Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/30

 22 F. W. How AY In volume 12 of the Pacific Railroad Reports, published in 1860, by the United States Government, is a geographical memoir upon the strait of Fuca and the vicinity by the well- known geographer, J. G. Kohl, of the United States Coast Survey, perhaps the best-posted man of his day on all such matters pertaining to this coast. On page 274 of that memoir he says : "Greenhow believes that soon after Gray, the Ameri- "can, Captain Kendrick sailed through the whole strait (of "Fuca) and came out at Queen Charlotte's sound, but this can "not be proved by historical documents". Bancroft in his History of the North West Coast, volume I, page 208, speaking of Kendrick and this alleged voyage, says : "I can not say that such was not the fact ; but from the extreme "inaccuracy of Meares's chart, from the narrowness of the real "channel, and from the fact that Kendrick is not known to have "made subsequently any claims to a discovery so important, I "am strongly of opinion that the chart was made from second- hand reports of Kendrick's conjectures, founded on Gray's "explorations of the north and south, supplemented by his own "possible observations after Gray's departure, as well as by "reports of the natives which, according to Has well, indicated "a channel back of Nootka". Bancroft's opinion is very close to the fact. Of all the public men prominently connected with the Ore- gon Question, there was probably none better able or more competent to express an opinion on this voyage than Albert Gallatin. He was one of the representatives of the United States in the negotiation of treaty of joint policy in 1818, and of the renewal treaty of 1827. Rush's Residence at the Court of London shows how carefully the voyages to this coast were scrutinized in the official discussion of the question. Of these negotiations Gallatin could certainly say in the language of Virgil, "Quorum pars magna fui". In his second Letter on the Oregon Question in January, 1846, he says : "The pretended voyage of the sloop Washington through- put the straits under the command of either Gray or Kendrick "has no other foundation than an assertion of Meares, on which "no reliance can be placed".