98 Mackenzie’s Voyages

extremity of the Alaskan peninsula the expedition came upon
traces of the Russians near the fifty-fifth parallel. Eight
days’ sailing westward brought them to Unalaska, the
largest of the Fox group of the Aleutian Islands, a well-
known place of resort for the fur-traders of Asia, none of
whom, however, were present at the time. The ships turned
northward, touching at Cape Prince of Wales and East
Cape in latitude 66°, the two extremities of America and
Asia facing each other across the fifty-one miles of the water
that forms Bering Strait. The American coast-line was then
traced to Icy Cape in latitude 704°, when farther progress
was blocked by ice-floes.

Spain claimed that Perez, Maurelle, Heceta, and Bodega
made important voyages in 1774-5. Perez is credited with
the discovery of the Queen Charlotte Islands in latitude 54°,
and Nootka Sound in 49}°. He is said to have entered the
latter, naming it San Lorenzo, Heceta too, the Spanish
accounts say, discovered the Columbia in latitude 46° 16’,
which is marked on Spanish maps as Rio de San Roque.
But these voyages were for the time being kept secret by
Spain. They were finally published in London in 1781 by
the Hon. Daines Barrington.1 Consequently, Cook was
unaware of any Spanish discoveries later than those of
Vizcaino in 1603, though, as he says in his Fournal, ‘‘some
account of a Spanish voyage to this coast in 1774 and 1775
had reached England before I sailed.”

1 Journal of a Voyage in 1775 to explore the Coast of America north-
ward of California, by the Second Pilot of the Fleet, Don Francisco
Antonio Maurelle, inthe King’s Schooner called the Sonora, commanded
by Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega. Don Juan Perez, who had sighted
the Queen Charlotte Islands the year before, was an ensign in this
voyage of 1775. The Spanish navigators in both voyages had
instructions from their government to land whenever practicable,
and take possession of the country to forestall the British, and thus
establish their title to the North-West Coast by right of discovery.