity of it back with him, in order to regale his friends in London with such a curious and long travelled article of convivial luxury.13 REMARK THE THIRD. WITH xespect to the equipment of the King George and Queen Charlotte, I represented it, as it was, of a very superior kind,—such as the port of London could alone afford, and 12 After his return in 1789 Duncan had been engaged in seeking a passage from Hudson bay to the Pacific ocean, as Meares knew — see Meares's Voyages, p. xlix. "He probably thought that I might never return from Hudson's Bay, or that I might pass over in silence his unmerited accusations." —Duncan in Further Remarks, p. 21. 13 Meares mentions this porter in his Voyages, p. xxviii; but it is not referred to in any of his or Portlock's letters, nor in Dixon's Voyage or Port- lock's Voyage. Portlock reached England in August, 1788; Meares was then on the Northwest Coast and did not arrive in England until April, 1790; consequently this story rests upon mere gossip, or worse. MEARES'S ANSWER 61 suitable to the commercial spirit and ability of their owners. It may, indeed, be presumption in me to appear to know more of the objects of your own voyage than yourself; but, notwithstanding your assertion to the contrary, I am still of opinion that one of them was to form settlements and factories on the Coast of America;14 and that, for this very purpose, Mr. Wilby was put on board the King George, to undertake the direction of an infant colony, with proportionable men and artificers. Besides, I have now before me a copy of the orders given to Mr. Portlock, who had the honour of commanding you, which were drawn up by the Mess. Etches, &c. in the true spirit of commercial understanding and honour. These instructions particularly recommend their commanders to fix an establishment in Nootka Sound; and as it was not the incapacity, at least, of your equipments, or a deficiency in your instructions, which prevented you from performing that part of your duty, you would have done well not to have mentioned the subject at all, if you had no better means of justification than evasion and falsehood. EXTRACT from the INSTRUCTIONS of RICHARD CADMAN ETCHES, to CAPTAIN NATHANIEL PORTLOCK, Commander of the Ship KING GEORGE, of which CAPTAIN DIXON'S Instructions are an exact Copy. Dated London, September 3, 1785. " and for the future securing the trade of the continent M A:fll "and islands adjacent, you are to establish such factories as you "shall see necessary and consistent with the safety of such . 11. "settlers and your ship's company. King George's Sound, 14 Many expeditions had instructions to form settlements: e. g., the Butterworth, Prince Lee Boo, and Jackal, under Brown in 1793-4; Meares, himself, had given instructions for the formation of a settlement at Nootka sound in 1789. J\ 62 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY "we should presume, not only from being centrical, but in every "respect consistent with the intent of forming such establish- "ment;— but in this respect we must leave you entirely discretional. 1 Mr. William Wilby we have deemed perfectly qualified for "such an undertaking, and he accompanies you entirely with "that intent;— Therefore, wherever it is necessary to establish "a factory, you are to purchase of the natives such a tract of "land as you shall think best suited for the purpose of trading, "and for security, paying them in the most friendly and liberal "manner for the same.— You are then to appoint as many men "as you shall deem necessary, and who shall turn out as volunteers, to be companions to Mr. Wilby; you are to give them "every possible assistance to erect a log-house, or such other "building as shall appear to be necessary for their residence, "and for the carrying on traffic with the natives, &c. You are "to give them every assistance to make such place tenable "against the natives, and provide them with such arms, am- "munition, &c. as you shall deem necessary for their defence "and protection. You are to leave them such quantities of "provisions and other articles for convenience, and the purpose "of trade," &c, &c. More clear and explicit instructions were perhaps never given, than those delivered by your owner to Captain Portlock and yourself; and never were orders more strangely perverted, or more shamefully disobeyed.15 Your destination was King George's Sound, where you 15 In Further Remarks, pp. 36 ff, Dixon points out that all the crew had signed articles for a three years voyage and there were no volunteers for a settlement; and on p. 40 he shows that Meares has garbled the quotation by the omission of a clause permitting them to act according to their own discretion. MEARES'S ANSWER 63 were to establish a factory; and which, strange to tell, you never ventured to enter.—The King George and Queen Charlotte arrived off the Sound from Owhyhee, one of the Sandwich Isles, with their crews in full health and high spirits;— there you remained upwards of a fortnight, without pushing into the Sound: by day, indeed, you neared the land, and sometimes even made the opening of the Sound; but no sooner did the favouring night approach than you retreated, and took care to run further out to sea than you could make the following day.— p. 12. Though, if I am not very much misinformed, your ship was often tacked, and her head pointed to the land, without your knowledge, and without the desired success.16 You really write, Sir, in so desultory a manner, that, on the subject of your great geographical discoveries, which are so proud a boast to you, or my plagiarisms from them, which you wish to infer I have silently committed, I must either skip from page to page of your remarks, or compress the whole of them into one article of refutation. It will, I believe, be for the ease of my readers, as well as my own, to perform the latter. Indeed, I am much obliged to Mr. Dixon for giving me an opportunity to state a few circumstances to the public, in addition to those already communicated by me, on the subject of the North West Coast, &c. I most frankly confess that when I sailed on my second voyage, I furnished myself with your chart, and every chart that promised to be of the least service to me.17 And I protest, Sir, that it would not have been an intentional neglect, if, in 16 Dixon deals with this charge in Further Remarks, pp. 41 f. It is discussed in the introduction hereto. 17 Throughout these paragraphs Meares evades the gravamen of the charge as given, e. g. in Dixon's Remarks, p. 25, viz., that he took from others' charts and made their discoveries appear as his own. 'Ill f«T| ■ffll jf\ 64 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY discriminating what each navigator had done to complete the survey of the American Coast, which is comprised in the chart prefixed to my publication, I had omitted what I am indebted to you. The additions you made to the geography of that part of the coast are recorded in my chart. I have attributed to you the discovery of the Hippah Island, and almost all the Charlotte Isles,18 with many an interesting nook and corner, which your penetrating genius and nautical sagacity have added to the map of the world. In short, Sir, you are crammed with discoveries which you cannot digest,— and are, nevertheless, voraciously gaping for more. If Captain Cook had lived to finish his work, you Sir, would probably have been spared the trouble of your discoveries,-- and the public would not have suffered any attempt to intrude on its patience from such inconsiderable people as ourselves. Yet, to several of the officers of that great man, the nation continues to be indebted. To Captain Roberts,19 in particular, p. 13. the navigation of this country has very considerable obligations : it is his general chart of the world which ought to form the groundwork of us all; as our best discoveries consist of little more than the filling up its chasms on the American Coast. I made it the foundation of my chart, as must be evident to every one acquainted with the late discoveries, without any information from me. To the abilities of Mr. Arrowsmith I owe much, and I never differed from him but 18 See note 20 to Dixon's Remarks. The Indian habitations on the island reminded Dixon of the hippas or fortified dwellings of the New Zea- landers. They are described in Cook's First Voyages (Hawkesworth collection) vol. 2, p. 395. 19 Henry Roberts who sailed with Captain Cook on his second and third voyages and who was in charge of the pinnace on the fatal 14th February, 1779, at Karakakooa bay when he made a gallant effort to rescue his commander. He drew the chart in Cook's Third Voyage; see his explanations in the introduction thereto, pp. lxxix et seq. MEARES'S ANSWER 65 when I was convinced that I had better authority before me.20 Nor do I even blush to acknowledge, that I adopted some parts of Captain Portlock's and Captain Dixon's charts, while I rejected others. I also called in the aid of the Captains Duncan, Barclay and Colnett: all which various assistance, added to the observations and surveys made by Captain Douglas and myself, has enabled me to offer to the public those charts which accompany the Voyages I have published. They are, I trust, as accurate as the nature of mercantile surveys will admit, and have received the sanction of those opinions, against which, any petty objections from you would weigh but as so many grains of dust in the balance. I very sincerely lament that Captain Colnett's charts were seized by the Spaniards. In point of accuracy, they are, I believe, superior to any of the preceding ones; and when they are delivered up, will, I doubt not, throw new light on the geography of the American Coast.21 The following nautical remarks will not be very interesting to the generality of readers; but it is necessary for me to prove the futility of Mr. Dixon's reasonings, and to correct, by the statements of truth, the falsehoods of his publication. You observe, Sir, in something like a tone of triumph, that I was in possession of Mr. Barclay's chart, which, you say, includes the utmost extent of my progress to the southward.22 The former part of the assertion is true; but the latter is false: Nay, fortunately for me, I have Mr. Barclay's chart in my 20 See note 43 to Dixon's Remarks. Arrowsmith was the great geographer of his time. 21 Nathaniel Portlock, of the King George, on the coast 1786-1787; George Dixon, of the Queen Charlotte, on the coast 1786-1787; Charles Duncan, of the Princess Royal, on the coast 1787-1788; Charles William Barkley, of Imperial Eagle, on the coast 1787; James Colnett, of Prince of Wales, on the coast 1787-1788; William Douglas, of the Iphigenia, on the coast 1788-1789. 22 This may be taken as a sample of Meares's veracity. As Dixon shows in Further Remarks, p. 44, his words were: "As far as, or nearly so, as you went."—see Remarks, p. 11. 66 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY possession, which proves that he did not go further to the p. 14. southward than 47°, or thereabouts; and 45° 30' is the point where my course was completed. Between Maurelle's chart and mine there is no similtude; and for any information I received from the Captains Hannah, Lowrie and Guise, the two latter Gentlemen, for the former is dead, will not come forward to calumniate or accuse me.23 In answer to your remark which alludes to a longitudinal mistake on my part, in page 38 of my Introductory Voyage, I most readily acknowledge, that when I was on that part of the coast there described to be in lat. 56° 38', and long. 223° 00' 25", I had my doubts as to the perfect accuracy of the latter observation. Accordingly, in constructing my general chart, I adopted the concurring, though distinct, observations of Mr. Arrowsmith and Captain Douglas, and stated the longitude at 224° 30', instead of 223° 00' 25".24 You desire me to inform the public, on what authority I have introduced the track of the Washington in my chart; and, from that respect which is due to the public, I shall condescend to comply with your request. Mr. Neville, a gentleman of the most respectable character, who came home in the Chesterfield, a ship in the service of the East India Company, made that communication to me; which, on his authority, I have communicated to the public.25 Mr. Kendrick, who commanded the Washington, arrived at China, with a very valuable cargo of furs, some time previous to the departure of the Chesterfield; and Mr. Neville, who was continually with him during that 23 But until Meares is challenged he leaves the impression that the discoveries shown on his chart are his own. 24 This refers to the Remarks, p. 21, where Dixon points out the discrepancy between Meares's text, p. xxxviii, and his chart. 25 In a memorandum, 4th July, 1790, Meares's statement was: "Mr. Neville an officer in the Et India Company's service came home from China in the Duke of Buccleugh." MEARES'S ANSWER 67 interval.26 and received the particulars of the track from him, was so obliging as to state it to me.27 Your sarcasm, Sir, on the manner in which I speak of Captain Cook in my Observations on the North West Passage, proceeds from the habitual liberality of your mind. I wrote the sentiment which I felt; nor do I fear to repeat it. "Though "the Felice and Iphigenia did explore the latitudes from-56° "to 47° North, there is every reason to lament, that Captain is. "Cook was prevented from making such an examination as "would have proceeded from him."28 Nor have I the least apprehension that the most enthusiastic admirers of Captain Cook, will consider the foregoing sentence as containing any attempt to degrade him beneath, or elevate myself above, the very distant stations we respectively hold in the scale of professional merit. I have endeavoured, to the utmost of my information, to particularize the merits of every Gentleman employed on the coast of America. Captain Duncan did explore a considerable part of the coast between 50° and 52°. I personally esteem him, and think his merit too well established to need such a champion as yourself. Nor have I neglected that attention which is due to Captain Barclay; his name is continued by me to the Sound to the Southward of Nootka:29 But though his boat was in 26 Kendrick in the Washington arrived in Macao roads January 27, 1790; a few days later he anchored in Larks bay. There he was taken so ill with fever that his life was despaired of. It is not clear, therefore, how an officer of the East India Company could have met him frequently at Macao (see introduction). 27 See on this subject generally the introduction hereto and The First Circumnavigation of Vancouver Island by C. F. Newcombe, Victoria 1914, especially pp. 46 ff. And Further Remarks, pp. 44 f. 28 Observations on the Probable Existence of a North West Passage, in Meares's Voyages, p. xliii, commented on in Dixon's Remarks, p. 25, and in his Further Remarks, pp. 45 f. 29 Captain Barkley discovered and named, in 1787, Barkley sound, Vancouver island, and it is not clear, therefore, why Meares should take some credit for continuing his name. See Further Remarks, p. 46. t 68 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY the Straits of John de Fuca, he never was, as appears from his own chart.80 But now comes the cause of all this bitter severity against me, for depriving great navigators of their just honours, and sinking their superior merit in silence. I have certainly dared to rob the Channel of the Charlotte Isles of the title of Dixon; for no better reason, than because the enterprising, intelligent and humane navigator, who thought so proudly to distinguish it with his own name, never saw that Channel,— according to the evidence of the track on his own chart. I have, therefore ventured to give it the name of the man who boldly pushed through it: I have stripped the silly Jay of his borrowed plumage.31 I shall here take the opportunity of observing, that there is a port which unfortunately bears my name. I did not myself, however, assume this distinction,— but owe it to the partial remembrance of Captain Douglas when we were many hundred miles distant from each other.32 As to the existence of the Straits of John de Fuca,— Captain Duncan saw them as well as myself; and the original sallies of Captain Dixon's pleasantry, will not prevent me from p. i6. repeating my opinion,—that some further account would have already been given of these Straits, if Captain Colnett had not 30 Meares in his Voyages, chapter xiv, claims to have discovered and named this strait. Compare p. lv, with pp. 151, 152, and 155. See, also, Dixon's Further Remarks, p. 47. 31 Dixon entrance was named in 1788 by Sir Joseph Banks after Captain George Dixon. In Further Remarks, p. 49, Dixon gives an account of the incident. 32 Douglas anchored in Port Meares, August 14, 1788. "It was now named Port Meares," Meares's Voyages, p. 329. Port Meares was, probably, in Cordova bay. Alaska, and is to be distinguished from Meares bay, which is the entrance to Kaiganee strait, Alaska. MEARES'S ANSWER 69 been prevented by the ships of his Catholic Majesty from fulfilling the objects of his voyage.33 I now come to that part of your publication which mentions Cook's River, and its probable communications with the southernmost part of Baffin's Bay, or the northernmost part of Hudson's Bay. I find no data in Captain Cook's Voyage to determine the non-existence of a passage. There is no declaration from him that militates against the navigation of a ship beyond the Narrows, where we know there is sufficient depth for a whale. But this is not absolutely the point. The place in which the Iphigenia anchored, was in lat. 59° 58' and her boat went as far as lat. 60° 42', which, indeed, was not so high by many miles as the survey of Mr. Bligh: though, if I mistake not, there were several persons on board the Discovery, who retained their opinions in favour of a passage, independent of the surveys made by the boats of both ships.34 You, however, with your usual eagerness and ignorance, take possession of the shoal placed above the Narrows, in order to form a barrier against all further navigation up the river: but to dispossess you at once of your important situation, I must inform you, that ships can navigate on each side of this formidable shoal. No one considers the character and abilities of Captain Cook with more veneration than myself; nevertheless, I am free to observe, that there are those who have taken the liberty of correcting the surveys of the very parts which were explored by him. The Russians, indeed, who in their galliots have navigated Cook's River much higher than any European vessel, consider it, in reality, to be a bay, filled with fragments of islands, whose channels have been erroneously taken for rivers; 33 For these "original sallies" see Dixon's Remarks, pp. 25 f. Dixon did not deny the existence of the waterway called the strait of Juan de Fuca. 34 Zimmermann in Dernier Voyage du Capitane Cook, pp. 67 f, says that Lieutenant Gore was convinced that he could find a passage from Prince William's sound by which he could reach England in three months. mm 70 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY — nor does it appear that a single river has been discovered by any of the navigators on the American coast.35 It is, in my opinion, by no means improbable, that the sea seen behind Nootka, will be hereafter found to extend to the Northward as far as Cook's River. But this is mere conjecture; and, in my Observations on the North West Passage, I argue only on the probability of its existence,— and leave my reasonings, such as they are, on the subject, to the candid investigation of inquisitive and discerning men. Whales were most certainly seen by Captain Douglas at the anchoring place of the Iphigenia in Cook's River; and I myself saw them off Cape Douglas taking their course up it: But the Pacific Ocean and the channels of the Charlotte Isles are so abundant in these animals, that it would be an idle excursion indeed to follow them elsewhere in those latitudes.36 In short, Sir, if you will peruse the Voyages of Captain Cook with a little more attention than you appear to have bestowed upon them, you will add another discovery to those you have already made,— that the great Navigator did not give over his survey of the river, called after his name, from impediments, but opinion; and I defy you to produce, or even name any one who navigated Cook's River till he could navigate it no further.37 But, after all, though Captain Cook found the rise and fall of its tides to be very considerable, I am disposed to believe, that if a passage should hereafter be discovered, it will prove to be in a more southerly direction. 35 No ship had passed that shoal after the Resolution grounded on it in 1778 until Vancouver sailed up Cook's river (or inlet, as he called it) to Turnagain island. A Russian galiot can hardly be called a ship. 36 Douglas in the Iphigenia, in June 1788, anchored in Cook's river, now Cook's inlet, ten or twelve miles north of Anchor point. His journal does not mention whales. 37 Meares seems to forget that Dixon was with Cook on that voyage. He is correct in saying that Cook did not abandon the exploration of the river because of impediments. See note 38 to Dixon's Remarks. p. 17. MEARES'S ANSWER 71 The probability of a North West Passage, for which I contend, appears to be a stumbling block of great offence to you; and, in a dictatorial tone of inquisitive importance, you ask me, why I produced the voyage of the Iphigenia to aid my observations on the subject; when, as you are pleased to say, it was in my power to have brought forward that of Captain Duncan; which, in your unerring opinion, is of superior authority. I answer,— because, without retracting from the acknowledged merit of Captain Duncan, I prefer the journal of the Iphigenia to every other. I consider Captain Duncan as the best authority for the navigation between the Charlotte Isles and the Main,— or, at least, what we take to be so. This circumstance, with his traverses from shore to shore, justifies the application I have made of his voyage to my chart. He p- is- undoubtedly visited the great Northern Archipelago prior to Captain Douglas; but, from his distressed situation, he quitted those parts without knowing there was such a channel as that through which Captain Douglas made his way.38 You had no such excuse; and when I mention Captain Barclay as infinitely your superior both in navigation and commerce, I assert that which he himself has proved. He performed the voyage from Europe to America, and from thence to China, in twelve months; and I maintain, that instead of employing two years to reach Canton, you and your consort ought to have manifested the same expedition as that gentleman.39 Your charge against me that, in the only place where I acknowledge Mr. Arrowsmith's assistance, I have made such If 38 Duncan's letter in Further Remarks, pp. 26 ff, shows that he was not in distress, but left to keep a rendezvous. According to Douglas's journal he did not land or trade anywhere in passing through Dixon entrance and Hecate strait. 39 Barkley had a very successful season; he collected 800 sea otter skins in three months. Portlock and Dixon's first season (1787) was a failure, and they were compelled to remain another season. See Further Remarks, pp. 52 f. Ji\ 72 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY an extraordinary deviation from him as 19° 45', would be of a very serious nature indeed, if it were true; but the accusation from its flagrant falsehood, proves nothing more than the mad malice of the man who makes it. You here allude, I presume, to the sea seen by Mr. Hearne. Now, Sir, to prove the captious ignorance of your objection, I must inform you, that in Captain Cook's chart we find this sea in latitude 72° North, and longitude 240° East of Greenwich. In that of Mr. Arrowsmith, it appears in latitude 68° 15' North, and longitude 248° 30' East, agreeable to Mr. Turner, as I have since been informed, making the difference of 3° 45' in latitude, and 8° 30' in longitude; nevertheless I have adhered to the position of Captain Cook. On the chart of the latter, we find no sea laid down in the latitude of 68° 15', and longitude 228° East; but in that of Arrowsmith a sea is placed precisely in those degrees, agreeable to the account of the Canadian traders, given to him, and so much for your idle and ill-founded questions concerning your supposed difference of 19° 45' of longitude between Mr. Arrowsmith and me. But to proceed in settling the rest of them, such as they are: I must inform you, that the reason why I differ from the last named gentleman, or rather from Captain Duncan, who was hisp. authority, in the position of the land to Eastward, at Nepean's Sound, Princess Royal Island, &c. proceeds from a preference I have given to the corrections of Captain Douglas, who has fixed these parts of the coast by numerous lunar observations. He has placed them at 1 ° 30' to the East of Captain Duncan; and I believe myself to be justified in following his example. I am not conscious of any improper bias in selecting the authorities which have governed me.40 40 See Dixon's Remarks, pp. 29 ff and Further Remarks, pp. 53 ff; see also introduction hereto. Samuel Hearne, who in 1771 reached the Arctic ocean overland from Hudson bay. Aaron Arrowsmith, the geographer. Philip Turnor, the astronomer of the Hudson's Bay Company. MEARES'S ANSWER 73 You are at a loss, it seems, to account for my motives in mentioning the Capes Mendocino and de Mendozino, in my delineation of the American Coast; because, in your opinion, there is only one Cape Mendocino; the other, you say, is Cape Blanco, which you accuse me, in your usual way, of removing 1 ° 30' to the Northward of its real situation. I answer, Captain Cook does not mention any Cape Mendocino in latitude 40°, which Mr. Arrowsmith does; I have therefore, as I conceive, very justifiably mentioned both the Cape Mendocino of Mr. Arrowsmith, in latitude 40°, and the Cape de Mendozino of Captain Cook, in latitude 42° 30', or thereabouts, which he places in his chart 42° 30'. As for Cape Blanco, I have placed it in latitude 43° 30', agreeable to Captain Cook, by whose chart I have arranged all that part of the coast.41 You state my position of Port Sir Francis Drake, as an example of the happy method I possess of removing land at pleasure. Captain Cook places it in latitude 38° 45', or thereabouts.—Mr. Arrowsmith in latitude 37° 30', and I have adopted the position of the former, latitude 38° 45'; while you insist upon its being in 47° 30'; forming a difference of ten degrees from Mr. Arrowsmith, and eight degrees fifteen minutes from Captain Cook. This, Mr. Dixon, is removing land with a vengeance.42 The interior parts of America, as laid down in my chart, come in also for their share of disapprobation. I shall only add, with respect to them,, that they were arranged from the best authorities. Having, I trust, very completely fixed the latitude and longitude of your character as a navigator, I shall proceed to lay down, as I hope with tolerable accuracy, the exact position of 41 Dixon's Remarks, p. 30; Further Remarks, pp. 55 f. 42 Dixon's Remarks, p. 30; Further Remarks, p. 56. By a slip of the pen, or a printer's error, Dixon is made to say 49° and 47° 30', when they should be 39° and 37° 30'. Ml 74 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY your commercial excellence. In* making my observations on this subject, I must previously remark, that your malignity is so predominent, as to annihilate in you the leading, and, as I should think, the inherent principles of a man of trade. You seem to rejoice that your voyage round the world, as you call it, for the purposes of commerce, was not attended with the advantage expected to be derived from it. You appear to be proud of the inadequate and disproportioned sale of your cargo at China; and are, I doubt not, grateful to the Houang merchants of Canton, for having purchased all your skins at less than half their value, in order that you might be furnished with a plausible, but fallacious argument, against a new branch of commerce; in which, having failed yourself, you would be glad, as far as your wretched testimony would go, to prevent former adventurers from obtaining the remuneration of their risks and labours; or to discourage the enterprizes of others, whose knowledge, activity and perseverance, by ensuring success, would fling added disgrace on those who have failed from the want of such essential qualifications.43 You state, with an infatuated kind of triumph, that your 2552 sea-otter skins, &c. fetched no more than 54,857 Spanish dollars at the Chinese market; and your statement is made in such a manner, as to infer that it was the common market price of that valuable commodity; and that, of course, what has been said by myself and others on the advantages of that commerce, is a deception on the public. At the moment you were writing that curious piece of information, or instructing others to write it, you knew that it was founded in falsehood. Nor dare you 43 Portlock and Dixon's voyage was successful and would have been more so but for the monopoly of the East India Company. "Though we could have sold our cargo with ease we were not at liberty to dispose of one material article; the sole management of it being vested in the hands of the East India Company's supercargoes." Portlock's Voyage, London, 1789, p. 382. Dixon's Further Remarks, pp. 58 f. MEARES'S ANSWER 75 deny that the low prices given for the articles in question, arose from the contract of your owners with the East India Company, to leave the disposition of your American cargo to the disposal of their servants at Canton, which necessarily gave an addi- p. 21. tional power to the Houang merchants, those privileged oppressors of European commerce.* I repeat, those skins did not find any thing like half the price for which otter skins have been sold in China, both at the time, and since the period of their sale.44 You are pleased to add, if I wish to be informed why these skins sold for so small a sum, I may enquire of Mr. Richard Cadman Etches, who, you doubt not, can give me every satisfaction on that subject. I perfectly agree with you, that the gentleman to whom you refer me, is fully qualified to answer me upon the matter immediately before us; and I desire no better judge than him, between you and me. Nor have I the least doubt but he will be ready to confirm the explanations I am about to give, to use your own phrase, of the ill success of your commerce; which arose, among other causes, from the misconstruction your commander and yourself thought proper to put on the license granted to your owners by the Honourable the East India Company, for the disposal of your American * The history of the Houang merchants, and the manner in which they are allowed by the Chinese government to oppress the commerce of the Europeans, is stated at large in the Account of the trade between the North West Coast of America and China, prefixed to my Voyages.4** 44 Dixon's Remarks, pp. Ilff; Further Remarks, pp. 58 f. The latter citation shows that as a term of its license permitting them to sell the furs in China the East India Company exacted a bond of £5,000 from Portlock and Dixon and their owners, "either to sell them to the Company's supercargoes at Canton at a fair price or leave them in their hands for sale by commission." As to the Houang merchants and their methods, see Captain Cook's Third Voyage, vol. 3, pp. 428 f (Dublin ed. 1784). 45 Meares's Voyages, p. lxxvi et sea; Dixon's Voyage, pp. 300 f; Cook's Third Voyage (Dublin ed.) vol. 3, pp. 428 f. 76 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY cargoes, and the consequent controul assumed by the supercargoes over the sale of them.46 I have also good reason to think, Mr. Dixon, that a considerable part of your furs were of a very, if not the most, inferior nature, consisting of worn out garments of the Indians, pieces bedaubed with paint, and sewed together, so as to greatly lessen the supposed aggregate value of your cargo.47 But let me ask you, Sir, whether you did not encourage, as far as you had any power to do it, the first opportunity of selling the furs, however disadvantageous to your owners, in order to secure, from all future risk, a certain little advantage you were to receive upon the sale ?48 In page 13, your pamphlet states an account of furs p. 22. brought by the several ships you mention, amounting to 5,033 skins; they sold, it seems for 146,842 Spanish dollars in China; which, at a medium, makes no more than about 29 1-6 dollars per skin: but of these furs which were brought to Canton in the years 1786, 1787, and 1788, I am authorized to say, that scarce three thousand of them were saleable articles. And I do assert, that in those very years, the prime skins sold in China from ninety to one hundred and twenty dollars per skin.49 In the first voyages to the North West Coast of America, the adventurers purchased whatever skins the natives brought them; and the latter sold only such as they had procured for 46 Dixon's Further Remarks, p.p. 59 ff, Richard Cadman Etches could not complain of any "misconstruction," as here alleged, of Portlock and Dixon for he was on the bond with them. 47 Such furs were in every cargo. See Further Remarks, p. 62. 48 The allusion is to Dixon's two per cent, primage or "hat money." See Further Remarks, pp. 62 f. 49 There are no records of sales at such prices except the following: "A few prime skins, which were clean and had been well-preserved, were sold for one hundred and twenty dollars each."—Cook's Third Voyage, vol. 3, p. 435 (Dublin ed. 1784). 1 MEARES'S ANSWER themselves, many of which must have necessarily been old, worn out and rotten, having been employed as cloathing, and for other purposes of personal or domestic convenience. But as the inhabitants of the coast are become more informed as to the nature and advantages of commerce, their attention is become proportionately encreased to the due preparation of the objects of it. They no longer dye or paint, or even wear the otter skins which they take, but consider them merely as articles of trade, for which they can get commodities more suited to their necessities and comforts. The Nootkan people have already given a very decided preference to the woollens of England.50 The following statement will, I believe, settle at once the present difference, Mr. Dixon, between you and me. Your 2,552 skins, sold for 54,877 dollars, which is somewhat more than twenty-one dollars per skin.51 My cargo, (carried to Canton when you were there, consisting of 370 skins, 120 of which were of the river otter, worth p. 23. only eight to nine dollars each) was sold for 14,000 dollars;52 and the merchant who bought them, not being able to make good his purchase, forfeited his deposit of 1,000 dollars. Many of these skins were of an indifferent quality, but the prime parchment skins sold from 100 to 120 dollars per skin. In the year 1788, which is the period when your extraordinary sale took place, I beg leave to bring to your remembrance, and Mr. Etches will confirm the assertion, that the prime sea-otter skins sold at Canton, at an average price, from ninety to one hundred Mexican dollars per skin.53 50 The point of this remark is not plain; all the trade up to 1789 having been British. 51 Dixon's Further Remarks, p. 63. 52 Dixon in Further Remarks, pp. 63 f, claims this statement is false. 53 Etches was as much interested as Meares in supporting the claim of $100 each for prime sea otter skins. &1H sill 78 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY In page 13 of your letter you address me in the following manner: "I should have been happy to have included in the "above statement, the furs brought to the China market by "yourself, your second voyage; and also those belonging to "the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal: These accounts you "had it in your power to have laid before the Public; but, for "reasons best known to yourself, you have thought proper to "keep them secret." To the Public I most readily give the account both of the one and the other; and my character shall stand pledged for the accuracy of them. — You are continually giving me opportunities, Mr. Dixon, of clearing away any and every impression that may be made by your insidious, malignant, and false depreciation of the North West American commerce. I arrived at Canton, in the Felice, in the month of December 1788; my cargo consisted of about 750 skins. I had not to encounter the controul of the Honourable East India Company's supercargoes, but possessed a free, independent power over my cargo, which I sold for 38,000 dollars, being something better than 50 dollars per skin.54 It may not also be improper to observe, that the Chinese p. 24. furriers sorted these skins into the following classes: Of the first quality 100 the second 200 the third 200 the fourth .' 90 the fifth 120 the sixth 40 Total 750 54 In 1788 Meares was masquerading under the flag of Portugal and in the name of Juan Cawalho (see his Memorial) and consequently, as he says, did not encounter the control of the East India Company. 1^ MEARES'S ANSWER 79 The tails of the sea-otter, which were promiscuously attached to these skins, averaged about six dollars per tail.*55 I shall also add another circumstance relative to this cargo, as it is in point to the general question. The Chinese furrier, who had bought the whole of it for 38,000 dollars, being apprehensive that the Hoppo, or Comptroller of the Customs, would exercise his arbitrary power, in taking such of the skins as he might chuse, at his own price, if he knew of the sale, requested that it might not be immediately divulged; in consequence of which the Hoppo came on board the Felice, and selected eight of the best skins, and twenty of the finest tails: for the former he paid me 250 dollars each, and for the latter 15 dollars each; which I, of course, allowed the Chinese merchant, on completing the contract between us.56 The Prince of Wales and Princess Royal arrived off Macao the same month, with a cargo, which was acknowledged by the Chinese merchants to be in the best condition of any brought p. 25. to the Canton market; and many applications were made to Mr. J. Etches, the supercargo of those ships, for the disposal of his cargo, before he went up to Canton. He exposed, however, only those skins which were of the second quality to sale, for which he was offered seventy-five dollars per skin; and he and Captain Colnett wrote an account of the offer to their owners, and acquainted them that if they could not procure an higher price, they should close with the offer, and pay the proceeds into the Company's treasury at Canton. He was offered so high a price as one hundred and fifty dollars for some of the * The reason of the small comparative number of tails arises from their being considered as the exclusive right of the American women, who employ them in their dress. 55 See Further Remarks, pp. 67 f. 56 See Dixon's criticism of this strange statement in Further Remarks, pp. 69 f. The price of $250.00 for a prime sea otter skin is an exaggeration; it is more than double the highest price on record. v i ( N 80 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY best skins. A few days after this offer, they received a peremptory order from the East India Company's Council, for the Prince of Wales to proceed to Canton with the joint cargoes, which was accompanied with a prohibition to dispose of any part of their furs. On their arrival they found the fatal precedent, established by Captain Dixon's commander, of leaving the sale of his cargo to the controul of the Company's Super- eoes, in full force against them. So that, exclusive of a large quantity of pieces of sea-otter skins and other furs, which were left at their own disposal, they delivered to the Supercargoes 1959 whole sea-otter skins, and sixty-five cloaks made up of the furs of the same animal, for which they granted Mr. Etches bills on the East India Company for fifty-six thousand dollars, amounting to no more than about twenty-seven dollars and an half per skin. The difference between the price offered by the Chinese merchant, and that which was paid by the Company's supercargoes, renders all further observation superfluous. And now, Mr. Dixon, I have laid these accounts before the Public, which, with your usual liberality, you suggest that I withheld from some sinister and dishonourable motive. Your ignorance, to say no worse, has called forth these incontrovertible proofs of the falsehood which pervades your statement of the North West American fur trade.57 I have one more item for your satisfaction on this subject. The Spanish commanders, in their tender kindness, thought proper to return 96 skins belonging to the cargo of the North West America, which they had seized, as stated in the memorial presented to the House of Commons. These, with the master j and crew of that little vessel were taken to Canton on 57 Whether the statement that John Etches received this offer be accurate or not, the strangling effect of the East India Company's monopoly is seen. It is probable that the license in this case, as in that of the King George and Qtieen Charlotte, required that the furs be disposed of through the company's supercargoes. See Portlock's Voyage, p. 382. ■HUE MEARES'S ANSWER 81 board the American ship Columbia, who took 24 of the 96 skins for freight. The account of their sale, from Canton, is thus stated in a letter to me by the Chesterfield East Indiaman, dated Canton, February 12, 1790. " I have received from the Americans 72 skins, {of the ''middling, second, and third quality) ; they deduct 25 per cent, "for the freight; and these 72 I have sold for 4000 dollars." Thus, at so late a period as in the commencement of the last year, sea-otter skins, which are stated to be of the middling, second, and third qualities, averaged at the Canton market at fifty-five dollars and an half per skin.58 Having employed such reasons as my own experience and information suggested, to detect the fallacy of the statement in your pamphlet, which is calculated to give the most erroneous ideas concerning the fur trade between the North West Coast of America and China, I shall proceed to state a few corroborating arguments in favour of my opinions concerning that trade; And the first will be taken, Captain Dixon, from your own voyage, p. 300,301. The account there given, differs so much from your opinions in your letters to me, that as you acknowledge you did not write it, lam disposed to think also that you have never read it. The passage I allude to proves, as I have already asserted, that the low sale of your furs arose from accidental circumstances, and by no means from the state of the market for that article when you arrived at Canton. The passage is as follows: I In regard to the sale of our furs I should observe, that "there is at Canton a company of wealthy merchants, called "the Houng Merchants, with whom our East India Company "transacts all their business, and purchase from them the whole 58 Dixon in Further Remarks, p. 68, points out that Meares is claiming from Spain $100 for each of these skins. See these 96 skins mentioned: Meares Memorial in Appendix to Meares's Voyages. *M 82 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY 'of the tea and China-ware sent to Great Britain. To these 'people our furs were offered, with an expectation of their ] "immediately taking them off our hands at an advantageous "price: but here we were woefully disappointed; and we found, 'to our cost, the sad mistake of our owners, in appointing the 'supercargoes to have the sole disposal of their property; for 'the moment these Houng Merchants had looked the skins 'over, and fixed a value on them, no other merchant dares 'interfere in the purchase. Indeed, as the quantity above- 'mentioned was not suffered to be divided, there were not many people, except these Houng merchants, who had it in 'their power to buy so large a parcel and advance the money 'immediately. Add to this, the duty on merchandise in the 'port of Canton, seems not to be regulated by any fixed rule, 'but rests, in a great measure, in the breasts of those appointed 'by the Hoppo to lay it on, and who fix it higher or lower at 'pleasure. With these people the Houng merchants have a 'great influence, so that had any indifferent person been at 'liberty to purchase our skins, and disposed to give us an 'advantageous price for them, the fear of having an enormous 'duty to pay, would at once deter him from any attempt of 'the kind: In this poor situation were we with respect to the 'sale of our cargo, during the month of December and the 'greatest part of January: either we must close with the paltry 'offers which the Houang merchants had made to the super- 'cargoes, or be under the necessity of leaving our furs in their 'hands undisposed of. This both parties knew we wished to 'avoid, if possible; meanwhile some of the refuse, which they 'had left for us to dispose of, sold for considerable advantage"* * Whether they were considered as among the refuse, I know not, but a small lot of those skins were sold by your commander to a China merchant at 100 dollars per skin.59 59 This refuse, it appears, sold for $100; not $100 per skin. In Further Remarks, pp. 70 f, Dixon charges Meares with adding the two words, "per skin." p. 28. MEARES'S ANSWER 83 Another argument in favour of the fur trade, and which corroborates Captain Dixon's foregoing refutation of his own fallacious statement and insinuations to the prejudice of that trade, as given in his letter, is taken from the voyage of Captain Portlock, his associate and commander. The latter gentleman concludes the account of his voyage, in the following manner: " The grand object of the voyage, of which an account is "given in the preceding sheets, being to trade for furs, with an "expectation, no doubt, of gaining more than common profits, "by an undertaking which, at once, was new, hazardous and "uncertain, the world will naturally enquire whether such expectation has been answered; and, more particularly, as reports have been industriously propagated to the contrary!' That the King George's Sound Company (the proprietors "of the ships commanded by Messrs. Portlock and Dixon) have "not accumulated immense fortunes, may, perhaps, be true; but "it is no less certain, that they are gainers to an amount of "several thousand pounds; and that the voyage did not answer "to the utmost extent of their wishes, undoubtedly was owing "to their own inexperience; for when the King George and "Queen Charlotte arrived at Canton, and even a month after "that period, prime sea-otter skins sold from eighty to ninety "dollars each. Of this quality the ships had at least two "thousand on board, besides a large quantity of furs of inferior "value; but though we could have sold our cargo with ease, we "were not at liberty to dispose of one material article, the sole "management of it being vested in the hands of the East India "Company's supercargoes; and, at length, the skins just men- "tioned sold for less than twenty dollars each." From this plain statement of facts, the public may at once "perceive, that this branch of Commerce, so far from being a a I 84 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY "losing one, is perhaps, the most profitable and ludrative that "the enterprising merchant can possibly engage in."60 I have only one additional observation to make upon the subject. In page II of your pamphlet, you are pleased very facetiously to remark, that though, according to my probable arithmetic, your cargo ought to have sold for 200,000 dollars, it fetched no more than 54,857. To this I have only to answer, that the probable arithmetic of your commander, Captain Portlock, goes to the same calculation^ Having, Sir, as I trust, fully, incontrovertibly, and from p. 29. the best authorities, established the fallacy of the statement in your letter, and thereby, as I hope, baffled the malice which excited you to make it, I shall, for the present, quit the cause of the North West American commerce, and take up my own. You suggest that I divided part of the skins I carried to China, on board the Nootka, among my own people, and sold them on my own account; and with the most entire satisfaction I inform you, that I did both the one and the other. I sincerely thank you, Sir, for forcing me to relate circumstances which I feel to be so honourable to myself, and to state my conduct in them, of which no liberal or humane mind will think I have any reason to be ashamed. The commercial expedition to the North West Coast of America, from Bengal, in 1786, and which was fitted out by many of the most respectable characters in that settlement, pro- 60 The citizens of the United States, unshackled by any monopoly, found the trade lucrative. The great profit was in the return cargo, which the East India Company's monopoly prevented British vessels from obtaining. Port- lock's meaning is, as the context shows, that freed from the monopoly the trade would be lucrative; and this is what he told Marchand at Saint Helena: see Marchand's Voyage, London, 1801, vol. 1, pp. clxxvi, et seq. 61 The fallacy of his argument is that in 1789 when his ships were seized Meares was operating under the same license as Portlock and Dixon, and Colnett and Duncan had used; and, therefore, subject to the same supervision of the East India Company. 62 See Dixon's caustic comment in Further Remarks, pp. 71 f. MEARES'S ANSWER 85 ceeded not from a view of private gain, but the spirit of public advantage: it was a patriotic experiment in favour of British commerce; and the proprietors consigned it to my unlimited and independent command; their partial and animating friendship shackled it with no conditions, but made me as much master of the whole equipment, as if I had prepared it at my own cost and expence. The misfortunes of the voyage I have related to the world; but they have not been heightened by a single reproach from those who enabled me to make it: on the contrary, my disappointments have almost been done away with by the continuance of their friendship and protection. The sufferings of myself and people in this voyage, afford a very painful example of those hardships to which maritime life is subject. When, therefore, I returned to China, I felt it to be my first duty to remunerate, in the best manner I was able, those of my crew which the winter of Prince William's Sound had spared me. I did, accordingly, divide a certain quantity of skins among them; I was invested with the power of doing P. so. it: And this act of justice, which was my chief consolation at the time when I performed it, is a source of honest pride to me at this moment, when I am compelled to record it.62 I have now, as I flatter myself, settled the opinion which every impartial reader will entertain of your pamphlet, in the principal objects of it. As I feel a wish, however, that the confutation should be complete, I shall condescend to remark upon the petty observations and subordinate charges which form the remaining part of that publication. I mentioned, but without any aggravating expressions, the circumstances of your having supplied Taheo, the King of Atooi, one of the Sandwich Islands, with arms, ammunition, &c. on very improper conditions, from the authority of Captain I IB 86 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Douglas.63 It is the language of his journal, and I am disposed to believe it. Nor can you, with any justice, exercise your severity on me, for having given credit to such an authority; when you reflect, with what readiness you admitted an invidious as well as false account into your book, of the causes that augmented the sickness of my crew in Prince William's Sound, on an evidence of very inferior credibility. But it was not the matter of trading away musquets, pistols, or other weapons, which, indeed, was consistent enough with your former occupation64 — but the manner or motive of your conduct in so doing. I am willing to acknowledge that I also furnished certain of the chiefs of the Sandwich Islands with arms and ammunition, in order to defend themselves against their enemies, and thereby to secure their friendship to the future interests of British commerce. The recollection of my conduct at the different visits I made to the Sandwich Isles, does not present to my mind a single cause of reproach. On my return to China from Prince William's Sound, we remained there a month;65 and, in consequence of frequent attempts, during the night, upon the anchor of the Nootka, by some of the natives, I did discharge P. 31. a four-pound shot on shore, though not among the people, as you falsely assert, but over an hill, where it could have no other but its intended effect, to terrify the inhabitants from their designs on the most material implement of the ship: this desirable effect was produced without the least interruption to that harmony which subsisted between us and the natives, from 63 Meares's Voyages, p. 354; Dixon's Remarks, pp. 16 f; Further Remarks, p. 73. 64 Dixon had been armourer on the Discovery during Cook's last voyage. An armourer was a skilled mechanic, with the rating of a petty officer, whose duty it was to assist the gunner in keeping the arms in order. 65 Meares made two visits to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) islands: In 1787 in the Nootka, and in 1788 in the Felice. mm MEARES'S ANSWER 87 the time of our arrival, till we quitted them to proceed on our voyage to China.66 I agree with you that a time-piece is not of the least utility at sea, unless a sight can be obtained both of the horizon and the sun. Nor do I retract the declaration, which seems to alarm your nautical experience, "that during a season of continued fog, my time-piece had proved of real service to me." For, I believe it is known to every seaman, that, in weather which may be properly called a continual fog, those momentary gleams of the sun appear, and transient views of the horizon are obtained, to which the instrument in question may be applied with the greatest utility.67 As to your having anchored in Karakakoa Bay, in the island of Owhyhee, previous to the Iphigenia, if I had recollected that circumstance to have been related in your voyage, I should have acknowledged it in mine. I really do not wish to deprive you of any merit, however trifling, that you or your voyages may possess.68 Whether skin or wooden canoes are in use from the straits of the two continents along the coast, as far as Cape Edgecumbe, is a matter of too little consequence to merit investigation. When I am convinced, from some better authority than your's, that I am mistaken in my account, in favour of the former, I will correct the error.69 Whether you or I, or according to your opinion, the Spaniards, first saw the extraordinary people with the disfiguring cut in their underlips, in the latitude of 56° 38' North, and p. 32. longitude of 223° 0' 25", shall not be made a subject of con- 66 See Dixon's Remarks, pp. 23 f, and note thereto; Further Remarks, p. 74. 67 Meares's Voyages, p. iv; Dixon's Remarks, p. 20; Further Remarks, pp. 75 f. 68 Meares's Voyages, p. 343 ; Dixon's Remarks, p. 16. 69 Meares's Voyages, p. x; Dixon's Remarks, p. 19; Further Remarks, p. 76. Cape Edgecumbe, at the entrance to Sitka sound, (Dixon's Norfolk sound) Alaska. i J jRfk< li 88 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY tention by me. I shall only repeat the opinion of my Introductory Voyage, p. 38, where some account of these people may be found, — that, from the circumstance of their conduct and behaviour, there was every reason to believe that we were the only navigators they had ever beheld.70 One word more, Mr. Dixon, and I have done. You are pleased, Sir, to declare, that it was from a sense of the duty you owe to the public and yourself, that you have undertaken, with what success that public will determine, to point out some of the numerous absurdities, &c. which, in your opinion, fill my volume: but, leaving yourself out of the question, it really became your boasted zeal for the right information of the public, to have added a few more of my inconsistencies, and your own observations on them, in order to have narrowed the enormous margins of your pamphlet, as well as to have occupied the four last pages of it, which you have now left to instruct the reader with an interesting: cata- logue of your bookseller's publications. Jan. 1, 1791. JOHN MEARES P. S. It is with particular satisfaction that I possess this opportunity of contradicting the misinformation of Mr. Duff in, relative to Captain Colnett's illness, in his letter to me from Nootka Sound, published in my Memorial to the House of Commons, No. 9, and, in the Appendix to my Voyages, No. 13. Mr. Duff in there mentions, but I am sure 70 Meares's Voyages, p. xxxviii; Dixon's Remarks, p. 21. HHfi MEARES'S ANSWER 89 71 See hereon, Martinez's Manuscript Journal, July 9, 11, 1789, Colnett's Voyage, (London 1798) pp. 101 f. very innocently, that Mr. Colnett's insanity is supposed to be a family disorder.71 It, therefore, becomes my duty to declare, from the best authority, that such a report is destitute of any foundation whatever. FURTHER REMARKS on the VOYAGES O F JOHN MEARES, Efg. IN WHICH Several important Facts, mifreprefented in the faid Voyages, RELATIVE TO GEOGRAPHY and COMMERCE, ARE FULLY SUBSTANTIATED. To which is added, A LETTER from CAPTAIN DUNCAN, CONTAINING A decifive Refutation x>f fcveral unfounded Assertions of Mr. MEARES, And a final Reply to his Answer. b Y GEORGE DIXON, LATE COMMANDER OF THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE IN A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. LONDON; PRINTED FOR JOHN STOCKDALE, PICCADILLY, AND CEORCE COULDiNC. JAMES STREET, COVEHT CAROEN. M.OCC.XCI. [PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE] 1 p fifts entirely of fifh, with the oil of fame for fauce;" but 5. a little farther in the fame page, an addition is made to their diet, and we are told, that "The only vegetables thefe i SI R, A Contention between individuals is feldom of fufflcient importance to be communicated to the Public; as, generally fpeaking, few are entertained by, and ftill fewer are interefted in, the concerns of private perfons: the prefent cafe, however, I humbly conceive not as merely relating to Mr. Meares and myfelf, but of real importance to all who may hereafter be concerned in profecuting the commerce of which it is the fubject, or navigating the feas where that commerce is carried on. P. 4. It was from this idea that I pointed out fome of the errors in your late publication, and I am inclined to think that you, in fome degree at leaft, feel the juftice of my remarks; for in a pamphlet juft publifhed by you, intitled, "An Anfwer to Mr. George Dixon," &c. you attempt to refute them; but it does not appear to me, nor I believe to any unprejudiced reader, that you have fucceeded in a fingle inftance: I fhall therefore oppofe a plain, fimple ftatement of facts, to your weak, fallacious reafonings, and leave a candid public to determine between us. At the conclufion you obferve, that "it really became your boafted zeal for the right information of the public, to have added a few more of my inconfiftencies," &c. As you feem to think this my duty, I will, previous to the difcuffion of your pamphlet, point out a few more of your inconfiftencies. In page 8 of your Introductory Voyage, fpeaking of the inhabitants of Ounalafhka, you obferve "That their diet con- AM 94 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY If lands produce is wild celery, which the natives eat as it is pulled out of the ground." To fhew you that wild celery is not the only vegetable found at Ounalafhka, I fhall take the liberty of quoting a paffage from Captain Cook, and efpecially as you wifh me to perufe his voyages with attention. - In Capt. Cook's laft Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, vol. ii. page 519, we find that "There are a great variety of plants at Ounalafhka, and moft of them were in flower the latter end of June. Several of them are fuch as we find in Europe, and in other parts of America, particularly in Newfoundland, and others of them, which are alfo met with in Kamtfchatka, are eat by the natives both there and here. Of thefe, Krafheninikoff has given us defcriptions. The principal one is the faranne, or lily root, which is about the f ize of a root of garlick, round, made up of a number of fmall cloves, and grains like groats. We muft reckon, amongft the food of the natives, fome other wild roots, the ftalk of a plant refembling angelica; and berries of feveral different forts, fuch as bramble- berries, cranberries, hurtle-berries, heath-berries, a small red berry, which in Newfoundland is called partridge-berry; and p. 6. another brown berry unknown to us. Here are a few other plants which are found ferviceable, but are not made use of by either Ruffians or natives: fuch as wild purflain, pea tops, a kind of fcurvy-grafs, creffes, and fome others. All thefe we found very palatable, dreffed either in foups or in fallads." Of the above quotations, I have to remark that Captain Cook vifited the place the latter end of June and October, you was there the latter end of Auguft, and furely it is not confif- tent with reafon to fuppofe, that during the fpace of ten years the face of things were fo entirely changed, that every production of nature was fwept away, except "wild celery." A little farther on (at page 10) we are told, that "with this defign we purpofed to make one port to the weftward of Cook's ay .-jk DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 95 River; and, in coafting along, we faw a large opening, which appeared to be formed by an if land, we accordingly fteered in for it, and when we were within it, it appeared of very great extent, taking a north eafterly courfe. As we now thought ourfelves clear of the Ruffians, we were in continual expecta- . tion of being vifited by the natives, and commencing the advantageous part of our voyage; though we are at a lof s how to reconcile it, that fo large a f trait fhould not have been ob- ferved by Captain Cook. Having continued our courfe up it about twenty leagues, a canoe came off to us from the inland fide with three people in it, one of whom came on board, who proved to be a Ruffian feaman. He was a very intelligent man, and informed us that this was the if land of Kodiack, that the crews of three galliots were on duty there, and that there was another ifland of the fame name along the coaft. This intelligence was by no means pleafing, as it dafhed at once all our hopes of obtaining any trade, at any immediate place, between Cook's River and the Schumagin Ifles. We therefore continued our paffage through the ftraits, which were named Petrie's Straits, in honour of William Petrie, Efq. and found it brought us out near that point forming Cook's River, and diftinguifhed by the the name of Cape Douglas on Captain Cook's Chart. Thefe ftraits are upwards of ten leagues in length, and about fifteen in breadth, and cut off a very large tract of continent from the former charts." As I could not by any means under- ftand the above quotation, I of courfe applied to your chart, entitled "A Chart of the Northern Pacific Ocean, containing . the North Eaft Coaft of Afia, and North Weft Coaft of America, explored in 1778 and 1779, by Captain Cook, and farther explored in 1788 and 1789, by John Meares," hoping that would fet me right; but here I found myfelf woefully mif- taken, for in that coaft you make the ftraits juft mentioned, thirty-fix leagues long, and inftead of its agreeing with your i ) I 96 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY verbal defcription of the place, I find you have taken it either from Mr. Arrowfmith's chart, or a chart entitled "Cartes des Defcouveries faites par le Ruffes, et par le Capitaine Anglois, Jacque Cook, dans la Mer du Sud," publifhed in 1787, in which there is a particular chart of the iflands forming thefe ftraits by Mr. Ifmyloff, the largeft of which he calls Kifhtac, but as he did not think proper to name the ftraits, you Mr. Meares have done it for him."* I remember when I was on board your vef fel in Prince William's Sound, that you told me you entered the ftraits juft mentioned in the latitude of 58° north, or nearly fo, and that it was fo foggy, you thought the land to the eaftward to be the barren iflands, until a Ruffian acquainted you it was Kodiack; at the fame time, you pointed out to me the Whitfuntide p. Bay of Captain Cook, as the place where you entered the ftraits; but it fhould feem, that fince you have feen either of the above charts, the fog is cleared away, and you can now point out to a certainty where you entered this ftrait.1 In a note, page 24, of your Introductory Voyage, are thefe words, "When our mutual furprife was in fome meafure abated, Captain Dixon was informed by me of my condition and the misfortunes we had encountered. To which he replied, that it only lay in Captain Portlock's power to lend us the affiftance he faw we fo much wanted, and that he purpofed to depart very early in the morning to the fhips, which were diftant near twenty leagues; he alfo added, he was certain Captain Portlock would put to fea immediately on his hearing this intelligence of us." Any per f on on reading the above paf fage, would infer * This chart is particularly interefting, as on it we find the tracks of the veffels commanded by the Captains Beering and Tfchirikow. 1 Portlock's Voyage, p. 323, has a similar account. His map, agreeing with Meares's text, shows the course of the Nootka into Cook's river, by Petrie (now Shelikoff) strait; but Meares's map shows her course through a channel east of Kodiak island. ^1 DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 97 that Captain Portlock would put to fea purpofely to avoid affording you the affiftance you fo much wanted, and that I had told you fo; the fact was, I informed you that when I left the vef f els, Captain Portlock was going to lay them on f hore in order to examine their bottoms; that I expected by the time I p. 10. got back, they would be ready for fea, and that when he came to hear of your wintering in the Sound, and other vef fels being on the coaft, he would think it unneceffary to wait any longer, as no trade could be expected.2 Further on in the fame note, you obferve, "a few hours after the departure of Captain Dixon, it occurred to me, that if we could poffibly launch the long-boat and proceed to the fhip, it might be the means of fecuring fome affiftance previous to their departure." Pray, Mr. Meares, why did you not mention your inability to launch the boat whilft I was on board? I had feven able hands befides myfelf, and we furely fhould have been able to launch the boat without any af fiftance, and then you might have proceeded in company with us to the vef fels; but this feems to have been an after-thought, and introduced now with your ufual candour, for the purpofe of indirectly charging me with a want of feeling and humanity.2 In the fame note you fay, "I took with me two cafks of rum and feveral bags of rice, to exchange for fome gin and a little fugar and cheefe; all of which, Captain Dixon informed me they had in abundance." I did inform you we had fuch things on board, p. n. but the abundance, like many others, is a fabrication of your own.2 I had my fhare of the rice you brought, but it being wet, the greateft part was spoiled; in regard to the rum, not any of it was brought on board my vef fel; of its quality and effects, I fhall have occafion to fpeak by and by. 2 Duncan also complains {Further Remarks, p. 23) of Meares's faculty of "misunderstanding." 98 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY I. JlSolktrscul TRACK OF THE SNOW EXPERIMENT Chart showing the north western end of Vancouver Island, drawn in 1786, by S. Wedgbrough of the Experiment, one of the vessels of James Strange's expedition. Original, in the Archives of British Columbia, published probably about 1790. The island shown in the north westward of Scott Island is Cape St. James, the southern point of Queen Charlotte Islands; the land shown further northward is another part of Queen Charlotte Islands. J ggj3j|2^Sff DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 99 Speaking of the ftraits of Juan de Fuca, in your "Probable exiftence of a North Weft Paf fage," page 50, you have thefe words, "fhe enters the ftraits of Juan de Fuca, between the latitudes of 48° 30', and longitude 235° eaft, and latitude 47° 50' and longitude 235° 30' eaft, and finds them fifteen leagues in breadth." According to your chart, the title of which I have given before, we find the north point of thefe ftraits laid down in the latitude of 48° 40', and longitude 234° 30' eaft, and the fouth point in the latitude of 48° 20' north and longitude 235° eaft; to fay nothing of the breadth of the ftraits, there is a material difference in latitude and longitude, betwixt your verbal defcription and the chart; and here, let me entreat you, if hereafter you fhould publifh any thing of the kind, fir ft to get fome perfon to write your account, and afterwards place the written document before the compiler of your chart; and then — though both may pof f ibly be erroneous, they will have at leiift the merit of correfponding with each .12. other. 3 In page 54/ of the "Probable Exiftence," we find that Mr. Strange alfo firft found the bay called Friendly Cove, which received its prefent name from that gentleman." I fhould imagine, if you had only once eaft your penetrating eye over the fketch of Nootka by Captain Cook, without reading his account of that place, you would not have afferted Mr. Strange was the firft perfon who found the bay called "Friendly Cove"; but for fear that account fhould have efcaped your notice, I fhall here take the liberty of quoting it. "Having now finifhed moft of our heavy work, I fet out the next morn- fm ing to take a view of the Sound. I firft went to the weft point, where I found a large village, and before it a very fnug harbour, in which was from nine to four fathoms water over a bottom of fine fand." Vide Cook's laft Voyage, vol. II. page 3 The strait of Juan de Fuca lies between 48° 23' and 48° 36' north latitude, and on the meridian of 124° 45' west. It is, therefore, 13 miles, not 15 leagues, wide. 1 100 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY 279. Mr. Strange had doubtlefs the honour of naming the harbour in queftion, but it is pretty evident that he was not the perfon who firft found it. In the "Voyages to the North Weft Coaft," &c. page 326, we find, that "The fhip was not entirely land-locked, except at the entrance, and her prefent fituation was named Sea-otter Harbour, from the great number of thofe animals which were in the water." Facing the defcription juft quoted, you give P. 13. us a plan of Sea-otter Harbour and St. Patrick's Bay,4 taken by Captain James Hanna; you furely, Sir, cannot, nay, I dare fay you do not, mean to obtrude this on the public for the Harbour you have juft been noticing; as I find on the plan, lat. 50° 41' north, longitude 231° 24' eaft of Greenwich; when, at the fame time you are defcribing a place of the fame name in lat. 55° 39' north, long. 226° 04' eaft. You have alfo given us a fketch of Raft Cove by Mr. Funter, but as we are not favoured with any verbal defcription of the place, you might, with equal propriety, have introduced that here alfo.5 We are told in Mr. Duffin's Journal, Appendix, No. 4, that "at fun-fet, the entrance of Port Hawkefbury, north by eaft, Tatooche's Ifland fouth, Point Entrance weft-fouth-weft, off the latter eight leagues, and from the former three leagues."6 Here we find, as plain as it is poffible for words to exprefs, 4 Now Sea Otter cove and San Josef bay on Vancouver island. The Sea Otter harbour in Meares's text was probably in Bucareli bay, Alaska. "It is in most cases impossible at present to come to an absolutely satisfactory decision in regard to the exact locality of his [Meares's] names or the geographical features he endeavours to describe."—Alaska Pilot, (1883) p. 98. 5 The late Captain Walbran suggested that perhaps Raft Cove, shown in Meares's Voyages, p. 326, was in Shushartie bay, at the northern end of Vancouver island. 6 Port Hawkesbury is port San Juan; point Entrance is, of course, Cape Flattery. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 101 how far your boat was up thefe Straits; for Port Hawkefbury is the eaftermoft part fhe was at, and Point Entrance the weft entrance of the Straits; diftance between the two Points 11 p-14- leagues; but you have ftretched thefe 11 leagues to nearly 30, for, fpeaking of the boat in page 179, "Voyages to the North Weft Coaft," you fay, "She had failed near thirty leagues up the Strait, and at that diftance from the fea it was about fifteen leagues broad, with a clear horizon ftretching to the eaft for fifteen leagues more." Be fo good, Mr. Meares, as to inform me how you reconcile this difference between the mafter of the boat's journal, and your own account, for, I am free to confefs, I cannot poffibly do it.7 Having now pointed out a few more of the inconfiftencies in your quarto volume, not to call them by a harder name — I fhall proceed to notice the petty, malevolent affertions which fill your pamphlet, in order that, to ufe your words, "my filence may not be interpreted as an acquiefcence in the folly of your obfervations, and the falfehood of your affertions." You begin by obferving, that "In a work, entitled, A Voyage round the World by Captain George Dixon, and which is ' i dedicated to fuch a refpectable character as Sir Jofeph Banks, p. 15. by the fame George Dixon; who, in the dedication of the volume, reprefents himfelf as the Author," &c. — In that dedication I return my fincere acknowledgements to Sir Jofeph Banks for his condefcendinpf to favour me with his name to it; but if you had taken the trouble of perufing my Introduction to the work mentioned in the above quotation, you would have found in it the following paf fage: "It yet remains for me to befpeak the candour and indulgence of the reader, in perufing the following work, as it was written by a perfon on board the 7 Just another of Meares's exaggerations: it is only 83 miles from Cape Flattery to Whidby island, in the San Juan (or Haro) group. 102 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Queen Charlotte, who has been totally unufed to literary pur- fuits, and equally fo to a feafaring life. However, to obviate any objection that might poffibly arife from his deficiency in nautical knowledge, I have been particularly careful in correcting that part of the work." The perfon juft alluded to has alfo put the initials of his name to each Letter, and, as I informed you in my laft, is in London, fo that I could not eafily "reprefent myfelf as the author."8 You next come to that part where notice is taken of your people having free accefs to fpirituous liquors. I have every reafon to believe that the paf fage quoted by you, and on which you are fo very free in your remarks, was inferted from the p. 16. pofitive affertions of your own people:9 but I can fpeak with certainty of its pernicious effects, for two of my people, who were along with me when on board your veffel, were totally unable to do any duty for a confiderable time, entirely owing to drinking grog mixed with your rum as you were pleafed to call it. I naturally imagined at firft that this arofe from their drinking to excefs, but I found this was not the cafe, though it feems the allowance at that time, on board your veffel, was rather more than "half a pint a day per man," for your people brought the fpirits by pailfuls. REMARK THE SECOND AFTER altering fome expreffions which you fay arofe from the hafte with which your Voyages were prepared to meet the circumftances of the moment, you have thefe words: "That you fupplied the Captains Duncan and Colnett, in their dif- trefs, with one puncheon of molaffes, fome Sandwich If land 8 Dixon's Remarks, p. 8; Meares's Answer, pp. 5 f. 9 Meares's Voyages, note on p. xxxviii; Meares's Answer, p. 6 and note 4 thereto. P. 17. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 103 pork, articles of trade, a copy of your charts, and part of your log-book, may be very true. But will you take upon you to fay, that this fupply was equal to their diftreffed condition, or to your power of alleviating it? — If the latter, from what idle vanity did you make a boaft, on your arrival at Canton, that, although you had been out twenty-three months, you had no occafion to purchafe any article of ftores or provifions for your homeward-bound voyage to England."10 To fatiffy the public that I could not have the "idle vanity" peculiar to Mr. Meares, I readily anfwer, — That the fupply in queftion was all in my power to grant, without a material injury to my own fhip's crew, except a little vinegar, which p. is. was intended for them, but omitted to be put on board through mere inadvertency and hurry at parting. To fatiffy the public that I could not have the "idle vanity" of making a boaft in Canton, that I wanted neither ftores nor provifions, although I had been from England twenty-fix months, I f hall here give a lift of what articles I purchaf ed at Canton and St. Helena: At Canton. St. Helena. Arrack, 325 gallons Tar, 3 barrels Pitch, 3 barrels Canvas, 2 bolts Twine, 18 fkains Dammer, 300 lb. Canvas, 1 bolt Tar, 1 barrel Pitch, 1 ditto Twine, 12 lbs. Rice, 5 bags Potatoes, 20 bufhels. 10 Meares's Answ nswer, p. I t 4 1 1117. II \ 104 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY A little farther on you fay, "Nor do I fear to hazard an P. 19. opinion that the return of the Princefs Royal to China was owing to your avarice; had fhe received from you, Sir, what you could fo well have fpared, and fetting afide the common dictates of humanity, you ought to have beftowed for the intereft of your owners, that veffel might have remained another seafon on the coaft of America. Captain Duncan is now in London, and I am moft willing to reft my credit on his teftimony, refpecting all I have faid concerning the transactions between that worthy man and yourfelf. If you do not recollect the precife quantity of thofe spirits, ftores, &c. which, after three years' voyage, you brought back to the Thames, the Meffrs. Etches's, perhaps, will trouble themfelves to re-inform you,"11—In the copy of your Memorial prefented to the Houfe of Commons, I find that Meffrs. Etches's and yourself are in partnerfhip; I am furprifed they fhould neglect informing you not only of the quantity and quality of the returned ftores, fpirits, &c. but the time when, and the place where they were bought, as they are in my account which was delivered to them upwards of two years ago; perhaps, as that account yet remains unfettled, they, in the great hurry of bufinefs fuch public?. 20. fpirited Merchants in general are, have not had time to look it over. You fay you are moft willing to reft your credit with the public on the teftimony of Captain Duncan, fo far as relates to the transactions betwixt him and yourfelf; this being the cafe, I fhall here infert a letter I have received from that Gentleman; and the more willingly, as it contains information in regard to that part of the coaft which Captain Duncan explored, which neither Captain Douglas, yourself, or any other perfon had in their power to lay before the public. 11 Meares's Answer, p. 9. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 105 To Captain GEORGE DIXON. "S I R, HAVING feen a letter from you addreffed to John Meares, Efq. containing fome remarks on that Gentleman's Voyages to the North-Weft Coaft of America, I was not a little furprized p 21 to find he had made an attack upon you in his publication; but much more fo, on feeing he had named me as the author of his unfounded affertions; which, I would hope was not fo much meant to prejudice me, as to fwell his own volume. "However, my good Sir, I find your friendly offices have not been wanting, during my abfence,12 to vindicate me, which, though with juftice you could do; I cannot but feel grateful for fuch a mark of friendfhip. He probably thought that I might never return from Hudfon's Bay, or that I would pafs over in filence his unmerited accufations. "When I firft met Lieutenant Meares on the Weft fide of America,13 I thought him both the officer and the gentleman, and am willing to confider him fo still; but the latter towards me he has deviated from widely, particularly fo, as after his profeffions of friendfhip, I had every reafon to expect the reverfe of what I have met with. "In page 201, Voyages to the North-Weft Coaft of America, I have feen the following note: "On inquiry of p 22, Captain Duncan concerning his diftreffed condition, he told me that he had met Captain Dixon in the Queen Charlotte, and though that fhip was on her return to China, and abund- 12 Duncan had spent the season of 1790 in seeking a North West Passage from Hudson bay. See hereon notes 11 and 12 to Meares's Answer. It would appear from Meares's Voyages, p. 1, that he did not expect Duncan to return until after the expiration of two years. 13 Off Nootka sound, August 7 or 8, 1788: Meares's Voyages, p. 195, p. 199; note 6 to Dixon's Remarks, p. 9; and Further Remarks, p. 29. hi 106 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY antly ftocked with every thing, and though fhe belonged to the fame owners with the Princefs Royal, the provident commander thought it much better to carry all his ftores back to China, than to fpare any of them to the latter veffel, though they would have been fo great an alleviation to the hardfhips of her voyage." "The foregoing affertion I avow to be without foundation; he fays, "the Queen Charlotte was on her return to China." That fhip at the time I met her never had been at China, and had been from England twenty-three months, I had not been quite ten, when you were kind enough to fpare the Prince of Wales and Princefs Royal, one puncheon of Molaffes, two cafks of Sandwich If land Pork, a quantity of trading goods which were divided between the two aforefaid vef fels, we alfo took many ufeful remarks from your journals, &c. all of which were of infinite fervice to ourfelves and owners. After which it is very improbable I fhould be guilty of fuch ingratitude to a man I received fuch attention from; particularly not having it in my power to make the leaft return, although fo late fromP. England; fo that Mr. Meares muft have mifunderstood me in naming you, Sir, inftead of our owner, Mr. Richard Cadman Etches; who, from his unjuft treatment to me, and the many deficiencies even of common neceffaries, in the veffel I was fent out in, has merited every cenfure from me; I have only been paid my wages a few months ago."* * Captain Duncan has been particularly fortunate in recovering his money, for fome time after I came home, I accepted a bond of payment of a much lefs fum than is actually due to me, and which was afcertained by Mr. Etches and filled up by his attorney, to pay the fame twelve months after date, but when due, was difhonoured. Upon my commencing an action in the Court of King's Bench, the fame was defended and tried by one of the parties to the bond. I obtained a verdict for the whole, after which, a writ of error was brought, and a bill of Chancery filed to delay payment by all parties, and the money is not yet recovered.—I will juft obferve, that I arrived in the port of London in September 1788, and Captain Duncan the following Auguft. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 107 "Lieutenant Meares mentions in his Voyage, that he is aftonifhed how I could proceed to China, without the affift- ance which he afforded me off Nootka, when I was about leaving the coaft.14 . 24. "I met him, as he relates, excepting the diftrefs, he fays, I was in; it is true, I received fome af fiftance from him, which, though I was not diftreft for, proved very acceptable. I will mention the articles I received; which were, forty gallons of arrack, five gallons of brandy, one quarter cheft of tea, two China hams, one pine-apple cheefe, fome rice and pepper, and twenty pound of tobacco for my crew. The plentiful fupply of provifions that I procured at the Sandwich Ifles15 the Winter before, had amply relieved my dif tref s; and I was happy then to have it in my power to return the favour I received from Lieutenant Meares; and I well know, that what he got in return, was equally acceptable; as, from his own information, he was in want of provifion. I fent on board the Felice, one cafk of beef, two of pork, thirty fathoms of nine inch cable, one anchor of four hundred weight, and a grindftone; the three laft articles were of equal fervice with the former, he having at that time a fmall veffel on the ftocks at Nootka; where he told me he had a fort, guns mounted, and Portuguefe colours flying.16 "The next thing I have to rectify is, his miftake in faying, 14 Meares's Voyages, p. 195, indicates that sighting the Princess Royal he feared that the "various articles of novelty on board her" might interfere with his trade. Hence his anxiety to meet her. However, compare therewith ] IS Meares's Voyages, p. 200. 15 The Princess Royal and her consort, following the custom, had wintered at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) islands in 17,87-8. 16 The schooner North West America, the first vessel built on the coast, launched September 20, 1788: Meares's Voyages, p. 220, "Captain Meares arriving here some time before Captain Douglas landed his second officer Mr. Funter and a party of artificers who first built a tolerably strong garrison or place of defence and then went to work building a small schooner of about 30 tons."—Haswell's MS Log Sept. 16, 1788. w wk .=^^~ .i^^^ii: 108 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY "I occupied almoft a whole fummer at Queen Charlotte's Ifles, and yet ftrange to tell, that I quitted the coaft of America p. 25 without knowing that Captain Douglas had already taken the fame courfe." "From this affertion, my owners, and thofe who read Lieutenant Meares's publication, may conclude, that I loitered away the fummer of 1788, which he alludes to, at fo confined a fpot as Queen Charlotte's Ifles. "I fhall refute his mifreprefentations, by entering into a fhort detail of my proceedings that fummer. "After having fpent three of the winter months among the Sandwich Ifles,—on the 20th of March I left the Ifland Oneehow,17 in company with the Prince of Wales, and ftood to the northward in order to get on the coaft of America as foon as poffible. "On the 31ft of March we parted company by confent, the Prince of Wales for Prince William's Sound, and the Princefs Royal for Nootka, in which harbour I anchored at 11 o'clock at night, having only made the land at noon that day. The p. 26 head of my rudder having been near wrenched off at the Sandwich Ifles, from the violence of the fwell while at anchor, I here wanted a new one, which was begun at daylight next morning, by cutting down a tree for that purpofe; it was a tedious job for one man, and was not completed fo that I could put to fea, until the 10th May, when I ftood for Queen Charlotte's Ifles, and anchored in Luxaena Bay18 near Cape St. James, on the 14th; failed on the 19th, and on the 20th anchored in Etches's Sound; failed on the 24th, and anchored again on the 25th, about 15 leagues farther to the northward; failed on the 28th, and anchored again that evening 10 leagues 17 Niihau, one of the westerly islands of the Sandwich (Hajvaiian) group. 18 Now Luxana bay, on the eastern side of Kunghit island, about ten miles from cape St. James. II DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 109 farther north; failed on the 31ft, and ftood over for Princefs Royal's Ifles, the weather being bad and the coaft dangerous. On the 1ft of June I got in amongft Princefs Royal's Ifles, and not finding anchorage, made faf t to trees, head and f tern; boomed the veffel off from the rocks, and on the 2d of June in the evening, anchored in the mouth of Ayton's river19 about 15 leagues north-eaft off where I had ftopt the night before; failed the next night, and on the 5th made faft to trees on fhore again for want of anchorage; on the 6th anchored at fome fmall diftance in a fmall creek. Here I near loft my p. 27. boat's crew by the treachery of the natives.20 In this f ituation I lay until the 10th, and failed again to the weftward down the Sounds which I had come up, and that evening anchored in a fmall creek in order to trade with a tribe of Indians. I here met with a heavy gale of wind, which prevented my failing until the 15th in the morning, and that evening I anchored in Port Stephens,21 where I lay until the 19th; failed in the morning, and in the evening made faft to fome trees, there being no anchorage. On the 20th in the morning, failed and ftood to the northward along Princefs Royal's Ifles; not feeing any figns of Indians, left Princefs Royal's Ifles, and ftood over again for Queen Charlotte's Ifles, to vifit a tribe which I had heard of, and anchored on the 23d off the mouth of Trol- lope's River,22 here I was succefsful in the fur way; failed from this place the next day, and on the 27th anchored again about 18 leagues farther to the fouthward and traded; failed on the 29th, and on the 2d of July anchored in Etches' Sound ;23 here 19 Skeena river. 20 This attempt was made by Siak's tribe, probably near Browning entrance. The Indians at Cumshewa inlet, Queen Charlotte islands, also attempted her capture. 21 On Pitt island. 22 Skidegate channel, Queen Charlotte islands. 23 Probably Juan Perez sound, Queen Charlotte islands. 110 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY I expected to have heard of my confort the Prince of Wales, but the natives had not heard any thing of her, or any other veffel during my abfence; traded for fome furs, and on the 6th of July left the Sound, and a letter in care of the Chiefs for Captain Colnett, which he afterwards received. I had appointed to meet Captain Colnett at Queen Charlotte's Ifles, but not find-p. 2s| ing him on my arrival here, I deemed it ufelefs to wait, therefore in my letter I informed him where I had been fince we parted, and the route I intended to take, and immediately ftood over for Princefs Royal's Ifles, to the fouthward of where I had before vifited. We had heavy gales of wind, fo that I did not get into port again before the 14th, where in the evening I anchored in a fmall cove in Millbank Sound ;24 here I traded with the natives for fome excellent otter fkins, and was obliged to lie ftill and dry a number of wet skins that I had procured in rainy weather; failed on the 18th and ftood to the fouthward, anchored on the north end of Calvert's If land, where I lay the night of the 21ft, and ftood up Sir Charles Middle- ton's Sound25 againft a ftrong current for ten hours, founded, 180 fathoms brackifh water, no bottom; after driving up and down this found with calms, and counter-tides, I anchored in Port Safety26 on the coaft fide of Calvert's I fie; here I hauled the veffel on fhore to clean her bottom, it being very foul. The tempeftous weather prevented my failing until the 2d of Auguft, when I failed and traced the coaft down to the fouthward and anchored off Port Brooks27 on the 5th of Auguft; not finding any furs here, I left it the fame evening and ftood for Nootka, where I had promifed to join my confort the fol-p. 29. 24 Milbank sound, in latitude 52° 9' and 52° 16', named by Duncan. Of all the names bestowed by him only five survive: Milbank sound; Calvert island; Princess Royal island; Port Stephens; and Port Safety. 25 Fitzhugh sound. 26 Now Safety Cove, Calvert Island, named by Duncan. 27 Klaskish inlet, on the west coast of Vancouver island. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 111 CAPTAIN DUNCAN'S SKETCH OF THE ENTRANCE OF THE STRAIT OF JUAN DE FUCA Sketch of the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca made by Captain Charles Duncan of the Princess Royal in August, 1788. J. Walker, sculptor. Published in Spanish Pretensions Fairly Discussed, by Alex. Dalrymple, London, 1790. The islands on the left are at the mouth of Barkley Sound; the adjacent land is part of Vancouver Island. This is the earliest known map of the locality. mm Bfft-N WK 112 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY lowing day, and was met by the Felice, Captain John Meares, on the 7th, off Nootka, under Portugese colours ;28 on my firft hailing him from whence he came, I was anfwered, from Lifbon, and that fhe was commanded by Don Antonio Pedro Mannella, or fome fuch ftuff, which I knew to be falfe; however, as I faid before, "Mr. Meares and I met friendly and parted the fame." My confort not having arrived at Nootka, I ftood to the fouthward along the coaft, and anchored off the village of Ahoufet29 on the evening of the 8th, where I lay trading: with the natives until the 13th; failed, and on the 15th anchored before the village of Claafit30 on the fouth fide of the ftraits of Juan de Fuca. Having got what fkins the natives had, I left the coaft on the 17th, which I fhould not have done fo soon, but that I had made an appointment to meet the Prince of Wales on a certain day at the Sandwich Ifles, in order to go in company together to China. Thus I traded the coaft of Queen Charlotte's Ifles from Cape St. James, (named by you) in latitude 52° along the eaft fide of it up to 54°, and from 54° on Princefs Royal's Ifles, down to the latitude of 51°, where they end, and then down along the coaft to the ftraits of Juan de Fuca, in the latitude of 48° 30', during which route I was at anchor in nineteen different places, very p. often at a great r if que, as the greateft part of them were very unfafe to lie in when it blew hard, and difficult to enter. Without the greateft exertions I could not have collected fo fine a 28 See introduction hereto, and Meares's Memorial in Appendix to his Voyages. 29 An Indian village then situated on the sea front of Vargas island, near Foam reefs, in Clayoquot sound, Vancouver island. 30 Vancouver had named Cape Flattery, Cape Classet, but finding that it was only the name of an inferior chief he removed it. Vancouver's Voyage, 1801 ed., vol. 2, pp. 389 f. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 113 cargo of furs as I did.31 I would wifh Lieutenant Meares to underftand, that I did not come to the coaft of America to learn my duty of him or any thing elfe. What you fay in regard to his charts being partly made from mine, that I am fure is an abfolute fact, as neither Meares or Douglas have but a faint knowledge of the eaft fide of Queen Charlotte's or Princefs Royal's Ifles, where there appears to be the greateft profpect of a paf fage to the eaftward among the latter. This I affert from knowing that Captain Meares never was on that part of the coaft; and from feeing Captain Douglas's track he appears to have had little communication with the coaft, either of Queen Charlotte's or Princefs Royal's Ifles. "You will at once perceive that thefe are only a few heads of the particulars which my logg-book and journals contain; they are in poffeffion of Alexander Dalrymple, Efq. 32 where they may be referred to if neceffary. How far Captain Meares may have mifled the public, I have taken no farther notice p. si. of, than what relates to myfelf, and if you think it merits a place in your next publication, you have my liberty for putting it in. "I am fincerely yours, "CHARLES DUNCAN. Iflington, Jan. 17, 1791. "N. B. At the time I met Captain Meares off Nootka, he had only one cafk of beef and of pork on board the Felice, as he afterwards informed me by letter, while I lay at 31 "There is every reason to believe that this little vessel accomplished more for the benefit of her owners than any ship that ever sailed to the North Western Coast of America."—Meares's Voyages, p. 200. In Meares's Answer, p. 25, that cargo is said to have been 1959 skins and 65 cloaks. 32 A Scottish mapmaker and author especially versed in matters relating to the Pacific ocean. See, also, note 51 to Dixon's Remarks. I fl 114 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Ahoufet, and faid that his confort, the Iphigenia, was more dif tref fed than he was; the Felice's compliment were 35 men; it appears abfurd, where he mentions I could not get to China without tea, grog, and tobacco,33 at that time I had plenty of Indian tea on board; fpirits I had been without ' upwards of twelve months, and tobacco I never make ufe of any. Some of my crew are here upon the fpot who were on board the Felice, and can certify who were the moft in dif tref s; my crew having as much as they could eat of Sandwich If land pork, bread, flour, and fpruce beer. His people declared that they were fed upon iron hoops and beads, alluding to their having been ferved with pieces of v iron hoops and beads to procure fifh from the natives to fubfist upon, not having tafted meat for two months."34 IN order that the public may fee fome of your actions, mentioned in Captain Duncan's letter, in their true light, I fhall here quote an extract from the memorial prefented by you to the Houfe of Commons.— "Your memorialift thinks it neceffary upon this occasion to explain, that in order to evade the exceffive high port charges demanded by the Chinefe from all other European nations, excepting the Portuguefe, that he and his af fociates had obtained the name of Juan Cawalho, to their firm, though he had no actual concern in their ftock; that Cawalho, though by birth a Portuguefe, had been naturalized at Bombay, and had refided there for many years, under the protection of the Eaft India Company, and had carried on Duncan was about four 'The Paradise of the 33 The reference is to Meares's Voyages, p. 201. months from the Sandwich (Hawaiian) islands: Pacific;" Meares was about six months from China. 34 Maritime traders sometimes required their crews to obtain food in this way: See Bartlett's Narrative in The Sea, The Ship, and The Sailor, Salem, 1925, p. 301, where he says that the crew of the Gustavus in 1791 bartered their own clothes for fish, except when the captain gave them strings of beads for that purpose. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 115 11 an extenfive trade from thence to their feveral fettlements in that part of the world. p. 33. "That the intimacy fubfifting between Cawalho and the Governor of Macao, had been the principal caufe of their forming this nominal connection; and that Cawalho had in consequence obtained his permiffion that the two fhips above mentioned, in cafe it fhould be found convenient fo to do, fhould be allowed to navigate under, or claim any advantages granted to the Portuguefe flag. "That this permiffion had anfwered the purpofe of your memorialifi, fo far as refpected the port charges of the Chinefe, until the return of the Iphigenia; but the Portuguefe Governor dying foon after her departure, and Cawalho becoming a bankrupt, his creditors demanded his intereft in that fhip; that your memorialift having refifted their claim, an application was made by them to the fucceeding Governor for poffeffion of the fhip; that the Governor had, in confequence, inveftigated the transaction, and finding that Cawalho had no actual concern or intereft in the property, obliged her to quit the port; that this proceeding had fubjected the Iphigenia at once, to the increafed port charges, which were inftantly j i demanded by, and paid to, the Chinefe. p. 34. "Your memorialift has ftated this tranfaction thus fully in order to fhew that the Iphigenia and her cargo were actually, and bona fide, Britifh property, as well as to explain the occaf- ion of the orders which were given to her commander." You, pei haps, may remember, Sir, that when I firft went on board your veffel in Prince William's Sound,35 I inquired by what authority you was trading on that coaft under Englifh colours; at the fame time I informed you that no vef fels under fuch colours had any right there, unlefs they had a license 35 May 8, 1787; see an extract from Dixon's journal in Dixon's Voyage, pp. 152 ff. (Letter xxix). II IP H 116 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY from the South Sea Company, this you declared you had not; fhortly afterwards, when you came on board our veffels at Montague If land, you perufed our licence from the South Sea Company, and I doubt not but you afterwards faw it at Canton, for mine* was in the hands of Mr. Cox,36 at whofe houfe you refided. From this ftatement of facts, your hailing Captain Duncan under Portuguefe colours, and afterwards acquainting him that you had a fort in Nootka with guns p- 35. mounted, and Portuguefe colours flying over them, it appears perfectly evident that to evade the Chinefe port charges was not your only motive for procuring Juan Cawalho's name to your firm; for neither that name, or the Portuguefe colours at Nootka, could any ways affect the port duties at Canton: no, Sir, your principal motive was to evade the South Sea Company's licence; fearful that you might fall in with fome Britifh fhip, who probably would feize your veffel and bring you to England: upon my word, Sir, this conduct proved you to be a man of bufinefs, with a vengeance, it was properly "killing two birds with one ftone."sl You fay in "Remark the Third," "With refpect to the equipment of the King George and Queen Charlotte, I repre- fented it as it was, of a very fuperior kind, fuch as the port of London could alone afford." If this really was the cafe, that no port but London could afford fuch equipment, you ought to have given a lift of it, as that would be of the utmoft fervice to merchants who fend * I have left Captain Duncan's letter, my South Sea licence, the Eaft India Company's licence, the Articles figned by my people for performing the voyage, and Mr. Etches's inftructions to Captain Portlock, in the hands of Mr. Stockdale, where any gentleman may perufe them. 36 John Henry Cox, so frequently mentioned in this discussion. See note 10 to Dixon's Remarks; also Portlock's Voyage, p. 359; Meares's Voyages, p. 4. 37 See this subject further considered in introduction hereto. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 117 fhips on diftant voyages from any other port, particularly as P. 36. we find in your publication, that you are poffef fed of fuch a patriotic fpirit as to venture not only your fortune, but what is ftill dearer, your life, in favour of Britifh commerce. Had your partners not been able to have furnifhed you with a lift of the articles both fhips had on board, I could have given you a particular account of the ftores and provifions fent on board the Queen Charlotte, had you applied to me.38 Farther on, in the fame remark, "It may indeed be preemption in me to appear to know more of the objects of your own voyage than yourfelf; but, notwithftanding your affer- tion to the contrary, I am ftill of the opinion that one of them was to form fettlements and factories on the coaft of America, and that for this purpofe, Mr. Wilby was put on board the King George to undertake the direction of an infant colony with proportionable men and artificers. Befides, I have now before me a copy of the orders given to Mr. Portlock who had the honour of commanding you; which were drawn up by Meffrs. Etches, &c. in the true fpirit of commercial under- ftanding and honour. Thefe inftructions particularly recommend their commanders to fix an establifhment in Nootka p. 37. Sound; and as it was not the incapacity, at least of your equipments, or a deficiency in your inftructions, which prevented you from performing that part of your duty, you would have done well not to have mentioned the fubject at all, if you had no better means of justification than evafion and falfe- hood."39 In regard to that part of this remark, where you fay that Mr. Wilby was put on board the King George to undertake the direction of an infant colony, with proportionable men 38 The quotation is from Meares's Answer, p. 10. The partners referred to are the Messrs. Etches, who in 1789 had joined with Meares, but who had operated the King George and Queen Charlotte commanded by Portlock and Dixon. 39 This quotation is from Meares's Answer, p| 10. i 1 118 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY and artificers; I anfwer, that no fuch men were on board either the King George or Queen Charlotte as you defcribe, to attend Mr. Wilby; our people having all, to my certain knowledge, figned articles for a voyage of three years and a half out and home. Again, in the part of the inftructions you have quoted, we find that the men to be left with this Governor, that was to be, were "to turn out volunteers, to be companions to Mr. Wilby." In my veffel, I had no fuch volunteers, neither, I dare fay, had Captain Portlock; and if he had, as the inftructions you have been pleafed to favour the public with a part of invested him with a difcretional power to fettle them at any place he thought proper on the coaft, I fhould imagine, had Mr. Wilby and his volunteers only hinted to him a wifh to f tay, he would have complied with their requef t at Port Etches; for, by his own words, he feems to think this an eligible place p. 38. for a fettlement, for, fpeaking of Port Etches,40 in his Voyage, page 251, he fays, "It hath feveral advantages over any place I have feen on the coaft; one of them is, that it lies fo near the fea, that in all probability it would be one of the laft places that would freeze, and one of the firft in which the ice would break up. In the next place, you would be much fheltered by the high land lying to the eaftward and northward, from the bleak winds in the winter, and you have all the f outhern af pect open over the low land which lies to the fouthward of you, which land, in a little time, might be turned to very ufeful purpofes in raifing articles of food for the fettlers." To the latter part of your remark, where you affert, "I had no better means of juftification, than evafion and falfehood;" I anfwer, if you, Mr. Meares, really think fo, why did you not produce, (as I am fure Meffrs. Etches would have favoured you with fuch a thing, if they had it,) a copy of the agreement 40 Port Etches was in Prince William's sound, Alaska; it must be distinguished from Etches sound mentioned in Duncan's letter herein. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 119 between them, and thofe men and artificers they had engaged to attend this paper governor^. But though neither Capt. Portlock or myf elf could find volunteers to quit our vef fels and live on fhore, it is pretty evident that you had thofe on board who preferred the fhore, without either fettlement or protec- p. 39. tion, to your fhip ;41 for what reafon, I fhall leave the public to judge after quoting the following paf fage from Portlock's Voyage, page 254. "I omitted in its proper place to mention, that at the fouth part of the little bay where we found the water- creffes, we faw a tree with an infcription on it, the characters, fome were of opinion, were Greek; but for my own part I could not make out what moft of them were; they were badly cut. It appeared to me as if the infcription had been made in the latter part of the laft year, and I am of opinion by a man, who, fome time after the Nootka's arrival, left her; this man is a native of one of the iflands in the Mediterranean, and it fhould feem was drove from the Nootka by bad ufage, and I believe is ftill among the Indians." Immediately after that part of Mr. Etches's inftructions to Captain Portlock, which you have thought fit to favour the public with, you obferve, that "more clear and explicit inftrue- j 1 tions were perhaps never given than thofe delivered by your owner to Captain Portlock and yourfelf; and never were orders more ftrangely perverted, or more fhamefully difobeyed."42 Had you, Mr. Meares, not mutilated thofe "clear and explicit inftructions" as you think proper to call them, the public might have feen the following paf fage: "And as it is impoffible p. 4o. to forefee the accidents that may arife in fuch a voyage, you \ m 41 Meares had a mutiny on the Felice in 1788: see his Voyages, p. 188. Haswell says in his manuscript log under date, May 1, 1789, that a sailor from Meares's ships hid himself in the woods at Nootka in the autumn of 1788 and remained there until they sailed when he took service on the Columbia. 42 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 11, and see note 15 thereto. 120 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY have full power to act according to your own difcretion for the benefit of the undertaking." And that Captain Portlock did act for the benefit of the undertaking, according to the best of his knowledge, as far as circumftances would permit, there is not a shadow of doubt. You next obferve, that "Your deftination was King George's Sound,43 where you were to eftablish a factory; and which, ftrange to tell, you never ventured to enter. The King George and Queen Charlotte arrived off the Sound from Owhyhee,44 one of the Sandwich Ifles, with their crews in full health and fpirits; there you remained upwards of a fortnight, without pufhing into the Sound: by day, indeed, you neared the land, and fometimes even made the opening of the Sound, but no fooner did the favouring night approach, than you retreated, and took care to run farther out to fea than you could make the following day. Though, if I am not very much mifinformed, your fhip was often tacked, and her head pointed to the land, without your knowledge, and without the defired fuccefs."45 Of all your mif reprefentations I have had occasion to notice, fcarcely any of them are fo palpably falfe as that p. 41. juft quoted. The time from our leaving the Sandwich Ifles, to our arrival off King George's Sound, was three months and ten days, during which time, we had been in Cook's River; "after leaving that place, we fteered to the fouthward and eaftward, attempting at feveral places to come to anchor, but without fuccefs; arrived off King George's Sound, September 23d, and after repeatedly attempting to get in, the weather all the time being very ftormy, we gave it up at 7 o'clock, P.M. on the 28th, and ftood for the Sandwich Iflands." By the above account, taken from the logg-book, the reader 43 Nootka sound. 44 Hawaii. 45 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 11; and see introduction hereto. I' MHHI DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 121 will at once perceive that you have only added nine days to the time we were off Nootka:46 you have alfo only modeftly hinted, that we made a direct courfe from Owhyhee to King George's Sound; off which place we arrived with the crews full of health and fpirits: for fhame, Mr. Meares! how could you poffibly make thefe affertions, when you muft know that "a plain tale would put you down?" You fay, "By day you neared the land, and fometimes even made the opening of the Sound; but no f ooner did the favour- P. 42. ing night approach, than you retreated." Be fo good, Sir, as to inform us why the night became fo peculiarly favourable for entering Nootka Sound, where the fhores are lined with funken rocks, fome of which lie a league or more from the fhore. (Vide Cook's laft Voyage, vol. ii. page 265, and his Sketch of Nootka Sound.) But, perhaps, you was a fettler there, you have found a regular fea and land wind at the place, which fets out all day, and in at night; though it is the reverfe to all winds of the kind I ever heard of: was this the cafe, you ought to have given an account of it in your publication. You next obferve, that if you, are not very much mifinformed, "my fhip was often tacked, and her head pointed to the land without my knowledge." This affertion favours fo much of real ignorance in nautical matters, that I fhould have thought a gentleman of Mr. Meares's profeffional knowledge would only have laughed at fuch information, if any fuch he really had\ but I fhould not now be furprifed to hear you advance, that on leaving England I fell afleep, and never waked until I was on board your veffel in Prince William's Sound. p. 43. Farther on you obferve, "If Captain Cook had lived to 46 Other vessels found it difficult to enter Nootka sound, e.g. Haswell's MS log shows that the Washington arrived off Nootka sound September 8, 1788, but could not reach anchorage until September 16. ill m 1 1 2/ I CAPTAIN JAMES HANNA'S CHART Captain James Hanna's chart made on his second voyage (1786), engraved by W. Harrison, and published in Spanish Pretensions Fairly Discussed, by Alex. Dalrymple, London, 1790. The locality shown is the north western end of Vancouver Island and the neighbouring continental shore. It is the first chart after that of Captain Cook, and is crude and incorrect. "Lance's Islands" are Scott Islands. "Cox's Island" is the northern end of Vancouver Island, but the passage is imaginary. "Lane's Bay" is Queen Charlotte Sound. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 123 finifh his work, you, Sir, would probably have been fpared the trouble of your difcoveries."47 Happy fhould I have been if a life fo valuable could have been fpared to his country; having had the honour of ferving, if not immediately in his veffel, yet under his command, in the voyage where he came to f o untimely and lamented an end. I fhall here give a lift of all the charts which you acknowledge to have made ufe of in compiling yours; at the fame time, give me leave to obferve, that you did not own yourself indebted to any perfon whatever, until you were forced to it. The charts I allude to, are Lieutenant Roberts's, Mr. Arrowfmith's, Captains Berkley, Maurelle, Hanna, Lowrie, Guife, Portlock, and my own :48 were all the parts you have taken from the above charts, extracted from that part of the North Weft Coaft of America betwixt the latitude of 60° north and 47° north in your chart, I am apt to think there would be a very fmall portion of land remaining. p 44 I find this remark on Captain Berkley's chart: "You obferve, Sir, in fomething like a tone of triumph, that I was in poffeffion of Mr. Berkley's chart, which you fay includes the utmoft extent of my progrefs to the fouthward." The j|2I former part of the affertion is true, but the latter is falfe; nay, fortunately for me, I have Mr. Berkley's chart in my poffeffion, which proves that he did not go farther to the fouthward than 47° or thereabouts; and 45° 30' is the point where my courfe is completed."49 Here you have evidently given a wrong extract, for, in my letter to you, the paf fage f tands, "as far, or nearly fo, as you went;" befides, I cannot find, even 47 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 12. 48 See Meares's Answer, pp. 13 f; notes 12, 13, 34. and 43 to Dixon's Remarks and note 19 to Meares's Answer. 49 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 13; but what Dixon actually wrote had the words "as far as, or nearly so, as you went," which Meares omits; see Dixon's Remarks, p. 11. 124 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY by your own account, that you have dif covered any thing to the fouthward of Captain Berkley. As you acknowledge a longitudinal miftake in 56° 38' north latitude, I fhall proceed to the track of the Wafhington, which you now own to have taken from the information of "Mr. Neville, a gentleman of refpectable character, who came home in the Chefterfield from China."50 Having never feen or heard of this Gentleman before, IP. have no right to doubt the verbal information he may have given you, neither would I have it infinuated that I ever did. All my thoughts on the fubject are, that before you fuffered fuch a track to appear on your chart, you fhould have feen it delineated on paper, with either the latitudes and longitudes, or the veffel's run; but you, Mr. Meares, it feems, thought otherwife, for it appears by your own words, that you never faw anything of the kind; as you tell us in page 56, "Obfer- vations on the probable Exiftence," &c. "It is probable, however, that the mafter of that veffel did not make any aftronomical obfervations to give a juft data of that ftation." You proceed, "Your farcafms, Sir, on the manner in which I speak of Cap- tan Cook, in my obfervations on the north-weft paf fage, proceed from the habitual liberality of your mind. I wrote the fentiments which I felt, nor do I fear to repeat it. Though the Felice and Iphigenia did explore the latitudes from 56° to 47° north, there is every reafon to lament that Captain Cook was prevented from making fuch an examination as would have proceeded from him."51 Here, Sir, you plainly acknowledge to have done nothing to the fouthward of what Captain Berkley 50 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 14. In his memorandum of July 4, 1790, Mr. Neville is said to have been an officer of the East India Company and to have returned to England on the Duke of Buccleugh. See introduction hereto and notes 25, 26 and 27 to Meares's Answer. 51 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 14. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 125 . 46. has laid down, in the chart you was in poffeffion of.52 You alfo fay, "you have endeavoured, to the utmoft of your information, to particularize the merits of every Gentleman employed on the Coaft of America. Captain Duncan did explore a confiderable part of the coaft between 50° and 52°.53 If you, Sir, obferve what Captain Duncan fays in his letter, we there find that he was not confined between the latitudes of 50° and 52°, but that he has traced the coaft along from 54° to 47°; moreover, I have at prefent by me a fketch of the entrance of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, by Charles Duncan, Mafter in the Royal Navy, dated the 15th of Auguft, 1788, and publifhed by Mr. Dalrymple, January the 14th, 1790; in which fketch we find Captain Duncan was at anchor in the Straits, off the village of Claafet. The width of thefe Straits, by the fketch juft mentioned, appears to be fourteen miles; you make them fifteen leagues. Pray, Mr. Meares, how do you who never were in the Straits, reconcile this difference? Again, "Captain Berkley's name is continued by me to the Sound to the fouthward of Nootka."54 Captain Berkley is certainly much obliged to Mr. Meares for condefcending to let his name remain in that f ituation. 47. "But, though his boat was in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, he never was, as appears from his own chart."54 Nor were you ever there, Mr. Meares, any more than Captain Berkley, if we are to believe your own account, for you fay, page 50, "On the probable Exiftence," &c. "If it fhould be afked why thefe Straits were not penetrated, or at leaft fome attempt made to penetrate them, the anfwer is at hand, the deftruction of our commercial enterprize by the fhips of his Catholic Majefty." 52 This is mere logomachy: Dixon knew that Meares had been south of Deception bay (Columbia river). 53 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 15. 54 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 15. \\ |1 m 126 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY You here undoubtedly mean that you did not enter thefe Straits with your fhip, for we find Mr. Duffin was fent to explore them in the long-boat. A little farther are thefe words: "I have certainly dared to rob the channel of the Charlotte Ifles of the title of Dixon, for no better reafon than becaufe the enterprifing, intelligent, and humane navigator, who thought fo proudly to diftinguifh it with his own name, never faw that channel, according to the evidence of the track on his own chart; I have therefore ventured to give it the name of the man who boldly pufhed through it."55 To the firft part of your affertion, where you fay I never faw the channel, you will, I think, on reflecting only for one moment, find yourfelf mi ftaken; for you may find my P. 48. track up it, from Cape St. James, in the Latitude 51° 48', to the latitude 53° 10', nearly; and, from where the fame track is laid down at the north end of the channel, I could, moft affuredly, fee a clear, uninterrupted horizon confiderably within the entrance, and without feeing near fo far as you fay the people, in your long-boat, faw to the eaftward in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, in "Voyages to the North Weft Coaft," &c. page 179. "She had failed near thirty leagues up the Strait, and at that diftance from the fea, it was about fifteen leagues broad, with a clear horizon ftretching to the eaft for fifteen leagues more." As your people never landed, they muft have feen this forty- five miles to the eaftward, out of the boat; but I cannot find it poffible, even for the eagle-eyed Mr. Meares, to fee from a boat like her, any thing near that diftance; for no mode of calculation that I know of, where the height of the eye could not be above feven or eight feet, will, after allowing for refraction, 55 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 15. His chart shows that Douglas sailed through Dixon entrance and Hecate strait without stopping, except to anchor off Rose point. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 127 give the diftance to be feen on the horizon, more than fix miles. From the maft head of my veffel, I was enabled to fee nearly twenty miles, which, in the latitude 54° 30', gives thirty-four p. 49. miles of longitude; this, Sir, when laid off from my track to the eaftward, will at once convince you that I muft have feen into this channel or f trait at the north end of it: that I did not fail through it is true, being prevented by contrary winds.56 As to what name the channel is known by, is of little confequence; I fhall only obferve, that when I laid my MS. chart before Sir Jofeph Banks for his approbation, I at the fame time requefted him to name fuch places as I had not filled up, and he did me the honour to infert mine in the place you find it on the chart.57 You have alfo, perhaps by way of "ftripping the filly jay of his borrowed plumage" changed the name of Forrefter's If land to that of Douglas. I know of no other motive you could have for doing it.58 I now come to that part of your anfwer where you mention Cook's River; here you fay, "I find no data in Captain Cook's Voyage to determine the non- exiftence of a paffage. There is no declaration from him that militates again ft the navigation of a fhip beyond the Narrows."59 For an anfwer to the firft part, you fhall have Captain Cook's own words, from vol. ii. page 397, of his laft Voyage — p. so. "It was a fatisfaction to me, however, to reflect, that if I had not examined this very confiderable inlet, it would have been 56 Dixon did not actually circumnavigate Queen Charlotte islands in July 1787; he inferred their insularity. Douglas, in August 1788, sailed through Dixon entrance and Hecate strait, thus demonstrating the fact. 57 The reference is to Dixon entrance (or Dixon's Strait, as it was first called), which Meares, for the reason specified in the preceding note, had changed to Douglas's Entrance. See Meares's Answer, p. 15. 58 Meares's map shows a Forrester's island and a Douglas island in the vicinity of Dixon's Forrester's island — more logomachy. 59 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 16. Dixon's reply is more logomachy. 1 128 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY af fumed by fpeculative fabricators in geography as a fact, that it communicated with the fea to the north, or with Baffin's or Hudfon's bay to the eaft." To the latter part I can only anfwer, that I fhould have been greatly furprifed if there had, for Captain Cook was forty-fix miles above the Narrows, and his boats much farther: fee his chart of that place. Afterwards, you obferve, "You, however, with your ufual eagernefs and ignorance, take poffeffion of the Shoal placed above the Narrows, in order to form a barrier againft all farther navigation up the river; but to difpoffefs you at once of your important fituation, I muft inform you that fhips can navigate on each fide this formidable Shoal." I am obliged to you, Mr. Meares, for your information, though it is of no fervice to me, having been many miles above this Shoal, at the time Captain Cook was up the river;60 however, as I think good offices fhould never be fuffered to pafs unrequited, I .will endeavour to repay you with a little advice, which is, top. fend your information to the compiler of your chart; and then perhaps, in your next edition, I fhall be able to find the Shoal, for in the prefent map, I believe nothing of the kind is to be feen. You next obferve, "You afk me why I produced the voyage of the Iphigenia, when it was in my power to have brought forward that of Captain Duncan. I anfwer: becaufe, without retracting from the acknowledged merit of Captain Duncan, I prefer the journal of the Iphigenia to every other. I con- fider Captain Duncan as the beft authority for the navigation between the Charlotte Ifles and the main; or, at leaft, what we take to be fo. This circumftance, with his traverfes from fhore to fhore, juftifies the application I have made of his 60 Dixon was armourer on the Discovery on Captain Cook's third voyage. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 129 voyage to my chart."61 It appears to me very extraordinary that you fhould prefer the journal of a man who had juft run through the channel, to that of one who had navigated it part of two feafons, and had fo often croffed from one fide to the other ;62 and particularly fo, as we are told in page 369, "Voyages to the North-Weft Coaft," &c. on Captain Douglas's vifit to this place, that "The weather had been fo thick and p. 52. hazy f ince they had quitted Nootka Sound, that it was im- poffible to get a fight of the moon or ftars for the purpofe of making an obfervation; Captain Douglas, therefore, was under the necef f ity of reducing the longitude of the different places which he vifited, from the obfervations he had made during his voyage of the preceding year."63 "He (Captain Duncan) undoubtedly vifited the great northern Archipelago prior to Captain Douglas; but, from his diftreffed fituation, he quitted thofe parts without knowing there was fuch a channel as that through which Captain Douglas made his way." It does not appear from Captain Duncan's letter, which I have already inferted, that he was in a very diftreffed fituation, for we there learn, that he fupplied you with provifions; and it not only appears ridiculous in the extreme, but fhews the moft confummate ignorance for any one to affert, that he knew no fuch place as the channel in queftion; for any perfon cafting an eye over Mr. Arrowfmith's chart will there find his track laid down.64 What you fay in regard to Captain Berkley's completing the voyage from Europe to America, and from there to China, in twelve months, is no more than any other perfon may eafily 61 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 17. 62 See Duncan's letter herein. 63 This refers to Douglas's voyage in the Iphigenia, in June 1789, after that vessel had been seized and released by the Spaniards. 64 Quoted from Meares's Answer, pp. 17 f. Though a small matter it shows Meares's habit of making careless statements, or worse. « iru i M 130 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY do, provided he goes no farther to the northward than King p, 53. George's Sound, and has a good failing coppered veffel, like Captain Berkley's; nay, probably we fhould (as you fay we ought) have done the fame under fimilar circumftances: as to Captain Berkley's fuperior knowledge in navigation and commerce, I never called his abilities in queftion in either of thofe particulars.65 I come next to examine your differing fo materially as you have done from Arrowfmith's chart, where you obferve, "your charge againft me, that, in the only place where I acknowledge Mr. Arrowfmith's af fiftance, I have made fuch an extraordinary deviation from him as 19° 45', would be of a very serious nature indeed, if it were true; but the accufa- tion, from its flagrant falfehood, proves nothing more than the mad malice of the man who makes it."66 Here I fhall examine Captain Cook's chart, Mr. Arrowfmith's and yours; and then leave the reader to determine whether my accufation is true, or a "flagrant falfehood." In Captain Cook's chart, by Lieutenant Roberts, I find the fea feen by Mr. Hearne, is laid down in the longitude 240° 0' eaft of Greenwich; in Mr. Arrowfmith's charts, Mr. Hearne's track, to where he faw the fea, is laid down in the longitude p. 54. 247° 45' eaft; you, Mr. Meares, have laid down no track in your chart, but in words thus: "the fea feen by Mr. Hearne agreeable to Mr. Arrowfmith's chart," in the longitude 228° eaft of Greenwich. In Mr. Arrowfmith's chart, in the longitude of 228°, there is neither Mr. Hearne's track, nor any mention made of his having feen the fea in that longitude; for, the only place on his chart where he has continued Mr. Hearne's track to the north fea, is 19° 45' to the eaftward of where you have thought proper to infert the words, "the fea 65 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 18. Barkley in one season collected 800 sea otter skins; Dixon in two seasons obtained 1842. 66 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 18. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 131 feen by Mr. Hearne agreeable to Mr. Arrowfmith's chart," and at page 45 of your "Obfervations on the probable Exiftence of a North-Weft Paf fage, &c." are thefe words: "This fhip enters fo far to the eaft, that fhe paffes by three degrees the western boundary of Mr. Hearne's fea in 72°, (but placed by Mr. Ar- rowfmith in his chart lately publifhed from Mr. Turner's charts and journals in the latitude of 68° 15' north, and longitude 228° eaft of Greenwich.)" I cannot poffibly imagine what motive you could have for the above affertion, for it is evident beyond the fhadow of a doubt, that the identical part of the north fea feen by Mr. Hearne, is placed in Mr. Arrowfmith's chart, only in the longitude of 247° 45' eaft of Greenwich, and p. 55. that he was never fo far to the weftward as 228° eaft.* You obferve a little farther on, that the reafon you had for differing 1° 30' from Mr. Arrowfmith's chart, as laid down by him from Captain Duncan's furvey of the land to the eaftward of Queen Charlotte's Ifles, was "from a preference I have given to the corrections of Captain Douglas, who has fixed thefe parts of the coaft by numerous lunar obfervations." We have been told in a paf fage I have already quoted, that, from the time Capt. Douglas left Nootka, to his quitting Queen Charlotte's Ifles, he had no opportunity of making lunar obfervations, there being fo thick a fog. Thefe paffages are really curious, but you, perhaps, can reconcile them.67 In regard to the Capes Mendocino and de Mendozino, you anfwer, "Captain Cook * I am exceedingly glad to find that Mr. Arrowfmith has it in his power to lay before the public a more correct delineation of the interior parts of North America to the weftward of Hudson's Bay, than has yet been given, and that it will fhortly appear on his chart of the world. 67 From Meares's Answer, pp. 18 f; see Further Remarks, pp. 51 f. Again Meares finds himself in an awkward position; it is difficult to explain why he prefers the work of a man who passed through but once — the voyage in the fog is of no value — to that of a man who spent months in the vicinity. 1 III 111 132 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY does not mention any Cape Mendocino in latitude 40°, which Mr. Arrowfmith does: 1 have therefore, as I conceive, very juftifiably mentioned both the Cape Mendocino of Mr. p. 56. Arrow fmith, in latitude 40°, and the cape de Mendozino of Captain Cook in latitude 42° 30' or thereabouts; as for Cape Blanco, I have placed it in latitude 43° 30', agreeable to Captain Cook, by whofe chart I have arranged all that part of the coaft."68 If you have arranged that part of the coaft by Captain Cook's chart, pray, for what reafon do you introduce two capes nearly of the fame name ? I find no fuch thing in his chart: indeed, after this, I fhould not be furprifed if you were to lay down two ports by the name of Sir Francis Drake; you might with equal propriety do one as well as the other, there being a difference in regard to the fituation of that port, of 1 ° 30' in latitude, between the charts juft mentioned.69 As to the miftake in my remarks, it is very plain that you refemble the fituation of a perfon drowning, and are glad to catch at any twig, for any perfon may at once perceive it to be a miftake either of the prefs or pen; you might alfo have pointed out another miftake of a similar nature, in the pofition from Captain Berkley's chart, where, inftead of "fouth point of de Fear's entrance, it fhould be fouth point of de Fuca's p. 57. entrance." You next obferve, "The interior parts of America, as laid down in my chart, come in alfo for their fhare of dif- approbation. I fhall only add with refpect to them, that they were arranged from the beft authorities."70 Pray, Mr. Meares, after having (as you fay) confulted the beft authorities, why do your charts differ fo very materially from each other? Should you publifh another edition of 68 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 19; see Dixon's Remarks, p. 30. 69 Meares had unfortunately included in his map a part of the coast of which he had no local knowledge. 70 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 19. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 133 your work, give me leave to suggeft an improvement; which fhould be an addenda—the title to be—"All the contradictions and abfurdities in the foregoing work, RECONCILED." Next, you fay, "Having, I truft, very completely fixed the latitude and longitude of your character as a navigator, I fhall proceed to lay down, as I hope with tolerable accuracy, the exact pofition of your commercial excellence. In making my obfervations on this fubject, I muft previoufly remark, that your malignity is fo predominant, as to annihilate in you the leading, and, as I fhould think, the inherent principles of a man of trade. You feem to rejoice that your voyage round p. 58. the world,71 as you call it, for the purpofe of commerce, was not attended with the advantages expected to be derived from it. You appear to be proud of the inadequate and dif- proportioned fale of your cargo at China; and are, I doubt not, grateful to the Houang merchants of Canton, for having purchaf ed all your fkins at less than half their value, in order that you might be furnifhed with a plaufible but fallacious argument, againft a new branch of commerce; in which, having failed yourfelf, you would be glad, as far as your wretched teftimony would go, to prevent former adventurers from obtaining the remuneration of their rifks and labours; or to difcourage the enterprifes of others, whofe knowledge, activity, and perfeverence, by enfuring fuccefs, would fling added difgrace on thofe who have failed from the want of fuch effential qualifications."72 How far you may have fixed the latitude and longitude of M my knowledge or my commercial excellence, muft be left for the public to determine, after I have laid before them the 71 It is difficult to catch the point of this remark. Dixon's voyage was around the world: outward by way of Cape Horn; homeward by the cape of Good Hope. 72 From Meares's Answer, p. 20. 134 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY wm y9a remarks I have to make on your ftatement; and firft, where you fay I am grateful to the Houang merchants for purchafing my fkins at half their value: I anfwer, that neither Captain Portlock or myfelf fold any of our 2552 fkins, with 434p- 59< cub, and 34 fox, to the Houang merchants; we had no fuch liberty, as by an agreement with the Eaft India Company, figned by Mr. Richard Cadman Etches and Co. and ourfelves. we were under a penalty of five thousand pounds f terling, either to fell them to the Company's fupercargoes at Canton, at a fair price, or leave them in their hands for fale by commif- fion:73 we chofe to fell, and actually fold them to the fupercargoes for 50,000 dollars; well knowing that the money would be more acceptable to our owners, than an account that we had left the furs on commiffion. Believe me, Mr. Meares, I do not wifh to prevent you, if you are one of the adventurers from receiving the remuneration of your rifks and labours; far from it, Sir, I always think the "laborer worthy of his hire." Again you proceed, "You ftate, with an infatuated kind of triumph, that your 2552 fea-otter fkins, &c. fetched no more than 54,857 Spanifh dollars at the Chinefe market; and your ftatement is made in fuch a manner, as to infer that it was the common market price of that valuable commodity; and that, of courfe, what has been faid by myfelf and others on the advantages of that p. eo. commerce, is a deception on the public. At the moment you were writing that curious piece of information, or inftructing others to write it, you knew that it was founded in falfehood. Nor dare you deny that the low prices given for the articles in queftion, arofe from the contract of your owners with the Eaft India Company, to leave the difposition of your American 73 Meares on page 21 of his Answer suggested that Portlock and Dixon had misconstrued the license; this afforded Dixon the opportunity to show that captains and owners were under a bond as described. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 135 cargo to the difpofal of their fervants at Canton, which necef- farily gave an additional power to the Houang merchants, thofe privileged oppreffors of European commerce." "I repeat, thofe fkins did not find any thing like half the price for which other fkins have been fold in China, both at the time, and fince the period of their fale."74 On the above, I fhall only obferve that our 2552 fea-otter fkins, together with the 434 cub, and 34 fox, were fold to the Eaft India Company's fupercargoes at Canton for 50,000 Span- ifh dollars; the remaining pieces of fea-otter, and fuch other fkins as were of inferior value, were fold to different Chinefe merchants for 4,857 Spanish dollars; fum total of both fhips p. 6i. cargoes, including fome flints, and other trifling articles was 54,857 Spanifh dollars. I cannot poffibly fee how I have deceived the public by ftating matters of fact. You dare me to deny that the low price of the articles in queftion arofe from the contract of my owners with the Eaft India Company. I have already obferved that we were bound by an agreement to fell our furs at a fair price to the fupercargoes at Canton, nor have I the leaft doubt but thofe gentlemen thought the price a fair one. A little farther, fpeaking of Mr. Richard Cadman Etches, you obferve: "I defire no better judge than him, between you and me. Nor have I the leaft doubt but he will be ready to confirm the explanations I am about to give, to ufe your own phrafe, for the ill fuccefs of your commerce, which arofe, among other caufes, from the mifconftruction your commander and yourfelf thought proper to put on the license granted to your owners by the honourable the Eaft India Company, for the difpofal of your American cargoes, and the confequent con- troul affumed by the fupercargoes over the fale of them."75 Upon my word, Sir, you have found an excellent judge between you and me," even a fecond Daniel!" 74 Quoted from Meares's Answer, pp. 20 f; see Dixon's Remarks, pp. 11 f. 75 From Meares's Answer, p. 21, Etches, though Dixon's old owner, being now in partnership with Meares and interested in securing a large award for damages, could hardly be impartial in this dispute. I 136 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY As to the mifconftruction, you fay, we put on the p. 62. agreement juft mentioned, I think it too plain to bear a mifcon- -truction; indeed, you acknowledged it yourfelf, when you fay, I dare not deny but the low price our fkins fold for, was owing to the contract between my owners and the Eaft India Company. You fay, "I have good reafon to think, Mr. Dixon, that a confiderable part of your furs were of a very, if not the moft inferior nature, confifting of worn-out garments of the Indians, pieces bedaubed with paint, and fewed together, fo as greatly to leffen the fuppofed aggregate value of your cargo."76 The Eaft India fupercargoes, Sir, fent the Chinefe furriers to examine our cargo, which they did, and eaft out all thofe furs of the quality you defcribe, which made part of what we fold for 4,857 dollars. But you afk me, "whether you did not encourage, as far as you had any power to do it, the firft opportunity of felling the furs, however dif advantageous to your owners, in order to fecure, from all future rifk, a certain little advantage you were to receive upon the fale?"77 As that little advantage you hint I was to receive, was two per cent, on the amount of our p. «s. cargo, it does not require that depth of commercial knowledge you are poffeffed of, for any perfon to find out that it was for my intereft the furs fhould fell as high as poffible. Your next obfervation worthy of notice, runs thus: "The following ftatement will, I believe, fettle at once the prefent difference, Mr. Dixon, between you and me. Your 2,552 fkins, fold for 54,877 dollars, which is fomewhat more than twenty- one dollars per fkin." This, Sir, is evidently miftating the 76 From Meares's Answer, p. 21. 77 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 21. The primage varied greatly. The United States vessels paid from 1 to 10%. Bishop of the Ruby was to receive, in 1794-96, 3XA% on the sales of sea otter skins. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 137 fale of our fkins, for the 2,552 otter fkins, with 434 cub, and 34 fox, fold for 50,000 dollars, the remainder, which were thrown out by the Chinefe furriers, as I have already related, fold for 4,857 dollars; which makes the fum total, as ftated above, 54,857 dollars; fo that the 2,552 otter fkins, (I fhall not take the 434 cub and 34 fox into the account) fetched rather more than 19^ dollars per fkin; you know beft what reafon you have for miftating this bufinefs. Again, you fay, "my cargo, (carried to Canton when you were there, confifting of 370 fkins, 120 of which were of the river-otter, worth only from 8 to 9 dollars each, &c.)"78 After having given a wrong ftate- p. 64. ment of our furs, it is lefs to be wondered at that you fhould give a fallacious one of your own, as there was lefs probability of your being detected: but this time you will not efcape, as I have now before me Mr. Cox's account of your cargo, (who was appointed by your owners, agent in China, to the Bengal fur fociety) in which I can only find 48 river-otter, both good and bad, at fix dollars per fkin. Here I think it neceffary to give your actual and probable loffes, from your own ftatement, as I find it in your publication, "A ftatement of the actual and probable lof fes fuftained by the affociated merchants of London and India by the capture of their fhips." ACTUAL LOSSES Span. Doll. To cafh paid the crew of the Iphigenia on their return to China, being near two years wages, and other incidental expences, for which vouchers have been obtained 15,534 PROBABLE LOSSES Span. Doll. To the value of the cargo that probably would have been collected by the Iphigenia, 1000 fea-otter fkins, at 100 dollars per fkin 100,000 78 The two quotations in this paragraph are from Meares's Answer, p. 22. % II 138 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY To cafh paid the crew of the North-Weft America, being near two years' wages on their return to China for which vouchers have been obtained .. 3,719 To the equipment of the fhip Argonaut, for which vouchers have been obtained.... 39,816 To the equipment of the Princefs Royal for which vouchers are ready to be produced To 473 fea-otter fkins feized on board the Princefs Royal, at 100 dollars per fkin 47,300 To 12 fea-otter fkins detained for the particular use of Mr. Martinez, at the fame valuation 1,200 To the agents expenc- es in returning to England 2,000 To the value of the cargo which would probably have been obtained by the North-Weft America, 1000 fea-otter fkins, at 100 dollars per fkin 100,000 To the value of the cargo that would probably have been obtained by the Argonaut, 2000 fkins, at 100 dollars per fkin 200,000 To the value of the cargo which would probably have been obtained by the Princefs Royal, 1000 p.66. fkins, at 100 dollars per fkin 100,000 To the lofs and def- truction of the commerce of the affoci- ated merchants DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 139 To the infurance on the principal f tock at 20 per cent, the ufual premium 23,864 To the lofs of the officers charts, journals, nautical inftruments, cloathing, private goods, &c. the amount of which cannot now be afcer- tained To the amount of all the wages due to all the fervants of the affociated merchants now in captivity, from the time of their failing to the time of their return .. To the value of the North-Weft America, on the Coaft of America 20,000 To the particular lofs of the veffel of 30 tons in frame on board the Argonaut, and of the furs fhe would probably have obtained 79 Total 153,433 Total 500,000 79 In his later claim (September 7, 1790) Meares subdivides the item "loss and destruction of commerce" into two parts: for 1789 he claims £106,322; for 1790 and 1791 he claims £285,019. The loss of the vessel in frame — the Jason — is set at £2,943-3-2. See Report of Archives Department of British Columbia, for 1913, Victoria B. C, 1914, p. 35. ill lii 140 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY The reafon for my quoting this ftatement of your "actual p. 67. and probable loffes" will prefently appear, as we next find in your pamphlet an account of your fkins, and the fkins collated by Captain Douglas, in thefe words: "I arrived at Canton in the Felice, in the month of December, 1788; my cargo confifted of 750 fkins. I had not to encounter the controul of the Honourable Eaft India Company's fupercargoes, but poffeffed a free independent power over my cargo, which fold for 38,000 dollars, being fomething better than 50 dollars per fkin. "It may not alfo be improper to obferve, that the Chinefe furriers forted thefe fkins into the following claffes: "Of the Firft quality 100 Second ditto 200 Third ditto 200 Fourth ditto 90 Fifth ditto 120 Sixth ditto 40" 80 Total 750 How could you, Mr. Meares, after eftimating fea-otter p. 68. fkins in your "probable loffes" at 100 dollars each, give an account of their felling for 50 dollars per fkin! but I have done; my bufinefs is to ftate FACTS, and leave a difcerning public to comment on them. You here give us a ftatement of your own furs in China, which I find fold on an average, for about half the f um you have averaged them at in your probable loffes; for, I cannot for a moment fuppofe, that all the fkins you imagine each veffel would procure, were to be of the firft quality; efpecially as we find, from your own ftatement juft quoted, that you had not quite one in feven of that defcription; but to put this matter beyond a doubt, you acquaint us that you are favoured with a letter from Canton, informing you 80 From Meares's Answer, pp. 23 f. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 141 that they had received 72 of thofe identical fkins which are ftated by you in "the probable loffes" to be worth one hundred dollars per fkin, but which actually fold for no more than fifty-five dollars and half per fkin. Your own ftatement, in my humble opinion, clearly proves your fallacious reafoning on this bufinefs.81 Farther you fay, "I fhall alfo add another circumftance relative to this cargo, as it is in point to the general queftion." p. 69. "The Chinefe furrier, who had bought the whole of it for 38,000 dollars, being apprehensive that the hoppo, or comptroller of the cuftoms, would exercife his arbitrary power, in taking fuch of the fkins as he might chufe at his own price, if he knew of the fale, requefted that it might not be immediately divulged; in confequence of which the hoppo came on board the Felice, and felected eight of the beft fkins and twenty of the fineft tails: for the former he paid me 250 dollars each, and for the latter 15 dollars each; which I, of courfe, allowed the Chinefe merchant on completing the contract between us."82 Here we find fomething worthy notice. It feems the merchant who bought your fkins, requefts the bargain may not be immediately divulged, for fear the hoppo fhould exercife his arbitrary power, in taking fuch fkins as he might chufe, at his own price; but, notwithftanding this, the hoppo immediately comes on board the Felice! Pray, Mr. Meares, who informed the hoppo of this bargain of yours with the merchant, for we are given to underftand, it was a fecret between your- felves? And what might be the reafon you did not fell the remaining 92 fkins of the firft quality, at the fame price this p. 70. arbitrary comptroller of the cuftoms thought proper to give 81 See Meares's Answer, p. 26. On this question of prices compare Dixon's Voyage, pp. 315 ff (Letter xlvi). 82 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 24. See note 56 thereto. I'll Jf W- 142 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY you for thofe 8 which he had? as in that cafe, the 100 fkins of the firft quality muft have fold for 25,000 dollars; and you had of the fecond quality 200, which, at half the above price, would have fetched 25,000 dollars more; total for fkins of the firft and fecond quality, 50,000 dollars; to fay nothing of the tails, and fkins of the third, fourth, fifth, and fixth qualities. I am afraid, Sir, your commercial knowledge was then in its infancy, or at leaft not fo completely matured as it is at prefent, for you certainly let the Chinefe merchant lay an anchor to windward of you in this tranfaction. After a long quotation from the account of my voyage, at the latter part of which is the following paf fage, "fome of the refufe which they had left for us to dif pose of fold for con- jiderable advantage;" I met with the following note — "Whether they were confidered as among the refufe I know not, but a fmall lot of thofe fkins were fold by your commander to a China merchant at 100 dollars per fkin."88 In the account fales of our furs in China, which is now lying before me, I find a lot of fundry odd pieces of fea-otter which fold for 100 dollars, fo that it is perfectly clear you have added the words "per fkin" in the above curious note; indeed, this is onlyp. n. one of the many inftances I have had occafion to notice, where you have fhewn yourfelf a complete mafter of the rule of addition. I fhall now leave the commercial part of your candid and very interefting anfwer to the judgment of the public, and proceed to offer a few remarks on that part of it, where you quit "the caufe of the North-Weft American commerce, and take up your own." You obferve, that I fuggeft you divided amongft your people, part of the fkins you carried to China, and alfo fold fome on your own account; after which you proceed, "and with the moft entire fatisfaction I inform 83 Quoted from Meares's Answer, p. 27. 84 From Meares's Answer, p. 29. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 143 you, that I did both one and the other."84 Inftead of giving me this information, Mr. Meares, which, by the bye, is rathef premature at prefent, it perhaps would have been equally as confiftent, had you communicated it to Meffrs. Cox and Beale, who were appointed agents to your veffel at Canton, by the gentlemen of the Bengal fur fociety; indeed, Mr. Beale informed me that you had on your arrival at Canton, divided fome fkins amongft your people, as a recompence for their fufferings in Prince William's Sound, but not a word tran- fpired about your felling any furs on your own account, until Mr. Dormer, purfer of the Nottingham Eaft Indiaman, through whofe medium the fkins were fold, informed him of . 72. the tranfaction; this piece of information rather furprised him, but he perhaps did not know that your voyage was only "a patriotic experiment in favour of Britifh commerce; that the proprietors configned it to your unlimited and independent command; fhackled it with no conditions, but made you as much mafter of the whole equipment, as if you had prepared it at your own coft and expence."** After knowing that this power was given you, I for my own part, am furprifed that you fhould render Meffrs. Cox and Beale an account of any part of your cargo. I beg leave juft to remark, that this experiment feems rather to have been an unlucky one, and I fear the balance was found to be againft, inftead of "in favour of British commerce;" that "patriotic fpirit" which firft fug- gefted the voyage, and afterwards put it in execution, was certainly evaporated by the experiment, for I never heard of its being renewed. Having, as you flattered yourfelf, "fettled the opinion which every impartial reader will entertain of my pamphlet, in the principal objects of it;" you proceed, "As I feel a wifh, however, that the confutation fhould be complete, I shall con- 1 H\ M K». I»i ma, Ml: 144 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY defcend to remark upon the petty obfervations and fubordinate charges which form the remaining part of that publication."85 I am much obliged to you, Mr. Meares, for this condefcen- fion; but whether you have fucceeded, or will fucceed, refts p. 78. not, I prefume with you, but with an impartial and difcerning public. The charges now alluded to, probably may be of a fubordinate nature; as you, however, have condefcended to notice them, I furely cannot pafs over them in filence. You mention my having fupplied Taheo, the King of Atooi, one of the Sandwich Iflands, with arms, ammunition, &c. from the authority of Captain Douglas.86 I only here can pofitively affert, as I already have done, that I never either traded, or gave away to an Indian in my life, either musquet, piftol, or grain of powder, and I defy any perfon whatever to prove the contrary. You fay, "It is not the matter of trading away mufquets, piftols, or weapons, but the motive for fo doing," at the fame time you own you "furnifhed certain of the chiefs of the Sandwich Iflands with arms and ammunition, in order to defend themfelves againft their enemies, and thereby to fecure their f riendfhip to the future interfts of British commerce."86 In p. 74. anfwer to this, I aver, that whatever motive might induce you, or any other perfon, to do any thing of this kind, it could not poffibly be productive of any good effects; for it is from their dread of fire-arms, and that alone, that we are enabled to trade amongft them with fafety; that terror being once done away, by their familiarity with the weapons in queftion, they would foon be able, from their numbers and courage, to feize any vef fels that might go to trade with them. 85 Meares's Answer, p. 30. 86 See hereon: Meares's Voyages, p. 354; Dixon's Remarks, pp. 16 f; Meares's Answer, p. 30. See also note 24 to Dixon's Remarks. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 145 You confefs firing a four-pound fhot on fhore at Oneehow, but that it was a very innocent one, and only intended to fright the natives.87 Pray, Sir, did you fire only one of thefe innocent playthings on fhore? Had that been the cafe, I can hardly imagine the natives would have brought feveral of them the day afterwards to Mr. Rofs, and fome of your people who were on fhore. Another of your obfervations on my fubordinate charges runs thus, "I agree with you that a time-piece is not of the leaft utility at fea, unlefs a fight can be obtained both of the horizon . 75. and the fun. Nor do I retract the declaration, which feems to alarm your nautical experience, "that during a feason of continual fog, my time-piece had proved of real fervice to me." For, I believe it is known to every feaman, that, in weather which may be properly called a continual fog, thofe momentary gleams of fun appear, and tranfient views of the horizon are obtained, to which the inftrument in que ft ion may be applied with the greateft utility."88 I fhall here firft quote what you fay on this fubject in your publication, and afterwards take the liberty of adding a remark on it. In your Introductory Voyage, page 4, are thefe words: "After leaving the latitude of 25 ° north, we had one continual fog, which was oftentimes fo thick, that it was impoffible to fee the length of the veffel;" and a little farther in the fame page, "It had indeed been one continued fog ever fince we croffed the latitude of 35°; and from that time we had not been able to make more than two obfervations; we very fortunately had a time-piece on board, which proved of the greatest utility." Your expreffions of "one continual" and "continued fog." 87 See Dixon's Remarks, p. 23, and note thereto; Meares's Answer, pp. 30 f. Oneehow (Niihau) is one of the westerly isles of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) group . 88 Meares's Voyages, p. iv; Dixon's Remarks, p. 20; Meares's Answer, p. 31. I f I I M 146 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY will, I am afraid, fcarcely admit of either "momentary gleams of the fun, or tranfient views of the horizon; but, admitting you for a moment, to be in pof fef fion both of one and the other, there is ftill "one thing needful," Mr. Meares, though youp.-j feem to have forgot it, and that is the LATITUDE; WHICH YOU MUST HAVE, as well as "tranfient views and momentary gleams," before your TIME-PIECE CAN BE APPLIED WITH ANY UTILITY: but this charge, being merely a fubordinate one, can have no effect on a Gentleman of your "profeffional merit." You next proceed to obferve, that "Whether fkin or wooden canoes are in ufe from the ftraits of the two continents along the coaft, as far as Cape Edgecumbe, is a matter of too little confequence to merit an investigation. When I am convinced from fome better authority than yours, that I am miftaken in my account, in favour of the former, I will correct the error." If you thought this matter of fo little confequence, why did you firft mention it? I took notice of it, as it ferves to mark, and that with a confiderable degree of precifion, how far the different tribes ftretch along the coaft. The wood canoe, which I prefented to Sir Jofeph Banks, and which is now in his pof fef fion, I brought from Port Mulgrave; but, as my word feems to have little weight, you may, by calling on my book- feller, Mr. Stockdale, have it on the oath of feveral of my people, and that they never faw a fkin canoe at that place.89 P. i As to your remarks on my book feller's catalogue and large margin, the latter, I find, was made to correspond with the margin of your own work; and, in regard to the former, I only can fay, that had you under ftood your prof ef fion, as well as he does his bufinefs, there would have been no neceffity for my remarks on your voyages. I fhall juft make an obfervation on 89 Meares's Voyages, p. x; Dixon's Remarks, pp. 19 f; Meares's Answer, p. 31. Cape Edgecumbe is at the entrance to Sitka sound, Alaska. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 147 JOHN MEARES'S MAP John Meares's map, showing the North West Coast of America, in support of the probable existence of a North West Passage, published in the collection of maps and views accompanying the French edition of Meares's Voyages (An 3 of the Republic—1795). It is also found in some copies of the original English edition (1790). Note the River Oregan (Columbia) flowing into the Strait of Fuca, and Slave Lake draining into Cook's River. fl J M If 148 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY thefe words: "The probability of a North-Weft Paf fage, for which I contend, appears to be a ftumbling block of great offence to you." It is not merely your contending for a North-Weft Paf fage that I have taken notice of, but the contradictions and mif- reprefentations you make ufe of in the arguments produced by you in fupport of the paf fage fo long looked for. And here let me beg your indulgence, if I digrefs for a moment, and offer my own ideas on the fubject. I fhould be fincerely glad if the exiftence, or non-exif tence of the paf fage in quef tion, was fully determined; but this, in my humble opinion, will never be found in a lower latitude (at leaft fome part of it) than 72° north, and, perhaps, much higher. As to there being a fea, or a large body of water behind Nootka, I have no doubt, as Captain Duncan informed me, that when he was at anchor in the P. 78. Straits of Juan de Fuca, he found the tide of flood fet out of the Straits to the weftward; but how far this fea or body of water may be found to the north and eaft, is yet to determine.90 Should Government fend any more fhips to furvey the coaft, I am in great hopes the examining this place will be a particular part of the commanding officer's inftructions. The veffel most proper for a furvey of the kind, would be a fmall one, of about fifty tons burthen, coppered and fchooner rigged; fhe should be conftructed in fuch a manner, as to ufe at leaft four oars or fweeps on each fide, for the purpose of clearing the fhore or rocks, when the wind leaves her clofe in with either, as will frequently be the cafe under high lands, when at the fame time, there will be no anchorage. Such a veffel as the above might be fent out in company with a larger; the 90 Elisa, after his exploration in 1791 of the strait of Georgia, wrote to the viceroy of New Spain: "Assuring your excellency that the passage to the ocean which foreign nations seek for so eagerly on this coast, if there be one, will not be found, as it appears to me, elsewhere than by this great channel." Papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, Berlin Arbitration, vol. 5, p. 98. DIXON'S FURTHER REMARKS 149 fmaller one to have fifteen hands and a mafter, who would be able to navigate her at three watches; the place appointed for a rendezvous, in cafe of feparation, Berkley's Sound; at which place the tender might be reinforced with as many more men as would be neceffary, not only to make a complete furvey, but prevent the natives from boarding her. I would wifh to make one obfervation for veffels coming to the Weftern Coaft of • America round Cape Horn, which is, that fhould they not want to fall in with the coaft before they get into the latitude of 43° or 44° north, I would advife them, after rounding the Cape, to fhape a courfe for the Marquefas, by the way of Eafter If land, at which place fome fmall refrefhments may be got. After having taken in wood and water, and what other refrefhments are to be had at the Marquefas, they might, if necef fary, touch at the Sandwich Iflands on their way to the coast.91 By this route, they would not only be enabled to prevent the fatal effects of the fcurvy, but, in all probability, make a fhorter paf fage, by avoiding thofe variable winds and rains, which are found to prevail more to the eaftward; thefe I not only have experienced, but we find it mentioned in Anion's Voyage round the World. And now, Sir, I wifh to take my final leave of you. It has been infinuated, that what I have faid refpecting your publications, arofe as much from private pique, as from a wifh to correct your mifreprefentations, but this I abfolutely deny; I never had any quarrel whatever with you, Mr. Meares; my only motive for firft making remarks on your publication; and now, for replying to your Anfwer to thofe Remarks, has . been a defire to correct your mif-ftatements, and to fhew the public how eafily they may be mi fled by fpecious, though fallacious arguments; at the fame time, let me recommend you, 91 This route had been suggested in Dixon's Voyage, pp. 230 f (Letter xxxvii). **fii I 150 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY in future, to employ a perfon who is mafter of his fubject. Men are readily to be found, who can write in eafy langugae, and with a flow of words on every fubject, without being mafters of any fubject or fcience whatever. GEORGE DIXON James Street, Covent Garden. February 12, 1791. m The End INDEX INDEX 153 Alaska, 10, 32, 68, 118. An Answer to Mr. George Dixon, 3r 9, 15ff, 53-89, (Text). Arrowsmith, 46, 47, 64, 66, 71, 72, 96, 123, 130. Associated Merchants, 3, 21. B. Baffin's Bay, 42. Banks, Sir Joseph, 12, 37, 55, 146. Barkley, Captain, 8, 29, 30, 34, 42, 50, 59, 65, 67, 71, 123, 130, 132. Beresford, 27, 28, 55. Behring's Bay, 32. Bishop, 16. Blanco, Cape, 47, 73. Bligh, Captain, 45. British Columbia, 1, 59. Britain, 3. Burney, Captain, 45. C. Calvert Island, 110. Captain Cook, 42. China, 5, 13, 14, 16, 28, 36, 40, 48, 59, 66, 74, 75, 76, 78, 85, 104, 105, 106, 115, 133. Colnett, Captain, 28, 42, 58, 59, 65, 68, 79, 84, 88, 102. Columbia, 4. Controversy, the Meares-Dixon, 1-22. Cook, Captain, 2, 9, 18, 19, 27, 32, 39, 42, 43, 45, 64, 67, 69, 70, 73, 94, 121, 124, 128, 130, 132. Cook's Chart, 26. Cook's River, 13, 18, 42, 43, 44, 45, 69, 70, 95, 127, 147. Cox, John Henry, 35, 48, 49. D. Discovery, 2, 37, 69. Dixon, Captain, Iff, 10, 11, 18, 27, 42, 48, 58, 59, 61, 65, 68, 84, 97. Douglas, Captain, 35, 36, 43, 44, 47, 65, 66, 71, 86, 104, 129, 140, 144. Douglas's Entrance, 12. Duncan, Captain, 3, 7, 19, 21, 28, 29, 36, 46, 47, 58, 59, 60, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 84, 102, 104, 106, 107, 114, 125, 128, 148. 154 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY East India Company, 2, 13, 16, 17, 31, 66, 75, 80, 84, 114, 116, 134ff. Edgecumbe, Cape, 32, 36, 87, 146. Etches, 3, 16, 21, 28, 29, 31, 35, 57, 60, 61, 75, 77, 80, 104, 106, 117, 134. European War, 2. Experiment, 30, 42, 98 (chart). Felice, V, 2, 4, 5, 15, 32, 41, 42, 67, 107, 112, 114, 119, 141. Flattery, Cape, 49, 100, 101, 112. Friendly Cove, 21. Further Remarks on the Voyages of John Meares, Esq., 3, 4, 9ff, 90-150 (Text) Gore, John, 29. Gray, Captain, 6. Guise, Captain, 31, 33, 42, 123. H. Hanna, Captain, 30, 31, 42, 100, 122 (chart), 123. Haswell, 4, 5. Hawaii, 120, 121. Hearne, Samuel, 46, 72, 130, 131. Hudson Bay, 18, 42, 60, 105. Hudson's Bay Company, 46. I. Imperial Eagle, 42, 65. Iphigenia, 2, 4, 5, 15, 41, 46, 65, 67, 87, 114, 115. J. Juan De Fuca, 7, 8, 15, 18, 38, 42, 50, 68, 69, 111, (chart) 125, 126, 147. K. Kamtschatka, 94. Karakakooa, 64,-87. Kendrick, 14. King George, 2, 11, 29, 31, 34, 36, 42, 57, 60, 65, 116, 120. King George's Sound, 29, 33, 36, 61, 120, 130. INDEX 155 Lisbon, 112. Lowrie, Captain, 30, 31, 33, 42, 123. M. Mackenzie, Sir Alex., 19. Maguinna, 7, 8. Martinez, 8. Meares, Captain, Iff, 10, 12, 15, 19, 21, 32, 39, 42, 55, 60, 93, 105, 107, 118, 147, (chart). Meares's Charts, 39 (Track of the Washington), 44 (Cook's River). Memorial, 12. Mendozino, Cape, 47, 73, 131, 132. Milbank Sound, 110. Milet-Mureau, 9. Mozino, 8. N. Neville, Mr., 124. Newcombe, C. F., 13, 67. Newfoundland, 94. Nicol, John, 11, 20, 57. Nootka, 2, 4, 7, 14, 20, 21, 28, 42, 48, 57, 60, 96, 119. Nootka Convention, 3. Nootka Sound, 61, 105, 108, 113, 121, 125, 131, 148. North West America, 6, 48, 107. North West Coast, 2, 9, 10, 17, 28, 29, 48, 50, 62, 76, 95, 105, 149. North West Passage, 7, 18, 19, 33, 42, 48, 67, 70, 71, 130, 131, 148. O. Oregon, River, 147. Pond, Peter, 18. Portlock, Captain, 2, 10, 11, 31, 32, 33, 42, 60, 61, 62, 65, 71, 74, 84, 96ff, 119, 123. Portuguese, 5, 15, 78, 107, 114, 115. Prince of Wales, 32, 42, 59, 65, 78, 79, 106. Prince William's Sound, 32, 86, 96, 115, 118. Princess Royal, 3, 28, 32, 42, 49, 59, 65, 78, 79, 106. Princess Royal Isles, 109, 113. 156 THE DIXON-MEARES CONTROVERSY Q. Queen Charlotte, 2, 29, 34, 36, 42, 55, 65, 101, 105, 116, 120. Queen Charlotte Islands, 14, 18, 27, 28, 31, 33, 48, 64, 68, 98, 109, 110, 112, 113, 126, 128, 131. Remarks on the Voyage of John Meares, 3, 6ff, 23-53 (Text). Resolution, 70. Ross, 40, 41. Russia, 57. Russians, 69, 94. S. Sandwich Islands, 34, 35, 40, 63, 85, 102, 108, 114, 120. Sea-otter, 1, 2, 6, 15, 17, 31, 71, 74, 77, 81, 135ff. Sea Otter, 30, 40, 42. Sea-Otter Harbour, 100. Skeena River, 109. Slave Lake, 147. South Sea Company, 2, 11, 116. Spain, 3, 12, 21. Spaniards, 8, 38, 80, 87. Strange, James, 98, 100. V. Vancouver, Captain, 12, 20, 37, 70. Vancouver Island, 13, 111, 122. W. Washington, 4, 6, 13, 14, 18, 39, 66, 67, 121. Wilby, William, 62, 117, 118. Zimmermann, 69. HP- Hi m due Of this edition of The Dixon-Meares Controversy, five hundred copies have been printed on Bard of Avon, antique finish paper. The type face used in the book is eleven point Franklin Old Style on thirteen point body, with the footnotes in eight point of the same type face on nine point body. The illustrations are from rare maps and pictures, and the colophon is the work of Charles W. Jefferys, R.C.A. The printing was executed by The Review Company, Bridgeburg, Ontario, and the book was bound at The Ryerson Press, Toronto.
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Northwest Coast of North America
Fur trade--Northwest, Canadian
The Dixon-Meares controversy
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