He sent Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzies to
inquire.
They brought back word that Gray "had been off the mouth of a river in
46 degrees 10 minutes where the outset and reflux was so strong as to
prevent entering for nine days," and that Gray had been fifty miles up
the Straits of Fuca.
Both facts were distasteful to Vancouver. He had wished to be the
first to explore the Straits of Fuca, and on only April 27, had passed
an opening which he pronounced inaccessible and not a river, certainly
not a river worthy of his attention. Yet the exact words of Captain
Bruno Heceta, the Spaniard, in 1775 were: "These currents . . . cause
me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river. . . . I
did not enter and anchor there because . . . if we let go the anchor,
we had not enough men to get it up. (Thirty-five were down with
scurvy.) . . . At the distance of three or four leagues, I lay too. I
experienced heavy currents, which made it impossible to enter the {236}
bay, as I was far to leeward. . . . These currents, however, convince
me that a great quantity of water rushed from this bay on the ebb of
the tide.
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