John Meares

John Meares
Lieutenant John Meares. From an engraving after the picture by W. Beechey in Meares' Voyages.
Born	c. 1756 Dublin, Ireland
Died	29 January 1809 Bath, United Kingdom

John Meares (c. 1756 – 1809) was a navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.

Meares' father was Charles Meares, "formerly an attorney of great eminence, and for several years pursuivant of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer in Dublin". In 1771, Meares joined the Royal Navy as a captain's servant and was commissioned a lieutenant in 1778. In 1783 he joined the merchant service and in 1785, based in India, formed the Northwest America Company for collecting sea otter furs by trade with the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and selling them in China. The East India Company held a monopoly on British trade in the Pacific and required all British traders to be licensed with the company and pay duties. Meares did not license his ships with the East India Company and instead tried to conceal the illegal activity by using the flag of Portugal. Meares registered his ships in Macau, a Portuguese colony in China. Non-British ships were not required to have licences from the East India Company.

He sailed from Calcutta on 12 March 1786, in the Nootka, a vessel of 200 tons (bm), with which he explored part of the coast of Alaska. He spent the winter of 1786-1787 in Prince William Sound with poor provisions; his men suffered from the weather and scurvy. Twenty three of his men died of scurvy and the remaining ten were saved only by the timely arrival of Captain George Dixon, a British trader with proper licenses, in the Queen Charlotte. Meares gave Dixon his bond never to trade in the Northwest again, and returned to China by way of the Sandwich Islands. Showing no gratitude to Dixon, Meares proceeded to sue him for allegedly overcharging him for the supplies that saved his life.