Pacific
On 4 October the Ontario, under the command of Captain James Biddle sailed to the Pacific station on a pioneer mission, stopping at Rio de Janeiro, to deliver dispatches. The sloop then sailed around Cape Horn and proceeded to Valparaíso, Chile, in early 1818. The Chilean War of Independence at this time was in full swing and a Spanish blockade of Valparaíso had been declared, with American merchantmen ships being seized. Through diplomatic negotiations with authorities at that port, Captain Biddle succeeded in achieving the release of captured U.S. ships, and then departed north, arriving off Cape Disappointment on the Columbia River on 19 August. There the ship claimed both sides of the river for the United States and next sailed south, touching at Monterey, California, for supplies, becoming the first American naval vessel to visit the three future Pacific coast states. Ontario sailed for home that fall, stopping at Valparaíso en route in time to witness the start of Lord Cochrane's campaign at sea against Spain, and stood into Chesapeake Bay finally on 23 April 1819.
Read more about this topic: USS Ontario (1813)
Famous quotes containing the word pacific:
“American future lies in the East. The great free markets of the Pacific Rim are the American destiny.”
—Donald Freed, U.S. screenwriter, and Arnold M. Stone. Robert Altman. Richard Nixon (Philip Baker Hall)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)