In 1789 the Spanish frigate La Princesa, followed by its supply ship the San Carlos, looking for Russians from the Aleutians, the British, and perhaps the French, sailed into Nootka Sound to find, or wait for, ships flying British, American, and Portuguese flags, including the 1st ship built in the NW, the schooner North West America. La Princesa, with the aid of its 28 onboard soldiers, took prisoners. (Never to return the schooner that they renamed the Santa Saturnina. A full-size replica is to sit in the Living History Farm’s Lake Nootka (pond). In short order they* built cabins, a fort, and sailed captured ships to San Blas, Mexico. Later, England and Spain signed Nootka Accords (3), had the fort demolished, and departed for areas below the 42nd parallel (OR & CA border). The Spanish had 2 disadvantages. The English and Americans sailed from China & Hawaii with the ocean currents to Nootka Sound. Spain sailed north along the Pacific Coast from their Mexico bases, against onshore winds and a current on the bow. The English had barely solved the problem of determining longitude using a marine clock (depend on Vancouver’s logs at your peril); the Spanish were even more unsure of their position in the rain and 40-foot
waves.** The Spanish, however, also had 2 advantages: La Princesa was a warship with 26 cannon (a life-size fiberglass replica cannon sits at the start of the walk-around of the Living History Farm) and the ship carried Catalonian marines. Those with the largest cannons and foot soldiers, are the ones to take prisoners. This is a seminal lesson of history taught 223 miles NW of the Farm, 223 years ago.
*Bancroft’s 1884 History of the Northwest Coast, followed by Manning’s 1904 inquiry using materials from Spain not available to Bancroft, kindled a controversy further inflamed by the 1920 Martinez “Log of the Princesa” published by Priestley: all with a bit of disagreement about the summer of 1789 in Friendly Cove. “History is a pack of lies perpetrated on the dead.” Voltaire, perhaps forethinking the Chinese untold role in all this: building the 1st European military base on the northwest coast. **the North West America’s keel was 33 feet long, its beam 1/3 that; a recent wave just south of Nootka Sound was 58 feet tall.
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Portuguese.pdf
http://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Spanish-Explorers.pdf
https://www.boatus.com/expert-advice/expert-advice-archive/2014/june/wave-wisdom
https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2017/10/05/spanish-explorations-of-the-pacific-northwest-and-the-first-spanish-settlement-in-washington-state-nunez-gaona-neah-bay-1792-part-i/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/record-breaking-4-story-rogue-wave-detected-off-vancouver-island-180979598/
Best answer: Of the 3 British ships captured by the Spanish, the 1 released, flying a false Portuguese flag, was the?
Iphigenia Nubiana
Argonaut
Princess Royal
Comments appreciated bb@plc215.org; thank you.