Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/190

 who was cruising by order of the British government, to seek new discoveries. Mr. Gray acquainted him with the one he had just made, and even gave him a copy of the chart he had drawn up. Vancouver, who had just driven off a colony of Spaniards established on the coast, under the command of Señor Quadra (England and Spain being then at war), despatched his first-lieutenant Broughton, who ascended the river in boats some one hundred and twenty or one hundred and fifty miles, took possession of the country in the name of his Britannic majesty, giving the {19} river the name of the Columbia, and to the bay where the American captain stopped, that of Gray's bay. Since that period the country had been seldom visited (till 1811), and chiefly by American ships.