1787.] REDISCOVERY OF THE STRAIT OF FUCA. 171 



question were supposed to be the Archipelago of St. Lazarus, 

 through which the admiral was said to have sailed two hundred and 

 sixty leagues before reaching the continent ; and the commanders 

 of exploring vessels, sent from Europe and America to the North 

 Pacific, for some years after, were generally directed to seek, near 

 the 53d parallel, for the mouth of the river which he was reported 

 to have ascended, into a lake communicating with the Atlantic. 



The name of the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, was also, about 

 the same time, rescued from oblivion, by the discovery, or redis- 

 covery, of a "broad arm of the sea," stretching eastwardly from 

 the Pacific, almost exactly in the position of the southern entrance 

 of the strait, through which he declared that he had sailed from 

 the Pacific to the Atlantic in 1592. This discovery was effected in 

 1787 by Captain Berkeley, an Englishman commanding a ship called 

 the Imperial Eagle, which had sailed from Ostend in the preceding 

 year, under the flag of the Austrian East India Company. The 

 passage thus found was situated immediately north of Cape Flattery, 

 to the coast south of which point Cook had confined his search for 

 it in 1778 ; and it opened to the ocean between the 48th and 49th 

 parallels, instead of between the 47th and 48th, as stated in the 

 account of the voyage of Fuca. Berkeley did not attempt to ex- 

 plore the passage, but, sailing along the coast south of Cape Flattery, 

 which had not been seen by the people of any civilized nation since 

 Cook's voyage, he sent a boat ashore with some men, who were 

 murdered by the savages, in the same manner, and almost at the 

 same spot, where the Spaniards of Bodega's crew were massacred 

 in 1775. In commemoration of this melancholy event, the name 

 of Destruction Island was given to the small point of land near the 

 continent, in the latitude of 47 degrees 35 minutes, which had, 

 for the like reason, been called by the Spaniards Isla de Dolores. 

 Berkeley, on his arrival at Canton, in November following, commu- 

 nicated the account of his rediscovery of the Strait of Fuca to 

 Meares, as expressly stated by the latter, in the Dissertation prefixed 

 to the narrative of his voyages in the Pacific, published in 1790 ; 

 though, in the narrative itself, Meares unequivocally claims as his 

 own the whole merit of finding the passage. 



At the time when Berkeley made this communication, Meares 

 was engaged in preparations for a trading expedition to the north- 

 west coasts of America, of which a particular notice will be here 

 presented ; as the circumstances connected with it led to the first 



