Chatham Strait face; Xhaak, Center. The southern part of the strait was named Ensenada del Principe in 1775 by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra. In 1786 La Perouse gave it the name Tschirikow Bay, and in 1789 the fur trader James Colnett named it Christian Sound. Other early fur traders called it Menzies Strait. It received its present name in 1794 when George Vancouver named it Chatham Strait in honor of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. Chatham Sound, farther south in British Columbia, was named by Vancouver for his son John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, whose brother William
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham the observance of the Treaty of Paris by France and Spain, tension between American colonists and the mother country, and the status of the East India Company. Chatham set about his duties with tempestuous energy. One of the new ministry's earliest acts was to lay an embargo upon corn, which was thought necessary in order to prevent a dearth resulting from the unprecedented bad harvest of 1766. The measure was strongly opposed, and Lord Chatham delivered his first speech in the House of Lords in support of it. It proved to be almost the only measure introduced by his government