ur 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 assault 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