Pacific. If such a voyage was ever made, it must have been under Captain Kendrick, who was, at another period, in the command of that vessel; for Gray, when he met Vancouver in 1792, said it was not made by himself. But, be this as it may, it is certain that the Washington was the first vessel which penetrated the strait beyond its mouth after its discovery by De Fuca. A subsequent examination was made in 1790, as high as 50°, by order of the Spanish commander at Nootka Sound; so that its shores were well known in their general outlines before the examinations made by Vancouver two years afterwards.

In 1792, Vancouver arrived on the northwest coast, with instructions to examine and survey the whole shore of the Pacific from the 35th to the 60th parallel of latitude, and particularly to examine "the supposed Strait of Juan de Fuca," through which the sloop Washington is reported to have passed in 1789, and to have come out again to the northward of Nootka." He passed the mouth of the Columbia River, which he considered as an opening undeserving of "more attention," and came to the conclusion that, between the 40th and 48th parallels of latitude, the rivers which had been described "were reduced" (I use his own words) "to brooks insufficient for our vessels to navigate, or to bays inapplicable, as harbors, for refitting." On the 29th of April, he met Captain Gray, in the ship Columbia, from Boston, and was informed by him that he had "been off the mouth of a river in the latitude of 46° 10′, where the outset or reflux was so great as to prevent his entering for nine days." And Vancouver adds: “This was probably the opening passed by us on the forenoon of the 27th, and was apparently inaccessible, not from the current, but from the breakers that extended across it." (Vol. II. p. 43.) Notwithstanding this communication by Gray, Vancouver, relying on his own examinations, still remained of the opinion (and he so records it) that, "if any inlet or river should be found, it must be a very intricate one, and

inaccessible to vessels of our burden, owing to the reefs, broken water," &c.; and he concludes that he was "thoroughly convinced" that he could "not possibly have passed any safe navigable opening, harbor, or place of security for shipping on this coast, from Cape Mendocino to the promontory of Classet," the entrance of the Strait of Fuca. (Vol. II. pp. 58, 59.)1

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Only eight days after parting with Vancouver, Gray discovered Bulfinch's Harbor, between the mouth of the Columbia and the Strait of Fuca, and remained three days in it. On the 11th May, 1792, the day after he left Bulfinch's Harbor, he saw, to use his own words, "the entrance of our desired port," and in a few hours was anchored in a large river of fresh water," as he terms it, to which he gave the name of the Columbia. He remained in the river nine days, and sailed, as he states, more than twenty miles up the channel from the bar at its entrance. Thus was verified the conjecture of Heceta, who, seventeen years before, saw an opening in the coast, which on the Spanish maps was called the river St. Roc. Meares and Vancouver had asserted, in the most positive manner, their conviction that no such river existed; yet, when the fact was clearly ascertained by Captain Gray, who had given copies of his charts to Quadra, the Spanish commander at Nootka, Vancouver, having procured copies from the latter, sent Lieutenant Broughton to examine the river, and take formal possession of it. Broughton not only performed both these services, but, for the purpose of earning for himself the reputation of a discoverer, he labored, in his account of his expedition, to rob Captain Gray of the merit of discovering the river, by the unworthy device of drawing a distinction between the bay in which it debouches and the upper part of the stream. Public opinion has rejected this unmanly attempt; and Captain Gray is admitted by all fair-minded men to have been the first person who entered the river and solved the doubt which had long prevailed with regard to its existence, while Vancouver, twelve days before the discovery, had not hesitated to deny, on the strength of his own

personal examination, made "under the most favorable circumstances of wind and weather," to use his own language, that any such great river existed. This attempt on the part of Broughton is the more unmanly, from the fact that he actually entered the mouth of the Columbia with the aid of Gray's chart. I am disposed to acquit Vancouver, in a great degree, from all participation in the odium of this act. The account of the examination of the Columbia by Broughton, contained in "Vancouver's Journal," though in the language of the latter, is, in fact, a report made by Broughton, the commander of the party, as may be seen by reference to the "Journal," Vol. III. p. 85. Vancouver more than once recognizes Gray distinctly as the discoverer of the Columbia. At p. 388, Vol. II., he expresses the hope that he may be able, in his route to the southward, to "reëxamine the coast of New Albion, and particularly a river and a harbor discovered by Mr. Gray, in the Columbia, between the 46th and 47th degrees of north latitude, of which Señor Quadra had favored me with a sketch." At p. 393, same volume, he says he directed that "Mr. Whidbey, taking one of the Discovery's boats, should proceed in the Dædalus to examine Gray's Harbor, said to be situated in latitude 46° 53', whilst the Chatham and Discovery explored the river Mr. Gray had discovered in the latitude of 46° 10'."

The explorations of Vancouver, though they resulted in a minute and critical examination of the shores of the Strait of Fuca, led to the discovery of no new territory; and it is a singular fact, that, while this naval officer of Great Britain, himself an accomplished navigator, furnished with all the means of making scientific investigations, was pursuing the examinations which were the great purpose of the expedition, Captain Gray, in a trading vessel, and in the prosecution of commercial objects alone, discovered the only two important openings, the Columbia River and Bulfinch's Harbor, on the northwest coast, from the 40th to the 48th parallel of latitude, where Vancouver, after the most critical survey, had discovered none.

was

It is indeed an extraordinary circumstance that the existence of all the great inlets in the coast, to which Great Britain now lays claim on the ground of discovery, strenuously denied by the navigators in her public service, until those inlets were discovered and made known by others. We have seen what Vancouver said in relation to the coast between the 40th and 48th parallels of latitude. On the 22d of March, 1778, Captain Cook was in latitude 48° 15', inspecting the coast. The Promontory of Classet, (or Cape Flattery, as he denominated it,) the southern cape at the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, was in full view, and but a few miles distant. Hear what he says in relation to the strait:

"It is in this very latitude where we now were that geographers have placed the pretended Strait of Juan de Fuca. But we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least probability that any such thing ever existed."—Cook's Third Voyage, Vol. II. p. 263.

Now, however, Great Britain claims the whole strait and the adjoining country by Vancouver's discovery, though he himself admits (as we shall see) that the Spaniards had surveyed and mapped a portion of it before he arrived on the northwest coast.

In the letter of the British plenipotentiary, Mr. Pakenham, of the 29th of July last, the following passage will be found at p. 67, documents accompanying the President's Message:

"In 1792, Vancouver, who had been sent from England to witness the fulfilment of the above-mentioned engagement, [the restitution of buildings, &c. at Nootka, which, as has already been seen, were not to be found,] and to effect a survey of the northwest coast, departing from Nootka Sound entered the Straits of Fuca; and after an accurate survey of the coasts and inlets on both sides, discovered a passage northwards into the Pacific, by which he returned to Nootka, having thus circumnavigated the island which now bears his name. And here we have, as far as relates to Vancouver's Island, as complete a case of discovery, exploration, and settlement, as can well be presented, giving to Great Britain, in any arrangement that may be made with regard to the territory in dispute, the strongest possible claim to the exclusive possession of the island.”