228 kendrick's speculations in the pacific. [179L 



officer of that vessel. To these gentlemen he also communicated 

 the particulars of his voyage ; and thus they learned, to their great 

 regret, that they had been anticipated, by the American captain, in 

 a discovery which was expected by them to cast considerable eclat 

 on their expedition. Marchand had, in the month of June previous, 

 seen a group of islands in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, of which 

 he believed himself to be the discoverer, as they were not described 

 in any narrative or chart then published ; and, under this impres- 

 sion, he named them lies de la Revolution, and had just sent an 

 account of them to France, which was submitted formally to the 

 National Assembly : on examining the journal of the Hope, however, 

 he could have no doubt that this was the same group which had 

 been found by Ingraham in April ; and the fact is admitted, though 

 with evident reluctance, in the narrative of his voyage.* 



Captain Kendrick, in the Washington, which had been altered 

 into a brig, also arrived at Macao while the Hope was lying there. 

 He had been engaged, since 1789, in various speculations, one of 

 which was the collection and transportation to China of the odor- 

 iferous wood called sandal, which grows in many of the tropical 

 islands of the Pacific, and is in great demand throughout the 

 Celestial Empire. Vancouver pronounced this scheme chimerical ; 

 but experience has proved that it was founded on just calculations, 

 and the business has been ever since prosecuted with advantage, 

 especially by the Americans. 



Another of Kendrick's speculations has not hitherto produced 

 any fruit. In the summer of 1791, he purchased from Maquinna, 

 Wicanish, and other chiefs, several large tracts of land near Nootka 

 Sound, for which he obtained deeds duly marked by those person- 

 ages, and witnessed by the officers and men of the Washington. 

 Attempts were made, by the owners of that vessel, to sell these 

 lands at London in 1793, but no purchasers were found ; and 

 applications have since been addressed, by the legal representatives 

 of the owners and of Kendrick, to the government of the United 



* The editor, Fleurieu, thus ingeniously concludes the discussion as to the first dis- 

 covery of the islands : " Captain Marchand undoubtedly cannot aspire to the honor 

 of priority ; but, like the American captain who preceded him, he has not, on that 

 account, the less pretension to the honor of the discovery ; for he could not know, in 

 the month of June, 1791, while he was navigating the great ocean, that, a month be- 

 fore, another navigator, standing in the same course with himself, had made the same 

 discovery." The king of the French has nevertheless been pleased to bestow a gold 

 medal on one of the surviving owners of the Solide, on the ground of the discovery of 

 those islands by Marchand, as expressly declared in the report of his minister of ma- 

 rine, published in the Moniteur of May 25th, 1843. 



