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.

[Illustration: 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 passed 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 Hancock, after the governor of Massachusetts. 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. Passing 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 passports, 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 f