naval officers were dispatched to learn of British and Russian intentions. These included Quimper and his fellow Peruvian Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, who was named commander of the Naval Department of San Blas. They departed from Cadiz aboard the San Ramon in May 1789. Shortly after their arrival at Veracruz, the seven were transferred to San Blas. In July 1789 they received news from the Pacific Northwest with the arrival of the Princesa Real, a fur-trading vessel captured from the British at Nootka Sound by Spanish commander Esteban José Martinez. In 1788 the British explorer John Meares had established a fur trading post on Nootka Sound. Spain considered this settlement an invasion of Spanish territory and had dispatched Martínez to occupy the port the following year. Martínez arrived in 1789 with warships, seized the port and some vessels, including the sloop Princess Royal which he renamed the Princesa Real. The sloop was dispatched to San Blas at the disposition of New Spain Viceroy Revillagigedo. The Viceroy, however, wished to avoid further difficulties with the British and ordered Quimper to return the vessel. On 3 February 1790, a Spanish expedition sailed north from San Blas under the command of Ship Lieutenant Francisco de Eliza, the most senior officer available at San Blas. It included Ship Lieutenant Salvador Fidalgo, and Ship Ensign Manuel Quimper. Their purpose was to strengthen the settlement at Nootka Sound, to further chart the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the San Juan Islands, and to return the Princesa Real to the British. After several weeks at sea, the Princesa Real and Quimper arrived with difficulty at Nootka Sound where repairs on the vessel were undertaken before returning the ship to the British. Throughout the month of May the Princesa Real was repaired with no sign of the British. Quimper then used the vessel to carry out a two-month exploration of the north and south coasts of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. During June and July he charted and named many geographic features along the south shore of Vancouver Island and the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula. He was the first European to report seeing Mount Baker, which he named La Gran Montagna Carmelita. On the Olympic Peninsula he traded with and observed the customs of indigenous people near Dungeness (which he named Bahia de Quimper) and near the Elwha