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When, on July. 30, 1859, Captain George E. Pickett looked down the gunports of two British warships from his Old Town Lagoon camp — he gulped and fired off a quick note to Fort Steilacoom: "From the threatening attitude of affairs at present, I deem it my duty to request the Massachusetts may be sent at once to this point. I do not know that any actual collision will take place, but it is not comfortable to be lying within range of a couple of war steamers. The Tribune, a 30-gun frigate, is lying broadside to our camp, and from present indications everything leads me to suppose that they will attempt to prevent my carrying out my instructions."

Pickett’s Company D, 9th Infantry had arrived on San Juan Island from Fort Bellingham on July 27 to protect United States citizens from the British. The reason? An American settler had shot a pig belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The company wanted fair restitution. The settler thought they wanted to jail him. Everyone overreacted — particularly U.S. Department of Oregon commander, Brigadier General William S. Harney, who had issued Pickett his orders.

Obviously, more was involved than just a dead pig. For nearly 50 years, the two nations had been contending over the international boundary in the Pacific Northwest, and now the San Juan Islands had become the focus. Before it was all over, they would slide to the brink of war, only to be pulled back by the coolness and restraint of men on both sides — but especially two Royal Navy officers.

Once enthused at a chance for glory, George Pickett was beginning to have second thoughts and seeking guidance from his superiors. No wonder. His measly 60-man company — half of whom were raw recruits from Ireland — was outnumbered and outgunned.

H.M.S. Tribune, Captain Geoffrey Phipps Hornby commanding, was a screw frigate with 31 guns and 330 men, while H.M.S. Plumper, a screw surveying ship, mounted 12 guns.

Ironically enough, for more than a year Plumper, Captain George H. Richards commanding, had been extensively involved in a boundary survey to resolve the very dispute over which the warships and Pickett’s infantry were now at gunpoint. Both ships were among the 12 comprising the Royal Navy’s Pacific Station, based at Esquimalt harbor, near Victoria. The brand new base had been established as a counterpoint to the U.S. Navy, based at Mare Island on San Francisco Bay.

Hornby was just 33 years old (a few months younger than Pickett) and had assumed command of Tribune, his first command, in Hong Kong the previous October. He was described as tall, slightly built, quiet and firm with chestnut hair and hazel eyes. "He knew his work," one admiring subordinate wrote.

Hornby’s initial orders from British Governor James Douglas (in temporary command with the station commander away) were to prevent the Americans from erecting fortifications and bringing in reinforcements, "but not to risk a collision." Once on scene, Hornby decided he could not enforce these orders without more men, ships and guns. Only with overwhelming force, he believed, could he force Pickett off the island without firing a shot.

But the orders changed again the next day. Douglas had second thoughts about provoking the Americans. Now Hornby was not to prevent additional Americans from landing, but to instead land an equal number of British Royal Marines on the island.

Meanwhile, following a brief visit by the American aboard Tribune, Hornby viewed Pickett as "more quiet than most of his countrymen, but he seems to have just the notion they all have of getting a name by some audacious act." Hornby also thought Pickett sounded more like "a Devonshire man than a Yankee." As painfully polite as the encounter may have been, it resolved nothing. Pickett refused to leave and that was that. However, the frigate’s big guns and the crispness of the sailors as they went about their gun drills unnerved the American enough that he pulled up stakes and moved his camp across the neck of the peninsula to a new encampment on South Beach.

In a letter to Pacific Station commander, Rear Admiral R. Lambert Baynes, Hornby puzzled over the move: The Americans "do not seem enclined (sic) to strengthen nor have any preparations for intrenching or other defence been made by them, though the camp has been shifted from its first site to one close to the sea on the other side of the island and equally exposed to the fire of Ships, as was their original one." Meanwhile, in Victoria, U.S. Navy Captain James Alden, commander of the Coast Survey steamer Active, was advising Douglas and Richards that, if provoked, George Pickett would not hesitate to fire on a superior force.

By August 1, Griffin Bay teemed with ships, British and American. The Massachusetts, an old Army steamer, had arrived early on with Company I, 4th Infantry aboard. The company commander, Captain Granville O. Haller, had been ashore to see Pickett, but Pickett, knowing that Haller ranked him and might want to assume command, refused Haller’s offer to land his company. Also on hand were Plumper with its cargo of marines, the U.S. revenue cutter Jefferson Davis and Constitution, a private vessel. Steaming in late in the day was Captain James Prevost’s H.M.S. Satellite, a steam screw corvette, with 21 guns and 206 men.

After a fruitless exchange between Pickett and Prevost, Pickett and Hornby spent the next two days quibbling over a meeting site. Finally the two leaders arranged to meet at Pickett’s South Beach camp. It was there that Hornby — accompanied by Captains Prevost and Richards — told Pickett that he had been ordered to land British troops on the island. Pickett stated that if the British landed he would "seize a small force; attack an equal one" and go down fighting if outnumbered.

This was almost too much for Hornby. He replied that he would land the minute he thought the "honor of the flag" or protection of British rights was at stake. At this, Pickett blinked and asked for 48 hours to consult with his superiors. Hornby replied, "Not one minute more."

However, being fully aware of the British government’s policy of non-confrontation — especially with the rising industrial might of the United States — Hornby determined not to follow Douglas’ orders and land troops. He knew Pickett was not bluffing, so he sat tight and waited for his superior, Admiral Baynes.

Pickett, meanwhile, requested instructions from Harney, stressing that if reinforcements were to be sent, they had better be sent quickly because his tiny force was a "mere mouthful" to the warships in the bay.

Everyone on Griffin Bay — British, American, civilian and military — breathed a sigh of relief. Officers and men on both sides began to mingle on board the ships and in the camps, swapping British cigars for Oregon whiskey. Tourists came from Victoria to gawk at the Yankee soldiers and share with them the Victoria newspapers that screamed for Douglas’ and Hornby’s heads for "giving in."

When Baynes returned on August 5, he held an altogether different view than the newspapers. When told of the crisis, and the igniter of it — the dead Hudson’s Bay Company pig — Baynes replied, "Tut, tut, no, no, the damned fools." And he supported Hornby’s decision before the sputtering governor. As far as Baynes was concerned the British were not going to become enmeshed in another costly land war in North America — not on his watch.

More talking was in store, especially after U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Silas Casey landed, unopposed, with reinforcements on August 10. But U.S. Army commander Lieutenant General Winfield Scott arrived several weeks later to negotiate a final settlement with Douglas — a joint occupation of the island that was to last 12 years before the dispute was officially over.

Yet, it was on Griffin Bay, in early August, that a "Pig War" was averted.