The Nootka Sound Controversy

ds a flourishing fur trade sprang up between the Northwest Coast and China. Nootka became the center of this trade, though it remained for several years without an

history of the world. Though the Nootka incident can make no claim to rank in importance with the great events of t

anything of the other. The Spanish commander arrived first and took possession. Nearly two months later the Englishman came. A quarrel ensued. The Spaniard seized the Englishman, imprisoned him, his officers and crew, and sent them

cted the Spanish claim to exclusive sovereignty over the territory in question, and suspended all diplomatic relations until Spain should have offered a satisfactory reparation for the insult which His Britannic Majesty felt that his flag had suffered. Each Court refused to grant the demand of the other and stood firmly on the ground originally taken. To supp

n powers and gave birth to a negotiation which for several months absorbed the attention of all of the maritime powers of Europe.[1] Similar statements were made by other writers within a few years af

of the Pacific Ocean's having been first seen by a Spaniard gave his Government a right to all of the lands of the[285] continent which were washed by it. This fact, added to the gift of the Pope, was sufficient to convince the Spanish mind that Spain had a valid title to the whole of the weste

1761. It marked the end of Spain's new brief period of national greatness, which had resulted from the wise reign of Charles III. It was also the beginning of the collapse of Spain's colonial empire. Duro, one of the leading S

he Spanish claim, the Nootka Sound affair became a part of the Oregon controversy. For a time the dispute threatened to change the course of the French Revol

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