north to the Straits of
Fuca, and Russia claimed all south to the Straits of Fuca, where was
England's claim of New Albion discovered by Sir Francis Drake, and of
all that coast which Cook had sighted round Nootka?

Captain George Vancouver, formerly midshipman with Cook, was summoned
post-haste by the British Admiralty. Ostensibly, his mission was to
receive back at Nootka all the lands which the Spaniards had taken from
Meares, the trader. Really, he was to explore the coast from New Spain
on the south, to Russian America on the north, and to hold that coast
for England. That Spain had already explored the islands of this coast
was a mere detail. There remained the continental shore still to be
explored. Besides, Spain had not followed up her explorations by
possession. She had kept her navigations secret. In many cases her
navigators had not even landed.

[Illustration: Captain George Vancouver.]

Vancouver was still in his prime, under forty. Serving in the navy
from boyhood, he had all a practical seaman's contempt for theories.
This contempt was given point by the world's attitude toward Cook.
Vancouver had been on the spot with Cook. He knew there was no
Northeast Passage. Cook had proved that. Yet the world refused
credence.

For the practical navigator there remained only one course, and that
course became the one aim, the consuming ambition of Vancouver's
life--to destroy the {266} last vestige of the myth of a Northeast
Passage; to explore the northwest coast of America so thoroughly there
would not remain a single unknown inlet that could be used as a
possible prop for the schoolmen's theories, to penetrate every inlet
from California to Alaska--mainland and island; to demonstrate that not
one possible opening led to the Atlantic. This was to be the object of
Vancouver's life, and he carried it out with a thoroughness that left
nothing for subsequent explorers to do; but he died before the record
of his voyages had been given to the world.

The two ships, _Discovery_ and _Chatham_, with a supply ship, the
_Daedalus_, to follow later, were fitted out for long and thorough
work. Vancouver's vessel, the _Discovery_, carried twenty guns with a
crew of a hundred men. The tender, _Chatham_, under Broughton, had ten
guns and forty-five men. With Vancouver went Menzies, and Puget, and
Baker, and Johnstone--names that were to become place marks on the
Pacific. The _Discovery_ and _Chatham_ le