COLUMBIA RIVER. 
147 
I now supplied the tender with water and other requisites, and gave 
Mr. Knox orders to take a few more soundings on the outside of the 
bar, and then proceed along the coast as far as latitude 42° N., and to 
examine it, and the mouth of the Umpqua. 
Previous to leaving the Columbia river, I addressed the following 
letter to Dr. M’Laughlin and Mr. Douglass. 
U. S. Brig- Porpoise, 
Baker’s Bay, 
October 5th, 1841. 
Gentlemen, — 
My last duty, before leaving the Columbia, I feel to be that of 
expressing to you my sincere thanks for the important aid and facili¬ 
ties which you have afforded the Expedition on all occasions, for 
carrying out the object of our visit to this part of the world; and be 
assured it will prove a very pleasing part of my duty to make a due 
representation of it to my government. 
Your personal kindness and friendly attentions to myself and 
officers, from our first arrival, and also to Captain Hudson and his 
officers after the wreck of the Peacock, have laid us under many 
obligations, which I trust it may be at some future day in our power 
to return. 
We all would request through you an expression of our feelings 
for the many attentions and kindnesses received, and the pleasures 
afforded us by the officers of the Hudson Bay Company’s service, with 
whom we have had any intercourse, which will be long remembered 
with pleasure. 
With my sincere wishes for the health, happiness, and prosperity of 
yourselves and families, I am, very truly, 
Your obedient servant, 
Charles Wilkes, 
To John M’Laughlin and Commanding Exploring Expedition. 
James Douglass, Esquires, 
Chief Factors, H. B. C. Service, Vancouver. 
At the same time, I wrote a letter to our government, informing them 
of the assistance we had received, stating the services these gentlemen 
had rendered us, and asking that an expression of acknowledgment 
might be made, through the British minister at Washington, to the 
Directors of the Hudson Bay Company in England. 
On the night of the 15th, we parted company with the Oregon, and 
did not see her again until she arrived at San Francisco. We coasted 
along to the southward, in the Porpoise. The land is high and moun¬ 
tainous, and may be seen at a great distance. Soundings of dark sand 
