[Snowbrushy]

Robert Gray discovered Grays Harbor and the Columbia and in so doing insured that the United States and not Great Britain would own the country north of the Columbia River. If you discover a river you can claim it and it's tributaries. He nailed it! http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5050 If not for Robert Gray the NW woud have become part of British Columbia, eh ..

[Dslayer]

Not to denigrate Grays's discovery, but simple fact was that the country to first populate the area was going to end up in possession of it which, of course, we did. We did have the advantage over England of proximity, and the English were pretty well spread thin throughout the world and saw the PNW of relatively minor importance compared to its other possessions.

[Stones]

I think the Brits did have a fairly substantial (for that time) toe hold in the Pacific Northwest with the British Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver and John McLoughlin as Chief Factor of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company.

[touron]

It is interesting that the Spanish were poking around the Puget Sound area a couple years earlier aided by a British fur trading ship they had confiscated.

[l]

Touron, Quimper also has a peninsula named for him. It's the thumb of land which Port Townsend sits on - between Discovery Bay and the Admiralty Inlet.

[Dslayer]

The Brits not only had a substantial toehold, but a virtual stranglehold on the PNW into the early 1800's. John McLoughlin, though, might have been have been more responsible than any other man in aiding Americans into the territory, compassionately lending the resources of HBC and Ft. Vancouver to bedraggled settlers as well as simply reading the handwriting on the wall-the Americans were on the way. There seems to be an inevitability to it all in hindsight, but it could never had been seen that way in the time, the U.S. was no way seen as a powerful nation and there were doubts to its survival due to the growing rift over slavery/states' rights/taxation and all.

[Snowbrushy]

[touron]

[l]

Here's a link to explorations of the NW coast that has info on Quimper.

[mike]

Recommended reading THE VOYAGE OF SUTIL AND MEXICANA 1792:

[Jamin Smitchger]

Did any of you ever hear about the story of Juan de Fuca? Juan de Fuca was a explorer during a voyage 1592. When he returned from an exploring trip on the northwest coast, he claimed that he had found the northwest passage. According to his story, he had found a gap in the northwestern coastline somewhere at the latitude of Washington and had sailed through it for twenty days until he eventually reached the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, when somebody discovered Puget sound, they naturally thought that they had discovered Juan de Fuca's straight, and they named it after him. Therefore, the Straight of Juan de Fuca was named after a LIAR!!!

[greg]

It's Strait... I've always been intrigued by the several massacres along the Washington Coast of explorers, including a Spanish party that tried to claim Quinault land for the queen: http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5688 and a British party that tried to land at the mouth of the Hoh: http://www.historylink.org/essays/printer_friendly/index.cfm?file_id=5697 There are also sketchy, undocumented reports of I think of a Russian crew that was attacked, with several killed and a few apparently enslaved by the Quileutes.

[strider]

How soon we forget .... http://www.nps.gov/sajh/Pig_War_new.htm