After a period of nearly four months from our leaving Nootka, we returned from the northward to Columbia River, for the purpose of procuring masts, etc., for our brig, which had suffered considerably in her spars during a gale of wind. We proceeded about ten miles up the river to a small Indian village, where we heard from the inhabitants that Captains Clark and Lewis, from the United States of America, had been there about a fortnight before, on their journey overland, and had left several medals with them, which they showed us.[139] The river at this place is of considerable breadth, and both sides of it from its entrance covered with forests of the very finest pine timber, fir, and spruce, interspersed with Indian settlements.
From this place, after providing ourselves with spars, we sailed for Nootka, where we arrived in the latter part of November.[140] The tribe being absent, the agreed signal was given, by firing a cannon, and in a few hours after a canoe appeared, which landed at the village, and, putting the king on shore, came off to the brig. Inquiry was immediately made by Kinneclimmets, who was one of the three men in the canoe, if John was there, as the king had some skins to sell them if he was. I then went forward and invited them on board, with which they readily complied, telling me that Maquina had a number of skins with him, but that he would not come on board unless I would go on shore for him. This I agreed to, provided they would remain in the brig in the meantime. To this they consented, and the captain, taking them into the cabin, treated them with bread and molasses. I then went on shore in the canoe, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Thompson and the captain, who, though he wanted the skins, advised me by no means to put myself in Maquina's power; but I assured him that I had no fear as long as those men were on board.
As I landed, Maquina came up and welcomed me with much joy: on inquiring for the men, I told him that they were to remain till my return. "Ah, John," said he, "I see you are afraid to trust me, but if they had come with you, I should not have hurt you, though I should have taken good care not to let you go on board of another vessel." He then took his chest of skins, and, stepping into the canoe, I paddled him alongside the brig, where he was received and treated by Captain Hill with the greatest cordiality, who bought of him his skins. He left us much pleased with his reception, inquiring of me how many moons it would be before I should come back again to see him and his son; saying that he would keep all his furs for me, and that as soon as my son, who was then about five months old, was of a suitable age to take from his mother, he would send for him, and take care of him as his own.[141]
As soon as Maquina had quitted us, we got under weigh, and stood again to the northward. We continued on the coast until the 11th of August, 1806,[142] when, having completed our trade, we sailed for China, to the great joy of all our crew, and particularly so to me. With a degree of satisfaction that I can ill express, did I quit a coast to which I was resolved nothing should again tempt me to return, and as the tops of the mountains sank in the blue waves of the ocean, I seemed to feel my heart lightened of an oppressive load.
We had a prosperous passage to China, arriving at Macao in December, from whence the brig proceeded to Canton. There I had the good fortune to meet a townsman and an old acquaintance in the mate of an English East Indiaman, named John Hill, whose father, a wealthy merchant in Hull in the Baltic trade, was a next-door neighbour to mine. Shortly after our arrival, the captain being on board of an English ship, and mentioning his having had the good fortune to liberate two men of the Boston's crew from the savages, and that one of them was named Jewitt, my former acquaintance immediately came on board the brig to see me.
Words can ill express my feelings on seeing him. Circumstanced as I was, among persons who were entire strangers to me, to meet thus in a foreign land with one between whom and myself a considerable intimacy had subsisted, was a pleasure that those alone who have been in a similar situation can properly estimate. He appeared on his part no less happy to see me, whom he supposed to be dead, as the account of our capture had been received in England some time before his sailing, and all my friends supposed me to have been murdered. From this young man I received every attention and aid that a feeling heart interested in the fate of another could confer. He supplied me with a new suit of clothes and a hat, a small sum of money for my necessary expenses, and a number of little articles for sea stores on my voyage to America. I also gave him a letter for my father, in which I mentioned my wonderful preservation and escape through the humanity of Captain Hill, with whom I should return to Boston. This letter he enclosed to his father by a ship that was just sailing, in consequence of which it was received much earlier than it otherwise would have been.
We left China in February 1807, and, after a pleasant voyage of one hundred and fourteen days, arrived at Boston. My feelings on once more finding myself in a Christian country, among a people speaking the same language with myself, may be more readily conceived than expressed. In the post office in that place I found a letter for me from my mother, acknowledging the receipt of mine from China, expressing the great joy of my family on hearing of my being alive and well, whom they had for a long time given up for dead, and requesting me to write to them on receiving her letter, which I accordingly did. While in Boston I was treated with much kindness and hospitality by the owners of the ship Boston, Messrs. Francis and Thomas Amory of that place, to whom I feel myself under great obligations for their goodness to me, and the assistance which they so readily afforded a stranger in distress.
FOOTNOTES:
[137] This seems another variant of Klaosaht.
[138] These are doubtless the Hydahs and their kindred, the women of whom insert a wooden or ivory trough in their lower lip.