J592. JUAN DE FUCA. 135 



for the great North Sea ; and such a mistake is 

 not very surprizing at this early period of naviga- 

 tion, when the instruments were imperfect, and 

 theory had made but little progress, and, it 

 may be added, when men confidently believed that 

 such a communication as he was in search of, 

 between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, did 

 actually exist. 



When, therefore, the late Doctor Douglas so 

 hastily pronounced the story of De Fuca to be 

 " the fabric of imposture,"^ he committed an act 

 of great injustice to the memory of the old pilot; 

 for the ink was scarcely dry, which transmitted to 

 posterity this unmerited censure, when the very 

 strait, and the sea within it, and the savages 

 clothed in skins, were all recognized by Meares, 

 and since that by Vancouver and many others, 

 just as they were described by the old Greek pilot 

 to Mr. Lok ; and modern geographers, willing to 

 do justice to the memory of the first discoverer of 

 Queen Charlotte's Sound, formed by the archi- 

 pelago on the west coast of America, between the 

 latitudes of 48 and 50 degrees, have assigned to 

 the southern opening into that sound the name of 

 the Entrance or Strait of Juan de Fuca, 



* Introduction to Cook's last Voyage. 



K 4 



