176 MEARES SEEKS FOR THE GREAT RIVER. [1788. 



could reach. The strongest curiosity impelled us to enter this 

 strait, which we shall call by the name of its original discoverer, 

 John de Fuca." 



To examine the passage, — of which he thus claims the discovery, 

 after having distinctly assigned the merit of it to another, — Meares 

 sent his mate, Duffin, with a party of men, in a boat. In a few 

 days the boat returned, with several of her crew disabled by 

 wounds received in a conflict with the natives on the northern 

 shore. " She had sailed," writes Meares, " near thirty leagues up 

 the strait ; and, at that distance from the sea, it was fifteen leagues 

 broad, with a clear horizon stretching to the east for fifteen leagues 

 more." Yet, from Duffln's journal, which is given entire in Mr. 

 Meares's work, it seems that the boat did not advance ten miles 

 within the strait ; and we now know that the width of the passage 

 nowhere, within thirty leagues of its mouth, exceeds five leagues. 



From the entrance of this passage, which has ever since been 

 distinguished by the name of Strait of Fuca, Meares sailed along 

 the shore of the continent, towards the south. His object was to 

 examine the opening in the coast, laid down on Spanish charts in 

 his possession, near the 46th degree of latitude, under the name 

 Rio de San Roque, or River of Saint Roc, which had been first 

 observed by Heceta, on the 16th of August, 1775, as mentioned in 

 the account of that voyage.* Proceeding in this course, he, on the 

 5th of July, remarked a headland, in the latitude of 46 degrees 

 47 minutes, which he named Cape Shoalwaier ; on the following 

 day, he writes in his journal, — 



" At half past ten, being within three leagues of Cape Shoalwater, 

 we had a perfect view of it ; and, with the glasses, we traced the 

 line> of coast to the southward, which presented no opening that 

 promised any thing like an harbor. An high, bluff promontory 

 bore off us south-east, at the distance of only four leagues, for 

 which we steered to double, with the hope that between it and 

 Cape Shoalwater we should find some sort of harbor. We now 

 discovered distant land beyond this promontory, and we pleased 

 ourselves with the expectation of its being Cape St. Roc of the 

 Spaniards, near which they are said to have found a good port. 

 By half past eleven, we doubled this cape, at the distance of three 

 miles, having a clear and perfect view of the shore in every part, 

 on which we did not discern a living creature, or the least trace of 

 habitable life. A prodigious easterly swell rolled on the shore, and 



* Page 120. 



