Meares and the Etches (King George's Sound Company) resulted in James Colnett being given the overall command. Meares instructed Colnett to establish a permanent fur trading post at Nootka Sound based on the foothold accomplished by Meares the year before. The Iphigenia Nubiana and North West America were to join the Argonaut and Princess Royal at Nootka Sound. Meares himself remained in China. Nootka Crisis While the British fur traders were getting organized, the Spanish were continuing their effort to secure the Pacific Northwest. At first the Spanish were responding mainly to Russian activity in Alaska. On a 1788 voyage to Alaska, Esteban José Martínez had learned that the Russians were intending to establish a fortified outpost at Nootka Sound. This, in addition to the increasing use of Nootka Sound by British fur traders, resulted in the Spanish decision to assert sovereignty on the northwest coast once and for all. Plans were laid for Nootka Sound to be colonized. Spain hoped to establish and maintain sovereignty on the entire coast as far north as the Russia posts in Prince William Sound. The Viceroy of New Spain, Manuel Antonio Flórez, instructed Martínez to occupy Nootka Sound, build some kind of structure, and to make it clear that Spain was setting up a formal establishment. Martínez arrived at Nootka Sound on 5 May 1789. He found three ships already there. One was Meares' Iphigenia Nubiana. Martínez seized the ship and arrested its captain, William Douglas. After a few days Martínez released Douglas and his ship and ordered him to leave and not return. Douglas heeded the warning. The other two ships were American, the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington, under John Kendrick and Robert Gray, which had wintered at Nootka Sound. Over the summer a number of other ships arrived. The vessels of Meares' company were all seized on the grounds of violating Spanish rights of trade and navigation on the coast. The North West America was renamed Santa Saturnina and used by José María Narváez to explore the Strait of Georgia in 1791. When news of the seizures reached Meares in China he sailed to England. He arrived in April 1790, confirmed various rumors, claimed to have bought land and built a settlement at Nootka before Martínez, and generally fanned the flames of anti-Spanish feelings. He submitted a report to the Home secretary William Wyndham Grenville, in which he exaggerated