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benlizross wrote...

> Any more details on this story? Did you see it on TV? 

No, it's related in vol. 1 of "British Columbia Chronicle" - 1778-1846, 
by GPV Akrigg and Helen B. Akrigg, Discovery Press, 1975.

A quotation: 
"One curious event of this year [1834] must not go unchronicled.  Every 
so often over the centuries the Japan Current, or "Kuroshio", would 
bring to the shores of North America some Japanese junk which had been 
caught in a storm and rendered incapable of navigation.  In 1876 C.W. 
Brooks in his 'Japanese Wrecks Stranded and Picked Up Adrift in the 
North Pacific Ocean' listed no fewer than 60 incidents of this kind.  
One of the most interesting came to [HBC Chief Factor] Dr. [John] 
McLoughlin's attention in May of this year when some Indians handed him 
a letter "written in Chinese characters".  It came, in fact, from the 
three survivors of the forty-man crew of a Japanese junk, which, laden 
with crockery, had been carried ashore near Cape Flattery.  To rescue 
the Japanese from the Indians, McLoughlin sent Captain McNeill with the 
[ship] 'Llama', and after taking three Indians as hostages, secured the 
release of the Japanese and brought them to Fort Vancouver."

The Japanese were sent to Britain and then back to Japan.  My 
recollection was a bit off.  Cape Flattery is in Washington State, and 
maybe these were not fishermen in this case. 

HTH
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