Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/43

Rh caused him to be censured, and removed on the charge of conniving at the wreck of the Vancouver for the sake of plunder; a puerile and ill-founded accusation, though his services might well be dispensed with on the ground of incompetency.

If the sands of the bar shifted so much that there were six fathoms in the spring of 1847 where there were but two and a half in 1846, as was stated by captains of vessels, I see no reason for doubting that a sufficient change may have taken place in the winter of 1847–8, to endanger a vessel depending upon the wind. But however great the real dangers of the Columbia bar, and perhaps because they were great, the