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18 coast, hunting for the same river, and so near together as to be in hailing distance of each other. Captain Gray only a few days before had met Captain Vancouver, the Englishman, and had spoken to him. Captain Vancouver had sailed over the very ground passed over soon after by Gray, but failed to find the river. He had noted, too, a change in the color of the waters, but it did not sufficiently impress him to cause an investigation.

After Captain Gray had finished his exploration and gone to sea, he again fell in with Vancouver and reported the result of his discoveries. Vancouver immediately turned about, found the mouth of the river, sailed up the Columbia to the rapids and up the Willamette to near the falls.

In the conference between the English and Americans in 1827, which resulted in the renewal of the treaty of 1818, while the British commissioners acknowledged that Gray was first to discover and enter the Columbia river, yet they demanded that "he should equally share the honor with Captain Vancouver." They claimed that while Gray discovered the mouth of the river, he only sailed up it a few miles, while "Captain Vancouver made a full and complete discovery." One of the authorities stated concisely that, "Captain Gray's claim is limited to the mouth of the river."