Vikings of the Pacific Part 11

[3] The authority for Cook's adventures is, of course, his own journal, _Voyage to the Pacific Ocean_, London, 1784, supplemented by the letters and journals of men who were with him, like Ledyard, Vancouver, Portlock, and Dixon, and others.

[4] In reiterating the impossibility of finding a pa.s.sage from ocean to ocean, either northeast or northwest, no disparagement is cast on such feats as that of Nordenskjold along the north of Asia, in the _Vega_ in 1882.

By "pa.s.sage" is meant a waterway practicable for ocean vessels, not for the ocean freak of a specially constructed Arctic vessel that dodges for a year or more among the ice-floes in an endeavor to pa.s.s from Atlantic to Pacific, or _vice versa_.

{210}

CHAPTER VIII

1785-1792

ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA

Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit two Vessels under Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade on the Pacific--Adventures of the First Ship to carry the American Flag around the World--Gray attacked by Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the Columbia River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the First American Ship built on the Pacific

It is an odd thing that wherever French or British fur traders went to a new territory, they found the Indians referred to American traders, not as "Americans," but "Bostons" or "_Bostonnais_." The reason was plain. Boston merchants won a reputation as first to act. It was they who began a certain memorable "Boston Tea Party"; and before the rest of the world had recovered the shock of that event, these same merchants were planning to capture the trade of the Pacific Ocean, get possession of all the Pacific coast not already preempted by Spain, Russia, or England, and push American commerce across the Pacific to Asia.

{211} What with slow printing-presses and slow travel, the account of Cook's voyages on the Pacific did not become generally known in the United States till 1785 or 1786. Sitting round the library of Dr.

Bulfinch's residence on Bowdoin Square in Boston one night in 1787, were half a dozen adventurous spirits for whom Cook's account of the fur trade on the Pacific had an irresistible fascination. There was the doctor himself. There was his son, Charles, of Harvard, just back from Europe and destined to become famous as an architect. There was Joseph Barrell, a prosperous merchant. There was John Derby, a shipmaster of Salem, a young man still, but who, nevertheless, had carried news of Lexington to England. Captain Crowell Hatch of Cambridge, Samuel Brown, a trader of Boston, and John Marden Pintard of the New York firm of Lewis Pintard Company were also of the little coterie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_.

Drawn by George Davidson, a member of the Expedition. Photographed by courtesy of the present owner, Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly.]

If Captain Cook's crew had sold one-third of a water-rotted cargo of otter furs in China for ten thousand dollars, why, these Boston men asked themselves, could not ships fitted expressly for the fur trade capture a fortune in trade on that unoccupied strip of coast between Russian Alaska, on the north, and New Spain, on the south?

"There is a rich harvest to be reaped by those who are on the ground first out there," remarked Joseph Barrell.

Then the thing was to be on the ground first--that {212} was the unanimous decision of the shrewd-headed men gathered in Bulfinch's study.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles Bulfinch.]

The sequence was that Charles Bulfinch and the other five at once formed a partnership with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, divided into fourteen shares, for trade on the Pacific. This was ten years before Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, almost twenty years before Astor had thought of his Pacific Company. The Columbia, a full-rigged two-decker, two hundred and twelve tons and eighty-three feet long, mounting {213} ten guns, which had been built fourteen years before on Hobart's Landing, North River, was immediately purchased. But a smaller ship to cruise about inland waters and collect furs was also needed; and for this purpose the partners bought the _Lady Washington_, a little sloop of ninety tons. Captain John Kendrick of the merchant marine was chosen to command the _Columbia_, Robert Gray, a native of Rhode Island, who had served in the revolutionary navy, a friend of Kendrick's, to be master of the _Lady Washington_. Kendrick was of middle age, cautious almost to indecision; but Gray was younger with the daring characteristic of youth.

In order to insure a good reception for the ships, letters were obtained from the federal government to foreign powers. Ma.s.sachusetts furnished pa.s.sports; and the Spanish minister to the United States gave letters to the viceroy of New Spain. Just how the information of Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: "_Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to belong to General w.a.n.ghington (Washington) of the American States, under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September 1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew._"

Orders were also given Kendrick and Gray to avoid offence to any foreign power, to treat the natives with kindness and Christianity, to obtain a cargo of furs on the American coast, to proceed with the same to China to be exchanged for a cargo of tea, and to return to Boston with the tea. The holds of the vessels were then stowed with every trinket that could appeal to the savage heart, beads, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco. The crews were made up of the very best cla.s.s of self-respecting sea-faring men. Woodruff, Kendrick's first mate, had been with Cook. Joseph Ingraham, the second mate, rose to become a captain. Robert Haswell, the third mate, was the son of a British naval officer. Richard Howe went as accountant; Dr. Roberts, as surgeon; Nutting, formerly a teacher, as astronomer; and Treat, as fur trader. Davis Coolidge was the first mate under Gray on the _Lady Washington_.

Some heroes blunder into glory. These didn't. They deliberately set out with the full glory of their venture in view. Whatever the profit and loss account might show when they came back, they were well aware that they were attempting the very biggest and most venturesome thing the newly federated states had essayed in the way of exploration and trade. To {215} commemorate the event, Joseph Barrell had medals struck in bronze and silver showing the two vessels on one side, the names of the outfitters on the other. All Sat.u.r.day afternoon sailors and officers came trundling down to the wharf, carpet bags and seamen's chests in tow, to be rowed out where the Columbia and Lady Washington lay at anchor. Boston was a Sabbath-observing city in those days; but even Boston could not keep away from the two ships heaving to the tide, which for the first time in American history were to sail around an unknown world. All Sat.u.r.day night and Sunday morning the sailors scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon the visitors thronged the decks. By night outfitters and relatives were still on board. The medals of commemoration were handed round.

Health and good luck and G.o.d speed were drunk unto the heel taps.

Songs resounded over the festive board. It was all "mirth and glee"

writes one of the men on {216} board. But by daybreak the ships had slipped cables. The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced bounding to meet them. A last dip of land behind; and on Monday, October 1, 1787, the ships' prows were cleaving the waters of their fate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_ cruise.]

The course lay from Boston to Cape Verde Islands, from Verde Islands to the Falklands north of Cape Horn, round Cape Horn, up the west coast of South America, touching at Masafuera and Juan Fernandez, and thence, without pause, to the west coast of North America. At Cape Verde, Gray hired a valet, a colored boy, Marcus Lopez, destined to play an important part later. Crossing the equator, the sailors became hilarious, playing the usual pranks of ducking the men fresh to equatorial waters. So long did the ships rest at the Verde Islands, taking in fresh provisions, that it was January before the Falkland Islands were reached. Here Kendrick's caution became almost fear. He was averse to rounding the stormy Horn in winter. Roberts, the surgeon, and Woodruff, who had been with Cook, had become disgusted with Kendrick's indecision at Cape Verde, and left, presumably taking pa.s.sage back on some foreign cruiser. Haswell, then, went over as first mate to Gray. Mountain seas and smashing gales a.s.sailed the ships from the time they headed for the Horn in April of 1788. The _Columbia_ was tossed clear up on her beam ends, and sea after sea crashed over the little {217} _Lady Washington_, drenching everything below decks like soap-suds in a rickety tub. Then came a hurricane of cold winds coating the ship in ice like gla.s.s, till the yard-arms looked like ghosts. Between scurvy and cold, there was not a sailor fit to man the decks. Somewhere down at 57 degrees south, westward of the Horn, the smashing seas and driving winds separated the two ships; but as they headed north, bright skies and warm winds welcomed them to the Pacific. At Masafuera, off Chile, the ships would have landed for fresh water; but a tremendous backwash of surf forewarned reefs; and the _Lady Washington_ stretched her sails for the welcome warm winds, and tacked with all speed to the north. A few weeks later, Kendrick was compelled to put in for Juan Fernandez to repair the _Columbia_ and rest his scurvy-stricken crew. They were given all aid by the governor of the island, who was afterward reprimanded by the viceroy of Chile and degraded from office for helping these invaders of the South Seas.

Meantime the little sloop, guided by the masterful and enthusiastic Gray, showed her heels to the sea. Soon a world of deep-sea, tropical wonders was about the American adventurers. The slime of medusa lights lined the long foam trail of the _Lady Washington_ each night.

Dolphins raced the ship, herd upon herd, their silver-white bodies aglisten in the sun. Schools of spermaceti-whales to the number of twenty at a time gambolled lazily around the prow. Stormy petrels, {218} flying-fish, sea-lions, began to be seen as the boat pa.s.sed north of the seas bordering New Spain. Gentle winds and clear sunlight favored the ship all June. The long, hard voyage began to be a summer holiday on warm, silver seas. The _Lady Washington_ headed inland, or where land should be, where Francis Drake two centuries before had reported that he had found New Albion. On August 2, somewhere near what is now Cape Mendocino, daylight revealed a rim of green forested hills above the silver sea. It was New Albion, north of New Spain, the strip of coast they had come round the world to find. Birds in myriads on myriads screamed the joy that the crew felt over their find; but a frothy ripple told of reefs; and the _Lady Washington_ coasted parallel with the sh.o.r.e-line northward. On August 4, while the surf still broke with too great violence for a landing, a tiny speck was seen dancing over the waves like a bird. As the distance lessened, the speck grew and resolved itself to a dugout, or long canoe, carved with bizarre design stem and stern, painted gayly on the keel, carrying ten Indians, who blew birds' down of friendship in midair, threw open their arms without weapons, and made every sign of friendship. Captain Gray tossed them presents over the deck rail; but the whistle of a gale through the riggings warned to keep off the rock sh.o.r.e; and the sloop's prow cut waves for the offing. All night camp-fires and columns of smoke could be seen on sh.o.r.e, showing that the coast was inhabited.

Under {219} clouds of sail, the sloop beat north for ten days, pa.s.sing many savages, some of whom held up sea-otter to trade, others running along the sh.o.r.e brandishing their spears and shouting their war-cry.

Two or three at a time were admitted on board to trade; but they evinced such treacherous distrust, holding knives ready to strike in their right hand, that Gray was cautious.

During the adverse wind they had pa.s.sed one opening on the coast that resembled the entrance to a river. Was this the fabled river of the West, that Indians said ran to the setting sun? Away up in the Athabasca Country of Canadian wilds was another man, Alexander Mackenzie, setting to himself that same task of finding the great river of the West. Besides, in 1775, Heceta, the Spanish navigator from Monterey, had drifted close to this coast with a crew so stricken with scurvy not a man could hoist anchor or reef sails. Heceta thought he saw the entrance to a river; but was unable to come within twenty miles of the opening to verify his supposition. And now Gray's crew were on the watch for that supposed river; but more mundane things than glory had become pressing needs. Water was needed for drinking. The ship was out of firewood. The live stock must have hay; and in the crew of twelve, three-quarters were ill of the scurvy. These men must be taken ash.o.r.e. Somewhere near what is now Cape Lookout, or Tillamook Bay, the rowboat was launched to sound, safe anchorage found, and the _Lady Washington_ towed in harbor.

{220} The _Lady Washington_ had anch.o.r.ed about half a mile from sh.o.r.e, but the curiously carved canoes came dancing over the waves in myriads.

Gray noticed the natives were all armed with spears and knives, but they evinced great friendliness, bringing the crew baskets of berries and boiled crabs and salmon, in exchange for bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. They had anch.o.r.ed at ten on the night of August 14, and by the afternoon of the 15th the Indians were about the sloop in great numbers, trading otter skins for knives, axes, and other arms--which, in itself, ought to have put the crew on guard. When the white men went ash.o.r.e for wood and water, the Indians stood silently by, weapons in hand, but offered no hostility. On the third day in harbor an old chief came on board followed by a great number of warriors, all armed. Gray kept careful guard, and the old Indian departed in possession of the stimulating fact that only a dozen hands manned the _Lady Washington_. Waiting for the tide the next afternoon, Haswell and Coolidge, the two mates, were digging clams on sh.o.r.e. Lopez, the black man, and seven of the crew were gathering gra.s.s for the stock. Only three men remained on the sloop with Captain Gray. Only two muskets and three or four cutla.s.ses had been brought ash.o.r.e. Haswell and Coolidge had their belt pistols and swords. The two mates approached the native village. The Indians began tossing spears, as Haswell thought, to amuse their visitors.

That failing to inspire these white men, {221} rash as children, with fear, the Indians formed a ring, clubbed down their weapons in pantomime, and executed all the significant pa.s.ses of the famous war-dance. "It chilled my veins," says Haswell; and the two mates had gone back to their clam digging, when there was a loud, angry shout.

Glancing just where the rowboat lay rocking abreast the hay cutters, Haswell saw an Indian s.n.a.t.c.h at the cutla.s.s of Lopez, the black, who had carelessly stuck it in the sand. With a wild halloo, the thief dashed for the woods, the black in pursuit, mad as a hornet.

Haswell went straight to the chief and offered a reward for the return of the sword, or the black man. The old chief taciturnly signalled for Haswell to do his own rescuing.

Theft and flight had both been part of a design to scatter the white men. "They see we are ill armed," remarked Haswell to the other.

Bidding the boat row abreast with six of the hay cutters, the two mates and a third man ran along the beach in the direction Lopez had disappeared. A sudden turn into a grove of trees showed Lopez squirming mid a group of Indians, holding the thief by the neck and shouting for "help! help!" No sooner had the three whites come on the scene, than the Indians plunged their knives in the boy's back. He stumbled, rose, staggered forward, then fell pierced by a flight of barbed arrows. Haswell had only time to see the hostiles fall on his body like a pack of wolves on prey, when more Indians {222} emerged from the rear, and the whites were between two war parties under a shower of spears. A wild dash was made to head the fugitives off from sh.o.r.e. Haswell and Coolidge turned, pistols in hand, while the rowboat drew in. Another flight of arrows, when the mates let go a charge of pistol shot that dropped the foremost three Indians. Shouting for the rowers to fire, Haswell, Coolidge, and the sailor plunged into the water. To make matters worse, the sailor fainted from loss of blood, and the pursuers threw themselves into the water with a whoop. Hauling the wounded man in the boat, the whites rowed for dear life. The Indians then launched their canoes to pursue, but by this time Gray had the cannon of the _Lady Washington_ trained ash.o.r.e, and three shots drove the hostiles scampering. For two days tide and wind and a thundering surf imprisoned Gray in Murderers' Harbor, where he had hoped to find the River of the West, but met only danger. All night the savages kept up their howling; but on the third day the wind veered. All sails set, the sloop scudded for the offing, glad to keep some distance between herself and such a dangerous coast.

The advantage of a small boat now became apparent. In the same quarter, Cook was compelled to keep out from the coast, and so reported there were no Straits of Fuca. By August 21 the sloop was again close enough to the rocky sh.o.r.e to sight the snowy, opal {223} ranges of the Olympus Mountains. By August 26 they had pa.s.sed the wave-lashed rocks of Cape Flattery, and the mate records; "I am of opinion that the Straits of Fuca exist; for in the very lat.i.tude they are said to lie, the coast takes a bend, probably the entrance."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Building the first American Ship on the Pacific Coast.

Photographed by courtesy of Mrs. Abigail Quincy Twombly, a descendant of Gray.]

By September, after frequent stops to trade with the Indians, they were well abreast of Nootka, where Cook had been ten years before. A terrible ground-swell of surf and back-wash raged over projecting reefs. The Indians, here, knew English words enough to tell Gray that Nootka lay farther east, and that a Captain Meares was there with two vessels. A strange sail appeared inside the harbor. Gray thought it was the belated _Columbia_ under Kendrick; but a rowboat came out bearing Captain Meares himself, who breakfasted with the Americans on September 17, and had his long-boats tow the _Lady Washington_ inside Nootka, where Gray was surprised to see two English snows under Portuguese colors, with a cannon-mounted garrison on sh.o.r.e, and a schooner of thirty tons, the _Northwest-America_, all ready to be launched. This was the first ship built on the northwest coast. Gray himself later built the second. Amid salvos of cannon from the _Lady Washington_, the new fur vessel was launched from her skids; and in her honor September 19 was observed as a holiday, Meares and Douglas, the two English captains, entertaining Gray and his officers. Meares had come from China in {224} January, and during the summer had been up the Straits of Fuca, where another English captain, Barclay, had preceded him. Then Meares had gone south past Flattery, seeking in vain for the River of the West. Gales and breakers had driven him off the coast, and the very headland which hid the mouth of the Columbia, he had named Cape Disappointment, because he was so sure--in his own words--"that the river on the Spanish charts did not exist." He had also been down the coast to that Tillamook, or Cape Meares, where Gray's valet had been murdered. This was in July, a month before the a.s.sault on Gray; and if Haswell's report of Meares's cruelty be accepted--taking furs by force of arms--that may have explained the hostility to the Americans.

Meares was short of provisions to go to China, and Gray supplied them.

In return Meares set his workmen to help clean the keel of the _Lady Washington_ from barnacles; but the Englishman was a true fur trader to the core. In after-dinner talks, on the day of the launch, he tried to frighten the Americans away from the coast. Not fifty skins in a year were to be had, he said. Only the palisades and cannon protected him from the Indians, of whom there were more than two thousand hostiles at Nootka, he reported. They could have his fort for firewood after he left. He had purchased the right to build it from the Indians.

(Whether he acknowledged that he paid the Indians only two old pistols for this privilege, is not recorded.) At all events, it {225} would not be worth while for the Americans to remain on the coast. The Americans listened and smiled. Meares offered to carry any mail to China, and on the 2d was towed out of port by Gray and the other English captain, Douglas; but what was Gray's astonishment to receive the packet of mail back from Douglas. Meares had only pretended to carry it out in order that none of his crew might be bribed to take it, and then had sent it back by his partner, Douglas--true fur trader in checkmating the moves of rivals. Later on, when Meares's men were in desperate straits in this same port, they wondered that the Americans stood apart from the quarrel, if not actually siding with Spain.

On September 23 appeared a strange sail on the offing--the _Columbia_, under Kendrick, sails down and draggled, spars storm-torn, two men dead of scurvy, and the crew all ill.

October 1 celebrated a grand anniversary of the departure from Boston the previous year. At precisely midday the _Columbia_ boomed out thirteen guns. The sloop set the echoes rocketing with another thirteen. Douglas's ship roared out a salute of seven cannon shots, the fort on land six more, and the day was given up to hilarity, all hands dining on board the _Columbia_ with such wild fowl as the best game woods in the world afforded, and copious supply of Spanish wines.

Toasts were drunk to the first United States ship on the Pacific coast of America. On October 26 {226} Douglas's ship and the fur trader, _Northwest-America_, were towed out, bound for the Sandwich Islands, and the Americans were left alone on the northwest coast, the fort having been demolished, and the logs turned over to Kendrick for firewood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Feather Cloak worn by a son of an Hawaiian Chief, at the celebration in honor of Gray's return. Photographed by courtesy of Mrs. Joy, the present owner.]

The winter of 1788-1789 pa.s.sed uneventfully except that the English were no sooner out of the harbor, than the Indians, who had kept askance of the Americans, came in flocks to trade. Inasmuch as Cook's name is a household word, world over, for what he did on the Pacific coast, and Gray's name barely known outside the city of Boston and the state of {227} Oregon, it is well to follow Gray's movements on the _Lady Washington_. March found him trading south of Nootka at Clayoquot, named Hanc.o.c.k, after the governor of Ma.s.sachusetts. April saw him fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had said did not exist. Then he headed north again, touching at Nootka, where he found Douglas, the Englishman, had come back from the Sandwich Islands with the two ships. Pa.s.sing out of Nootka at four in the afternoon of May 1, he met a stately ship, all sails set, twenty guns pointed, under Spanish colors, gliding into the harbor. It was the flag-ship of Don Joseph Martinez, sent out to Bering Sea on a voyage of discovery, with a consort, and now entering Nootka to take possession in the name of Spain. Martinez examined Gray's pa.s.sports, learned that the Americans had no thought of laying claim to Nootka and, finding out about Douglas's ship inside the harbor, seemed to conclude that it would be wise to make friends of the Americans; and he presented Gray with wines, brandy, hams, and spices.

"She will make a good prize," was his sententious remark to Gray about the English ship.

Rounding northward, Gray met the companion ship of the Spanish commander. It will be remembered Cook missed proving that the west coast was a chain of islands. Since Cook's time, Barclay, an Englishman, and Meares had been in the Straits of Fuca. Dixon had discovered Queen Charlotte Island; but {228} the cruising of the little sloop, _Lady Washington_, covered a greater area than Meares's, Barclay's and Dixon's ships together. First it rounded the north end of Vancouver, proving this was island, not continent. These northern waters Gray called Derby Sound, after the outfitter. He then pa.s.sed up between Queen Charlotte Island and the continent for two hundred miles, calling this island Washington. It was northward of Portland Ca.n.a.l, somewhere near what is now Wrangel, that the brave little sloop was caught in a terrific gale that raged over her for two hours, damaging masts and timbers so that Gray was compelled to turn back from what he called Distress Cove, for repairs at Nootka. At one point off Prince of Wales Island, the Indians willingly traded two hundred otter skins, worth eight thousand dollars, for an old iron chisel.

In the second week of June the sloop was back at Nootka, where Gray was not a little surprised to find the Spanish had erected a fort on Hog Island, seized Douglas's vessel, and only released her on condition that the little fur trader _Northwest-America_ should become Spanish property on entering Nootka.

Gray and Kendrick now exchanged ships, Gray, who had proved himself the swifter navigator, going on the _Columbia_, taking Haswell with him as mate. In return for one hundred otter skins, Gray was to carry the captured crew of the _Northwest-America_ to China for the Spaniards.

On July 30, 1789, he left Vancouver Island. Stop was made at Hawaii for {229} provisions, and Atto, the son of a chief, boarded the _Columbia_ to visit America. On December 6 the _Columbia_ delivered her cargo of furs to Shaw & Randall of Canton, receiving in exchange tea for Samuel Parkman, of Boston. It was February, 1790, before the Columbia was ready to sail for Boston, and dropping down the river she pa.s.sed the _Lady Washington_, under Kendrick, in a cove where the gale hid her from Gray.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Derby, from the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, by courtesy of the owner, Dr. George B. Shattuck.]