218 kendrick's passage through fuca's strait. ' [1789. 



ward, through the passage north of Queen Charlotte's Islajid, to the 

 Pacific. The sea through which the track extends is represented 

 as unlimited in the east, and communicating, in the wes.t, with the 

 Pacific by channels between islands : no pretension to -accuracy is, 

 however, made in this part of the chart, the object being merely to 

 show that the Washington sailed from the southern entrance of the 

 strait eastward to the longitude of 237 degrees, and northward 

 to the latitude of 55 degrees. 



The name of the person under whose command the passage 

 was said to have been effected is not given ; but, Gray being 

 frequently mentioned by Meares, in his narrative and accompanying 

 papers, as the captain of the Washington, it was naturally supposed 

 that, if that sloop did pass through the strait, she must have done so 

 under the command of Gray ; and when Vancouver, who met Gray 

 near Nootka in 1792, as will be hereafter related, was assured by 

 him that he had, entered the opening, but had only advanced fifty 

 miles ivithin it, the entire erroneousness of the account given by 

 Meares was regarded as established. 



However, about the time of Vancouver's departure from England, 

 an angry discussion was carried on through the medium of pam- 

 phlets, between Meares, and Dixon the captain of the ship Queen 

 Charlotte, (one of the vessels sent to the Pacific by the King 

 George's Sound Company of London,) in consequence of the se- 

 vere remarks made by Meares, in his work, on the character of 

 Dixon, and on many parts of his journal, which had been pub- 

 lished in 1789. Dixon, in his first pamphlet,* particularly attacked 

 and ridiculed the account given by his opponent of the passage of 

 the Washington, and sneeringly summoned him to "inform the 

 public from what authority he had introduced the track of that ves- 

 sel into his chart." To this Meares, in his Answer, f says, " Mr. 

 Neville, a gentleman of the most respectable character, who came 

 home in the Chesterfield, a ship in the service of the East India 

 Company, made that communication to me which I have communi- 

 cated to the public. Mr. Kendrick, who commanded the Wash- 

 ington, arrived at China, with a very valuable cargo of furs, previ- 

 ous to the departure of the Chesterfield ; and Mr. Neville, who was 



* Remarks on the Voyages of John Meares, in a Letter to that Gentleman, by 

 George Dixon, late Commander of the Queen Charlotte in a Voyage around the 

 World. London, 1790. 



t An Answer to Mr. George Dixon, &c, by John Meares; in which the Remarks 

 of Mr. Dixon are fully considered and refuted. London, 1791. 



