page_title: Sigismund Bacstrom
section_title: Pacific Voyage
hierarchical_section_title: Sigismund Bacstrom / Pacific Voyage
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of Haida noble showing otter cloak and sailor's trousers, circa 1793
context_page_description: Sigismund Bacstrom was a doctor, a surgeon, and a notable artist of the early Maritime Fur Trade. His drawings of the people and places he encountered on his voyages show the meticulous precision of a surgeon and scientist rather than the hand of a trained artist. He was also a prominent author and translator of documents on Alchemy and Rosicrucianism, many of which are still in print.
context_section_description: The vessels chosen for this voyage were the Butterworth, a former French frigate of 392 tons,  a large sloop named the Jackal (sometimes written as Jackall or Jack Hall), and a smaller sloop named Prince Lee Boo, all under the command of Captain William Brown.  They sailed from England in late 1791. By March 1792 they were encamped on Staten Island near Cape Horn, slaughtering seals and boiling their oil.
  They sailed across the Pacific to the Marquesas Islands in June,  reaching Vancouver Island on the Northwest coast of North America in July 1792.
  Bacstrom left the Butterworth at Nootka on Oct. 15 “on account of the ill and mean usage I received from Capt. W. Brown and his Officers.”
  
  He was briefly a guest of the Spanish officers at Nootka before being welcomed on board the Three Brothers, a brig out of Newcastle, sailing with the schooner Prince William Henry.  On the Three Brothers, Bacstrom sailed up into Haida Gwaii and into Southeast Alaska near what is now Sitka.  There are many drawings from this period of the voyage. 
  Returning to Nootka Sound, Bacstrom took passage as surgeon on the American flagged brig Amelia for China. But just outside Macao she was stopped by the British cruiser HMS Lion, and her true papers were found to be French. She was therefore seized as a British prize of war, leaving Bacstrom stranded in Canton.
  He eventually signed on as surgeon aboard the Warren Hastings, an ex-East Indiaman of 600 tons flying Genoese colors, with a British captain, and a crew from 13 different nations, bound for the Cape of Good Hope and Oostende. But, led by the French chief mate, the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian crew mutinied and took possession of the ship, confining Bacstrom and others below deck as prisoners.  They then sailed to Mauritius where the ship and her cargo were condemned as a French prize of war.
  After 6 months in Mauritius, Bacstrom was able to buy passage on an American ship bound for New York,  but his ship was once again captured by a British naval ship, this time in the Virgin Islands, and once again the ship and cargo were seized as a prize of war.
  Thanks to help from the governor of the British Virgin Islands, George Leonard, Bacstrom eventually arrived home in London July 23, 1795,  four years and eight months after he left.
caption: Cunnyha an Indian Chief on the North-Side of Queen Charlotte's Island, N.W. Coast of America,
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