Note 82 — Chapter IV · MARTINEZ’S OPERATIONS AT NOOTKA BEFORE COLNETT’S ARRIVAL.

This is the date according to the Spanish documents. The English give May 6. This difference of one day between the English and Spanish dates for the events at Nootka continues during the summer of 1789. For some time no explanation appeared. But Prof. C. H. Hull suggested that it was probably due to the fact that the English vessels came from Europe by way of China, while the Spanish came from Mexico. Since the present custom of dropping a day from or adding one to the calendar in mid-Pacific, or upon crossing the international date line, was apparently not observed at that time, the suggestion seems to be a plausible explanation. On the strength of it the Spanish dates have been adopted instead of the English. Since all previous writers in English have given the dates according to the English documents, the dates given in this monograph will disagree with those of all previous accounts.