Juan Francisco de La Bodega Y Quadra - Commandant of San Blas

Commandant of San Blas

At the end of his stay in Spain, Bodega was appointed commandant of the Naval Department of San Blas. Instructed to select six junior officers to serve under him at San Blas, Bodega y Quadra chose Manuel Quimper, Ramón Saavedra Guiráldez y Ordóñez, Francisco de Eliza, Salvador Fidalgo, Jacinto Caamaño, and Salvador Menéndez Valdés. Bodega and these six officers sailed to America on the same ship that was carrying the new Viceroy of New Spain, Conde de Revillagigedo. The viceroy and Bodega arrived to find themselves in the immediate aftermath of the Nootka Crisis. They had two pressing issues to deal with right away. First they had to arrange for the release of the British ships, officers, and sailors taken prisoner by Martínez in 1789. Second, they had to respond to the Royal Order of April 14, 1789, which required that the Spanish establishment at Nootka Sound be maintained. At first neither Revillagigedo nor Bodega knew that Martínez had abandoned Nootka Sound. The Royal Order thus meant that a new expedition be immediately organized for the purpose of reoccupying, permanently, Nootka Sound. The reoccupation expedition was organized very quickly.

The three ships, Concepción, San Carlos, and Princesa Real sailed from San Blas and arrived at Nootka Sound in early April 1790. Francisco de Eliza was appointed commandant. Quimper, Fidalgo, and other officers were part of the expedition. The First Company of the Free Company of Volunteers of Catalonia, under Pedro de Alberni, sailed with Eliza to garrison the Nootka establishment. The expedition had to be well supplied, not only with cannons and munitions but also with warm clothes, new equipment for the soldiers under Alberni, materials for constructing buildings and Fort San Miguel, thousands of sheets of copper for trading or giving to the indigenous peoples, and numerous other goods. That Bodega y Quadra was able to organize the complicated logistical issues, especially given San Blas's chronically undersupplied and underfunded status, such that the ships sailed within months of Bodega's arrival, was a remarkable achievement.