112 Ralph S. Kuykendall complete sketch of those movements so far as these islands are concerned. Brown was one of that numerous group of commer- cial adventurers who flocked into the north Pacific Ocean in the wake of Cook, drawn thither by the chance dis- covery, as one result of the last expedition led by that great navigator, of the possibilities of wealth in the fur trade between China and the coast of America. But Brown, or the company that sent him out, 2 did not pro- pose to risk everything on the uncertainties of that traf- fic, and therefore planned to combine the fur trade with sealing and the whale fishery off the coast of South America. 3 Captain Brown arrived on the northwest coast in the spring or summer of 1792 as head of a squadron of three vessels, the ship Butterworth, under his personal com- mand, and the sloops Jackal, Captain Alexander Stewart, and Prince Lee Boo, Captain Sharp. 4 It is entirely prob- able that the squadron came out by way of Cape Horn and that on the way Captain Brown made some sort of temporary establishment at Staten Land 5 to serve as a base for the projected sealing and whaling operations. 6 Of the vessels comprising the squadron we know that the Butterworth was a ship of four hundred tons and therefore much larger than the average vessel en- gaged in the fur trade. She is also said to have formerly 2 The vessels belonged to a "company of London Merchants, the prin- cipal of which is Alderman Curtis." A Nevo Vancouver Journal on the Discovery of Puget Sound, edited by Edmond S. Meany (Seattle, 1915), 24. 3 Ibid. ; George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery . . . (London, 1801), V, 354. 4 Joseph Ingraham, Journal of the Voyage of the Brigantine "Hope" . . . (MS), entry for July 17, 1792. A photostat copy of this journal is in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Vancouver, op. cit., VI, 399. Vancouver calls the Jackal a "cutter." Boit names "Cap- tain Gordon" as master of the Prince Lee Boo in August, 1792. "John Boit's Log of the Columbia," in Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Soci- ety, XXII, 326 (December, 1921). "This was their first season. New Vancouver Journal (Meany, ed.), 24, under date Sept. 14, 1792. 5 Staten Island, off the eastern point of Tierra del Fuego, on the direct route around Cape Horn. 6 Vancouver, op. cit., V, 354.
