riends 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 passed up
between Queen Charlotte Island and the continent for two hundred miles,
calling this island Washington. It was northward of Portland Canal,
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
passed the _Lady Washington_, under Kendrick, in a cove where the gale
hid her from Gray.

[Illustration: John Derby, from the