They brought back word that Gray "had been off the mouth of a river in 46 degrees 10 minutes where the outset and reflux was so strong as to prevent entering for nine days," and that Gray had been fifty miles up the Straits of Fuca.
Both facts were distasteful to Vancouver. He had wished to be the first to explore the Straits of Fuca, and on only April 27, had passed an opening which he pronounced inaccessible and not a river, certainly not a river worthy of his attention. Yet the exact words of Captain Bruno Heceta, the Spaniard, in 1775 were: "These currents … cause me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river.… I did not enter and anchor there because … if we let go the anchor, we had not enough men to get it up. (Thirty-five were down with scurvy.) … At the distance of three or four leagues, I lay too. I experienced heavy currents, which made it impossible to enter the {236} bay, as I was far to leeward.… These currents, however, convince me that a great quantity of water rushed from this bay on the ebb of the tide."
So the Spaniard failed to enter, and now the great English navigator went on his way, convinced there was no River of the West; but Robert Gray headed back south determined to find what lay behind the tremendous crash of breakers and sand bar. On the 7th of May, the rowboat towed the Columbia into what is now known as Gray's Harbor, where he opened trade with the Indians, and was presently so boldly overrun by them, that he was compelled to fire into their canoes, killing seven. Putting out from this harbor on the 10th, he steered south, keeping close ashore, and was rewarded at four o'clock on the morning of the 11th by hearing a tide-rip like thunder and seeing an ocean of waters crashing sheer over sand bar and reef with a cataract of foam in midair from the drive of colliding waves. Milky waters tinged the sea as of inland streams. Gray had found the river, but could he enter? A gentle wind, straight as a die, was driving direct ashore. Gray waited till the tide seemed to lift or deepen the waters of the reef, then at eight in the morning, all sails set like a bird on wing, drove straight for the narrow entrance between reefs and sand. Once across the bar, he saw the mouth of a magnificent river of fresh water. He had found the River of the West.
Gray describes the memorable event in these simple {237} words: "May 11th … at four A.M. saw the entrance of our desired port bearing east-southeast, distance six leagues … at eight A.M. being a little to windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-southeast between the breakers.… When we were over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered. Many canoes came alongside. At one P.M. came to (anchor).…"
[Illustration: A View of the Columbia River.]
By the 14th, Gray had ascended the river twenty or thirty miles from the sea, but was compelled to turn, as he had taken a shallow channel. Dropping down with the tide, he anchored on the 19th and went ashore, where he planted coins under a tree, took {238} possession in the name of the United States, and named the river "Columbia." On the 20th, he crossed the bar and was out again on the Pacific. The most of men would have rested, satisfied with half he had done. Not so Gray. He headed the Columbia north again for the summer's trade in what is now known as southern Alaska. Only damages to the Columbia drove her down to Nootka in July, where Don Quadra, the new Spanish commander, and Captain Vancouver were in conference over those English ships seized by Martinez. To Quadra, Gray sold the little Adventure, pioneer of American shipbuilding on the Pacific, for seventy-five otter skins. From Spanish sources it is learned Gray's cargo had over three thousand otter skins, and fifteen thousand other peltries; so the second voyage may have made up for the loss of the first.
