nfidential 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 Wanghington (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, brass buttons,
ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper
kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco. The crews were made up of the
very best class 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 Saturday 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 Saturda