Cruikshank, Isaac:

$17,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

THE NEW SOUTH SEA FISHERY, OR A CHEAP WAY TO CATCH WHALES. In 1789 and 1790 Nootka Sound, in the Pacific Northwest, looked to be the spur of a major conflict between the kingdoms of Britain and Spain. The inlet was an important outpost for maritime fur trading and had therefore become the focus of the centuries-old struggle for advantage in the New World. Courtesy of explorer and trader John Meares, news of Spanish indiscretions reached Britain in 1790 and intensified the growing anti-Spanish rhetoric and call for war. Meares, whose credibility was famously contested in two remarkable pamphlets by George Dixon, claimed not only that the Spanish had seized British ships, but that they had removed his settlement at Nootka and replaced it with their own. After debate in the House of Commons, it was decided the British Navy would be mobilized.While Spain initially sought to go to war, they could not attain the essential support of France and thus required a diplomatic solution to the problem. This came in the form of the first Nootka Convention, which was signed on Oct. 28, 1790. The convention guaranteed Britain the right to have outposts on Nootka Sound and to practice whaling in waters beyond the "Ten-League Line" off the coast. The Convention eventually resulted in the seminal voyage of George Vancouver to survey the Pacific Northwest.This print is a satire on the British Tory government's handling of the crisis. Its central critical point attacks part of the convention conce

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