Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/21

EARLY NAVIGATION OF THE STRAITS OF FUCA 13 after leaving the strait on this occasion that Meares failed to find the Columbia river, and in token of his feelings named Cape Disappointment. The Felice returned to Barkley sound, and anchored there while the long boat under Mr. Duffin, the first officer of the Felice, was sent out to explore the strait of Fuca. Leaving the sound on the 13th July, 1788, Mr. Duffin entered the strait, attempted to trade with the natives, was attacked by them, and returned at the end of five days. His journal shows that he had coasted along the Vancouver island shore, and barely entered the strait in fact that he had only reached a point near Gordon river in the bay now known as Port San Juan when this attack occurred and his retreat commenced. Yet Meares, on page 179, has the audacity to state that the long boat had on this occasion, "sailed near thirty leagues up the "strait, and at that distance from the sea it was about fifteen "leagues broad with a clear horizon stretching to the East for "fifteen leagues more". Nothing of that kind is stated in the journal. Captain Dixon in his Further Remarks on Meares, scores him heavily for this misrepresentation, "not to call it by a harder name", and in closing his remarks on the subject, adds : "Be so good, Mr. Meares, as to inform me how you "reconcile this difference between the master of the boat's "journal and your own account, for I am free to confess, I "cannot possibly do it". Meares claims to have taken possession of the strait of Fuca for the King of Britain, with the usual ceremonies. As he him- self was never in the strait, and never on land any nearer there- to than Barkley sound, and. as Mr. Duffin's journal mentions no such incident, this statement may be put into the already over-burdened collection of Meares apocrypha. Before we part from Captain Meares, as he never again visited the strait, let me quote once more from Mrs. Barkley's diary : "In the same manner as he got the stores, Captain Meares "got possession of my husband's journal and plans ffom the