Free Canada Under Attack by Jennifer Crump

entrances to the great inlets the line of the shore there is broken by low headlands which project from the seaboard, and appear, with their shapeless, outlying rocks, not unlike the shattered angles of a fortified work; between these capes are narrow beaches, backed by a curtain of rock, over which hill upon hill appears, woody and ragged. As the coast lies exposed to the uninterrupted western swell of the North Pacific, the waves are generally large, and even in calm weather they break with noise on the shore and roar among the caverns. 2
    Friendly Cove was a natural harbour within the Sound, one of very few along the uninviting shoreline. It served as the perfect vantage point for anyone wanting to make forays into the Pacific west coast of Canada and offered immediate access to the Pacific Ocean and the rich developing markets of the Far East.
    The Spanish claim to the Pacific Northwest was initiated in the 15th century with a papal bull that had divided the western hemisphere between the Spanish and Portuguese and gave the entire New World to the Spanish. The Spanish bolstered their claim to the region by pointing out that Vasco Núñez de Balboa had laid claim to all the shores touched by the Pacific Ocean when he had crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513. Subsequent explorations by other Spanish explorers were used to cement the Spanish claim to the Pacific Northwest.
    James Cook was the focus of the British claim. He had made an extensive exploration of the area of Nootka Sound in 1778, but had made no formal claim of sovereignty over it. He did spend a little over a month in Nootka Sound repairing his ships the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery . He may not have laid claim for the British but he did, perhaps inadvertently, encourage an imperialist interest in the region. When they were published in 1784, Cook’s extensive journals aroused an intense British interest in the area’s rich fur trade. Interestingly, one of the gifts provided to Cook by the Nootka was a set of two silver spoons that looked suspiciously Spanish in origin and may have been traded up the coast or come from the explorations of Balboa some years earlier.
    As early as the 1740s the Spanish began to hear rumours of Russian incursions into the Nootka Sound area. These rumours grew more threatening when it was suggested that the Russians intended to establish settlements in the area to cement their claim. Those rumours, whether true or not, were compounded by the Russian penchant for secrecy and their refusal to confirm or deny the rumours. Since it could take years for information to travel between Russia and its isolated Alaskan outposts, it is possible that even they did not know for sure. As a response to potential Russian settlement of the area, in 1774 the Spanish sent the explorer Juan Pérez, along with a Spanish frigate called the Santiago , to secure their claim. Pérez’s instructions were to travel to 60° north (which is near the site of present-day Cordova, Alaska) and to ascertain the extent of Russian settlements and British incursions in the area. He was also given instructions to land in order to cement Spanish rights to the area, and to treat any Natives he encountered with respect to secure their co-operation. Once on land, according to instructions preserved in the diary of Pérez’s companion, Friar Thomás de la Peña, he was to establish the Spanish presence by “using the standard form attached to his instructions, and erect a large wooden cross supported by a cairn of stones hiding a glass bottle, stoppered with pitch, containing a copy of the act of possession signed by the commander, chaplain, and two pilots, ‘so that in future times this document will be kept and will serve as an authentic testimony.’” 3 Pérez reached the southernmost tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands, but he turned back while still several hundred kilometres from his destination because of his