Ixix 



Captain Ingraham, of the American merchant ship 

 Hope, of Boston, in his voyage from the Mendoza 

 Islands to the Northwest coast of America."^ After 

 reciting the names given to this group, by different 

 persons, who visited them subsequently, he proceeds 

 to observe : "It is, without doubt, a great advan- 

 tage to geography, to reduce as much as possible 

 the names upon charts, and to bring as many 

 Islands as possible under one appellation: but 

 should not an exception be made in favour of that 

 of Washington, which must prove an ornament to 

 any chart ? Is it not according to the strictest jus- 

 tice, that the first discovery of the Americans should 

 be preserved in the annals of naval history, by a 

 name peculiar to themselves? And is it allowed, to 

 strike out of the charts, the immortal name of the 

 founder of a great State, to which one of its grateful 

 citizens had dedicated a group of islands, merely to 

 unite this group with another, which had been dis- 

 covered and named two hundred years before ? I 

 leave it, however, to the geographers, to admit or 

 reject my proposition ; and in the mean time, have 

 preserved to these Islands the name of Washington, 

 upon our charts."t 



The Reviewer mentions Krusenstiern, in the 

 article on Captain Porter's Journal ; but it does not 

 appear that he had read, though he reviewed, his 

 Voyage, since he could not otherwise have been ig- 

 norant, that Washington was one of the usual 

 names of these Islands; or that a liberal and en- 

 lightened Russian had given that appellation to the 

 group, for the excellent reason, that it was so named 

 by the first discoverer, an American. But the Rus- 

 sians have so undoubted a claim to vast discove- 

 ries in navigation, that they can afford to do justice 



Krusenstiern's Voyage, p. 136, 



+ Ibid. p. 138. 



