Captain Smith had chartered his vessel to a Frenchman named Demestre, who was then a passenger on board of her, to go and take a cargo of sandal wood at the Marquesas, where that gentleman had left some men to collect it, the year before. He could not, therefore, comply with the request we made him, to remain during the summer with us, in order to transport our goods and people, as soon as they could be got together, to the Sandwich islands.
Mr. Hunt was surprised beyond measure, when we informed him of the resolution we had taken of abandoning the country: he blamed us severely for having acted with so much precipitation, {179} pointing out that the success of the late coasting voyage, and the arrangements we had made with the Russians, promised a most advantageous trade, which it was a thousand pities to sacrifice, and lose the fruits of the hardships he had endured and the dangers he had braved, at one fell swoop, by this rash measure. Nevertheless, seeing the partners were determined to abide by their first resolution, and not being able, by himself alone, to fulfil his engagements to Governor Barnoff, he consented to embark once more, in order to seek a vessel to transport our heavy goods, and such of us as wished to return by sea. He sailed, in fact, on the Albatross, at the end of the month. My friend Clapp embarked with him: they were, in the first instance, to run down the coast of California, in the hope of meeting there some of the American vessels which frequently visit that coast to obtain provisions from the Spaniards.
Some days after the departure of Mr. Hunt, the old one-eyed chief Comcomly came to tell us that an Indian of Gray's Harbor, who had sailed {180} on the Tonquin in 1811, and who was the only soul that had escaped the mas-*
- [Footnote: 1790 began a life upon the ocean, in which he made eight voyages around the
world, on one of which he was absent eight years. Once he was shipwrecked, and twice taken prisoner—by the Indians on the Northwest Coast, and by the Spaniards in California. He was still living in 1820. See Niles's Register, Aug. 12, 1820.—Ed.]
