Capt. George Vancouver was appointed by the Royal Navy in London, to command an expedition of discovery to America’s Pacific Northwest coast. After sailing to the Pacific by way of the Cape of Good Hope, he reached Tahiti on December 30. After a stay of 3 weeks, and then a month spent in Hawaii, he sighted the California coast near Cape Mendocino on April 18, 1792. From here he made detailed surveys of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sounds and then explored down the coast to San Francisco which he reached in November 1792, taking depth soundings and visiting the Presidio at the entrance to the Bay. Due to stormy weather he returned to Hawaii for the winter, but in April of 1793 he was back on the California coast, surveying from Nootka on the island named for him (Vancouver), down to San Francisco again, from whence he continued southward to Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands, reaching San Diego and finally Santa Domingo in December of 1793.
Vancouver was the second foreign (non-Spanish) visitor to California. He had been instructed to explore the North Pacific, and to see that the provisions of the Nootka Convention were carried out. After meeting the Spanish commissioner at Nootka, he sailed down the coast and on November 14, 1792, entered San Francisco Bay in the Discovery. He was received by Comandante Sal at the presidio and by the padres at the mission. The British party was taken to visit Santa Clara Mission by the Spanish officials—the first time that foreigners had journeyed into the interior of California. Returning to San Francisco, Vancouver went to Monterey, where he was received cordially. Over the next 3 years, Vancouver would return to Monterey twice.
John Sykes (1773-1858) was a topographical draughtsman. He entered the navy on 25th December 1783 as a Captain’s Servant on the Resource and was stationed at Halifax. He joined His Majesty’s sloop Discovery, commanded by Captain George Vancouver in December 1790, as Master’s mate. Vancouver in the Discovery, along with the armed tender the Chatham was the first to chart the south coast of Western Australia, discovering King George Sound, naming it After King George III in 1791. They spent several weeks in the area and then sailed eastwards visiting New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands and the north-west coast of America. On his return to England Sykes was made a lieutenant and on and on 6th November 1795 he joined the Swallow. After serving aboard several ships he was promoted to Commander on 18th June 1800. In 1811 he married a daughter of Edward Earl, chairman of the Board of Customs and in 1848 Sykes was made a Vice-Admiral. He also represented the Hydrographic Department of the Ministry of Defence in Great Britain.
George Vancouver’s work of his famous expedition was published under the English title A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Around the World.
