Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/27

EARLY NAVIGATION OF THE STRAITS OF FUCA 19 she left Boston, until about the end of July, 1789, when Captain Kendrick took charge, and Gray sailed for China in the Columbia with the furs obtained by both vessels. From China the Columbia sailed to Boston arriving, as every one knows, in August, 1790, and being the first vessel to bear the Stars and Stripes around the world. Kendrick remained on this coast in the Washington until the latter part of 1789, when he also left for China, arriving there with a valuable cargo of furs on the 26th January, 1790. Hence this voyage, if made at all, must have been made, if by Gray, prior to the end of July, 1789; and if by Kendrick, between July and October, 1789. Dealing first with the possibility of its having been made by Captain Gray. There is in the Public Library in Portland a copy of Haswell's log, giving an account of voyage of the Washington under his command up till about the middle of June, 1789, and for the present it is sufficient to say that it gives no support to any such claim. But further we have the conclusive testimony of Captain Gray himself, as recorded by Vancouver, who met him near the strait of Fuca in April, 1792 : "It is not possible to conceive any person to be more astonished "than was Mr. Gray on his being made acquainted that his "authority had been quoted and the track pointed out that "he had been said to have made in the sloop Washington. In "contradiction to which he assured the officers that he had "penetrated only fifty miles into the straits in question in an "E. S. E. direction; that he found the passage five leagues "wide ; and that he understood from the natives that the open- ing extended a considerable distance to the northward; that "this was all the information he had acquired respecting this "inland sea, and that he had returned into the ocean by the "same way he had entered". See Vancouver's Voyage, Vol. I, pages 42-3. I will deal later with this statement of Captain Gray. Let us now consider the possibility of this alleged voyage of the Washington having been made while in command of Kendrick, after Gray's departure.