HISTORY.	309
1787. A regular commercial bureau was therefore organized. On S Pt berr9', Shelikoff and Golikoff received medals and portraits from Catherine II. in acknowledgment of their services. Shelikoff had been for nearly five years engaged in uninterrupted explorations and the establishment of trading-posts. During the whole of this period he had been accompanied by his wife Nathalia Shelikoff, a woman of remarkable intelligence and energy. Gregory Shelikoff, of Rylsk in Siberia, was a man of great energy, and thoroughly acquainted with his calling, but unscrupulous and grasping, never hesitating at any falsehood or outrage which would advance his interests.
1788. On the 1st of January, John Meares and William Douglas, supercargoes, sailed from Macao in the Felice and Iphigenia, Portuguese vessels, with captains of the same nation, but really under the sole charge of Meares. The Iphigenia sailed to Cook's Inlet, and passed the summer trading there and to the southward. Meares, in the Felice, went to Nootka where he erected a building, fortified it against the natives, and left part of his crew there to build a small vessel, while he proceeded to the Straits of Fuca. From that point he sailed in search of the Columbia River, which he failed to find. He then returned to Nootka, where the Iphigenia had arrived, and, taking all the furs, sailed to Canton, leaving the brig and the small vessel, which had been named the Northwest-America, to winter at the Sandwich Islands. Before Meares departed, the ship Washington, fitted out by a company of Boston merchants, entered Nootka Sound on the 17th of September, in charge of Captain Robert Gray. Soon after, the sloop Columbia of the same expedition reached Nootka, in charge of Captain John Kendrick, with Joseph Ingraham as second officer. The two American vessels wintered in the Sound.
The Spanish authorities, who claimed the sole right to navigate the Pacific on the northwest coast of America, became aware of the visits of the various traders, and for further information despatched vessels from San Blas, California, in charge of Estevan Martinez and Gonzalo Haro. This expedition left San Blas March 8, 1788, and entered