Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/171

 Second Voyage of the Columbia tunately enabled by timely precautions to frustrate their horrid stratagems at the very moment they had assembled to execute them. He likewise told us that last year the Natives to the Northward of Queen Charlotte's Isles had murderd his Chief Mate & two Seamen while they were employd fish- ing in a small Boat a little distance from the Ship, & that the Natives of Queen Charlotte's Isles had surprizd an American Brig the Lady Washington commanded by Mr Kendrick & kept possession of her for upwards of two hours, when the united exertions of the Master & Crew happily liberated them from the impending destruction & made the Natives quit their prize in a precipitate flight in which a vast number of them lost their lives. On this occasion the Natives had watchd an opportunity to posess themselves of the arm chests on deck while open, by which stratagem they were able to arm themselves & disarm the Ship's company, but the latter rallying on them after- wards from below with what arms they could collect, renderd their vile scheme abortive. As soon as the Boat was hoisted in we made sail & pursued our course along shore till about noon when we enterd the famous Streights of Juan de Fuoa. The weather was at this so thick & hazy that we had no ob- servation to determine our Latitude The Columbia who bore up along shore & followd us into the Streights kept under way all night but there being little wind, & that chiefly against us we anchord a little before dark under the Southern Shore about three leagues from the Entrance. April 30th 1792. Having now enterd on our interior examination of Juan de Fuca's Streights, we on the morning of the 30th of April both weighd Anchor & after making Sail steerd to the Eastward along the Southern Shore on a firm sup- position that it was the Continental shore which we had