Vancouver (1790-1795)
Vancouver, George (1757-1798). A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean [...] in which the Coast of North-West America Has Been Carefully Examined and Accurately Surveyed [...] and Performed in the Years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 [...]. London: G. G. and J. Robinson and J. Edwards, 1798. 3 vol.
Born at King's Lynn, England, in 1757, George Vancouver enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1771 and sailed with James Cook on his second and third voyages. Vancouver then spent close to ten years on fighting ships, most of the time in the Caribbean.
In 1791 the Admiralty put him in command of an expedition charged with mapping the west coast of America, between 30 and 60 latitude north, and to gather information on any waterway that might eventually serve as a Northwest Passage. Vancouver left England in April 1791 and did not return until October 1795. In the interval he directed one of the longest expeditions of exploration in history and presided over an accurate hydrographic mapping of the west coast of America, from north of Mexico to south of Alaska.
Vancouver was thus able to prove that the island that today bears his name was in fact an island. He was also able to show that Juan de Fuca Strait was not the entrance to a large sea, as the explorer of the same name had claimed two centuries earlier. Moreover, he was able to state without the least hesitation: "I am confident that the precision with which the hydrographic study ... has been carried out will remove any doubt and set aside any belief concerning a North-West passage or any other navigable waterway between the North Pacific and the interior of the American continent, within the limits of our research."
One month after his return, Vancouver retired, settled in Petersham, and devoted his time to writing the account of his voyage of exploration, which he was about to finish when he died prematurely in May 1798. His brother John finished it, and the account appeared a few months later.
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