[Illustration: Charles Bulfinch.]
The sequence was that Charles Bulfinch and the other five at once formed a partnership with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, divided into fourteen shares, for trade on the Pacific. This was ten years before Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, almost twenty years before Astor had thought of his Pacific Company. The Columbia, a full-rigged two-decker, two hundred and twelve tons and eighty-three feet long, mounting {213} ten guns, which had been built fourteen years before on Hobart’s Landing, North River, was immediately purchased. But a smaller ship to cruise about inland waters and collect furs was also needed; and for this purpose the partners bought the Lady Washington, a little sloop of ninety tons. Captain John Kendrick of the merchant marine was chosen to command the Columbia, Robert Gray, a native of Rhode Island, who had served in the revolutionary navy, a friend of Kendrick’s, to be master of the Lady Washington. Kendrick was of middle age, cautious almost to indecision; but Gray was younger with the daring characteristic of youth.
In order to insure a good reception for the ships, letters were obtained from the federal government to foreign powers. Massachusetts furnished passports; and the Spanish minister to the United States gave letters to the viceroy of New Spain. Just how the information of Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: “Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to belong to General Wanghington (Washington) of the American States, under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September 1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew.”
Orders were also given Kendrick and Gray to avoid offence to any foreign power, to treat the natives with kindness and Christianity, to obtain a cargo of furs on the American coast, to proceed with the same to China to be exchanged for a cargo of tea, and to return to Boston with the tea. The holds of the vessels were then stowed with every trinket that could appeal to the savage heart, beads, brass buttons, ear-rings, calico, tin mirrors, blankets, hunting-knives, copper kettles, iron chisels, snuff, tobacco. The crews were made up of the very best class of self-respecting sea-faring men. Woodruff, Kendrick’s first mate, had been with Cook. Joseph Ingraham, the second mate, rose to become a captain. Robert Haswell, the third mate, was the son of a British naval officer. Richard Howe went as accountant; Dr. Roberts, as surgeon; Nutting, formerly a teacher, as astronomer; and Treat, as fur trader. Davis Coolidge was the first mate under Gray on the Lady Washington.
Some heroes blunder into glory. These didn’t. They deliberately set out with the full glory of their venture in view. Whatever the profit and loss account might show when they came back, they were well aware that they were attempting the very biggest and most venturesome thing the newly federated states had essayed in the way of exploration and trade. To {215} commemorate the event, Joseph Barrell had medals struck in bronze and silver showing the two vessels on one side, the names of the outfitters on the other. All Saturday afternoon sailors and officers came trundling down to the wharf, carpet bags and seamen’s chests in tow, to be rowed out where the Columbia and Lady Washington lay at anchor. Boston was a Sabbath-observing city in those days; but even Boston could not keep away from the two ships heaving to the tide, which for the first time in American history were to sail around an unknown world. All Saturday night and Sunday morning the sailors scoured the decks and put berths shipshape; and all Sunday afternoon the visitors thronged the decks. By night outfitters and relatives were still on board. The medals of commemoration were handed round. Health and good luck and God speed were drunk unto the heel taps. Songs resounded over the festive board. It was all “mirth and glee” writes one of the men on {216} board. But by daybreak the ships had slipped cables. The tide, that runs from round the underworld, raced bounding to meet them. A last dip of land behind; and on Monday, October 1, 1787, the ships’ prows were cleaving the waters of their fate.