Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/26

8 of the Columbia in March, 1811. Captain Thorne not being acquainted with the harbor, dispatched a whale-boat, with an officer and six men, to sound the passage over the bar into the river. The ship was then under close reefed top-sails, and a strong gale blowing from the north-west, so that the first officer was much averse to going on this service; and it is rather singular, that previous to his leaving the Tonquin, he observed to Mr. McDougal, who was to be the governor of the establishment, that he was going to lay his bones beside those of his uncle, who had perished in crossing the bar of the Columbia river a year or two before that time. In a quarter of an hour after they left the ship, they hoisted a signal of distress, and then disappeared—thus seven men found a watery grave! The Tonquin stood out to sea for the night, and in the morning again stood in, and another boat was ordered off under the command of the second officer Mr. Moffat, who peremptorily refused to go, observing, that he could see a passage better from the mast head. Captain Thorne then ordered a man, who was to have the command of a shallop (of which they had the frame on board), to take the command of the boat, with two Sandwich Islanders (several of whom they had on board for the establishment), the ship's blacksmith, and one sailor, Mr. McDougal having refused to let any of the settlers go on that service which they looked on as little better than an act of insanity. Shortly after the boat had left the ship, she ran by it; the boat was then so close that the people asked for a rope;