Just how the information of
Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain
may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa
Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: "_Whenever there may
arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to
belong to General Wanghington (Washington) of the American States,
under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September
1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian
Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will
cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew._"
Orders were also given Kendrick and Gray to avoid offence to any
foreign power, to treat the natives with kindness and Christianity, to
obtain a cargo of furs on the American coast, to proceed with the same
to China to be exchanged for a cargo of tea, and to return to Boston
with the tea. The holds of the vessels were then stowed with every
trinket that could appeal to the savage heart, beads, brass buttons,
ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper
kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco.
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