The Nootka Crisis was an international incident and political dispute between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Spain, triggered by a series of events that took place during the summer of 1789 at Nootka Sound. Spain seized small British commercial ships engaged in the fur trade in an unsettled coastline area to which Spain claimed ownership based on exploring expeditions centuries before. Britain rejected the Spanish claims and used its greatly superior naval power to threaten a war and win the dispute. Spain, a rapidly fading military power, was unable to depend upon its longtime ally France, which was torn by internal revolution.