1792.] WHO DISCOVERED THE COLUMBIA? 237 



Strait of Fuca, and that this part of the coast formed one compact, 

 solid, and nearly straight, barrier against the sea, would have served 

 completely to overthrow the evidence of the American fur trader, 

 and to prevent any further attempts to examine those shores, or 

 even to approach them.* 



From the mouth of the Columbia River, Gray sailed to the east 

 coast of Queen Charlotte's Island, near which his ship struck on a 

 rock, and was so much injured that she was with difficulty kept 

 afloat until she reached Nootka Sound, where the damage was 

 repaired. The Hope also arrived at Nootka at this time, and 

 Gray communicated the particulars of his recent discoveries to 

 Ingraham, and to the Spanish commandant Quadra, to whom he 

 also gave charts and descriptions of Bulfinch's Harbor, and of 

 the mouth of the Columbia. On this occasion, moreover, the two 

 American captains addressed to Quadra, at his request, a letter f 

 containing a narrative of the transactions at Nootka in 1789, to 

 which particular reference will be hereafter made. Having soon 

 completed their business on the north-west coasts, Gray and Ingra- 

 ham departed severally for Canton, in September, and thence they 

 sailed to the United States. J 



* It was, nevertheless, insisted, on the part of the British government, in a discus- 

 sion with the United States, in 1826, that the merit of discovering the Columbia 

 belongs to Meares! "that, in 1788, four years before Gray entered the mouth of 

 the Columbia River, Mr. Meares, a lieutenant of the royal navy, who had been sent 

 by the East India Company on a trading expedition to the north-west coast of 

 America, had already minutely explored the coast from the 49th to the 54th degree 

 of north latitude ; had taken formal possession of the Straits of De Fuca in the name 

 of his sovereign ; had purchased land, trafficked and formed treaties with the natives ; 

 and had actually entered the Bay of the Columbia, to the northern headland of 

 which he gave the name of Cape Disappointment, a name which it bears to this 

 day ; " and that "if any claim to these countries, as between Great Britain and the 

 United States, is to be deduced from priority of the discovery, the above exposition 

 of dates and facts suffices to establish that claim in favor of Great Britain, on a basis 

 too firm to be shaken. It must indeed be admitted," continue the British plenipo- 

 tentiaries, " that Mr. Gray, finding himself in the bay formed by the discharge of 

 the waters of the Columbia into the Pacific, was the first to ascertain that this bay 

 formed the outlet of a great river — a discovery which had escaped Lieutenant Meares, 

 when, in 1788, four years before, he entered the same bay." The truth in the last of 

 these assertions atones for the errors in those which precede, and counteracts the 

 impression which the whole was intended to produce. — See the statement presented 

 by Messrs. Huskisson and Addington to Mr. Gallatin, in 1826, among the Proofs 

 and Illustrations, in the latter part of this volume, under the letter G. 



t See Proofs and Illustrations, in the latter part of this volume, under the letter C. 



t Ingraham subsequently entered the navy of the United States as a lieutenant, 

 and was one of the officers of the ill-fated brig Pickering, of which nothing was ever 

 heard, after her departure from the Delaware in August, 1800. Gray continued to 

 command trading vessels from Boston until 1809, about which time he died. 



