The ships went north. At Point Grenville, the SONORA was trapped behind shoals by the falling tide. Quadra took the occasion to send a boat with six men ashore to get fresh water. Indians ambushed and massacred them. At high tide, Quadra was able to beat off an attack and thread his way to deep water. When he rejoined Hezeta, Quadra found his captain ready to send him home - the SONORA was too small for such a voyage. But with six new men from the larger ship. Quadra was determined to fulfil his mission. On 29 July, the two ships lost contact, and although Quadra suspected Hezeta meant to turn back, he carried on. Hezeta did turn back, discovering the mouth of the Columbia on the way. The SONORA made landfall on a coast dominated by a snow tipped mountain, which Quadra named San Jacinto (today Mount Edgecumbe). He landed and claimed the area for Spain. He made a second landing of Prince of Wales Island, naming the site "Puerto de Bucareli", after the viceroy. It is Bucareli Sound today. Quadra checked every bay and inlet as far north as 58“ 30'. Then, assailed by high winds and with his crew beset with scurvy, he turned south. He had not enough crew to manage both sails and rudder, but he got his ship back to Monterey Bay, where the mission fathers nursed them back to health. In 1744 the British parliament had offered an award of t 20,000 to the first British merchant ship to traverse a north-west passage. In 1774, the offer was extended to the British Navy, and Captain James Cook was sent to search for such a passage. After wintering in the Sandwich Islands, Cook made landfall at 44° 31', at Foul Weather Cape on the Oregon coast. The wind's were bad and he missed the mouth of the Columia. Going north, he named a headland "Cape Flattery" because it flattered with the expectation of finding the Gulf of Juan de Fuca, but he could not investigate because high winds forced him out to sea. Cook stopped next at a good sheltered harbour which he named Friendly Cove, but which we call Mootka. Cook's ships had stopped in the open sea, and the Indians told hini, " Nootka Itchrne", meaning , "Go round that point of land into the Harbour." But the Nootka has stuck, for the area and for the people. Cook continued to explore northwards and, at Cook Inlet, 61°30", claimed his first land for Britain. He followed the coast to the Aleutians, entered Bering Strait and the Arctic Ocean. On his return he visited two Russians stations and exchanged information, before setting sail for home. One more fact must be mentioned. At Nootka, Cook and his sailors found the natives willing to exchange sea otter pelts for any little trinket and acquired some 1500 pelts. At a stop in Macao, China's trading post with the outside world, the crew discovered that the pelts, bougnt for pennies, could be sold for 300 Spanish dollars each. The crew nearly mutinied because they could not return at once for more. And certainly, when the expedition arrived in England, the news of such profits was bound to stimulate traders with-an eye for easy money. Not too long after, American merchants involved themselves in the trade. The Spanish were well aware that they would have to move decisively to bolster their claims, and in 1788, Esteban Jose Martinez Fernandez was sent north to determine the degree of Russian expansion. The following year 1789, Martinez with Haro was sent back to occupy Nootka. Already the situation was difficult, but in strong resolute hands, not impossible. Martinez perhaps had the strength but he did not have the temperance and diplomacy. He arrived to find a British base in existence at Nootka. A British trader, John Meares, in 1786, trading out of Macao, claimed to have purchased "a spot of ground" from the local chief Ma-kwee-na, and had built both a house and a sloop which he