The fullest account of the English whaler *Resolución* / Capt. John Locke (late Aug 1795)

The fullest account of the English whaler *Resolución* / Capt. John Locke (late Aug 1795): coastal sighting off San Miguel; signal-fires & shots; the escort *pedrero* + horse tumble into the estero (horse killed, gun unusable); ship to the Ensenada de Todos Santos; boarding party ashore (captain + English interpreter + 2 Black crew); passport read — frigate *Resolución*, merchant, left London 1 Nov 1793, chartered by the British Crown, Capt. Juan (John) Locke, 2 officers, crew of 50 + 1 widow, whaling (300 barrels sperm & oil), bound London via Acapulco; Missions Santo Tomás & San Miguel provisioned it (3 cattle, 110 arrobas flour, 15 fan. maize…) against a bill in Cádiz/London → folds into E25

Date	1795-10-01 (exact)
From	Grajera (SD)
To	[Nava]
Series	Provincial State Papers
Tomo	XIII
Original tomo page	xiii.585–590
Savage copy page	(259)–(264)
Scan leaf	n478–n483
Source	Savage abstract

Read this leaf on the Internet Archive ↗ · leaf n478–n483

How to cite this document

Grajera (SD) to [Nava], 1795-10-01, Provincial State Papers, xiii.585–590, Archives of California, C-A 7, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Cite the document by series, tomo and original tomo page, as the literature does; the C-A number locates it in the repository. To cite this catalogue entry itself, use https://archivesofcalifornia.com/record/ca7/ca7-d605.html

Correction to this entry.

Previously read recipient: '[Nava]'; summary: 'The fullest account of the English whaler *Resolución* / Capt. John Locke (late Aug 1795): coastal sighting off San Miguel; signal-fires & shots; the escort *pedrero* + horse tumbl…'. Leaves read: 168036075_79_9_2 n478 through n483. n478 = stamp '473', hand '259.'; n483 = stamp '478', hand '264.', so the span n478-n483 and savage (259)-(264) are both exact, and n483 foots 'pp = 585 = 90', matching orig_page xiii.585-590. Date confirmed: '1795 = Octubre 1.o = San Diego.' RECIPIENT = WRONG. The catalogue records '[Nava]' as an inference; the leaf heading states the addressee outright: 'Grajera á Borica, sobre visita á la Mision de San Miguel.' PLACE = PARTIAL (leaf 'San Diego', place column empty, folded into author as '(SD)'). SUMMARY = WRONG on four discrete data points. (1) 'left London 1 Nov 1793': leaf n482 reads 'dicha Fragata salió de Londres el día 14 de Nov. de 93 fletada por el Rey Británico' (the '14' is unambiguous at high magnification). (2) '110 arrobas flour': leaf n482 reads '3 reses, 6 castrados, 40 arrobas de harina, 24 gallinas, 6 @ de cebolla, algunas calabazas, 15 fan.s de Maíz, 6 fan.s de frijol, 4 de sal' (forty, not a hundred and ten). (3) 'boarding party ashore (captain + English interpreter + 2 Black crew)': leaf n481 reads 'donde encontré dos tan solamente en tierra y los demas todos en la Lancha… me respondieron que el Capitan del barco y un marinero que le servía de intérprete y éste era un negro' (two men ashore, the captain and one Black sailor-interpreter, not four). (4) '300 barrels sperm & oil': leaf n483 reads 'y que llevaban 5[0 struck through] barriles de esperma y aceite'; whatever the cancelled digit, there is no '3' and no three-digit figure. Two further softer slips: the catalogue's 'provisioned it… against a bill in Cádiz/London' inverts the outcome, since the padres 'respondieron francamente que no necesitaban letra alguna para socorrer aquella necesidad que estaban prontos á darles lo que pidieran'; and the captain's name is silently normalised, the leaf reading 'su capitan se llama Juan Lochi'. The narrative frame (pedrero and horse into the estero, 'que caballo y cañon cayeron en el Estero; de suerte que el caballo murió [se ahogó] y el cañon no pudimos hacer uso de él, porque se llenó de agua', course for the Ensenada de Todos Santos, crew of 50 plus the officer's widow, Acapulco leg) is accurate. Omissions OK: n478's other entry (Arrillaga á Borica, 21 Aug 1795, relacion de Embarcaciones, pp. 583-84) is ca7-d604.

The originals of these records burned in the 1906 San Francisco fire. What survives is Thomas Savage’s 1870s copy, and this page describes that copy.

See something wrong? Corrections are reviewed against the leaf and published in the errata register on this very page, with credit.

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