5. Fort Defiance and the Destruction of Opitsat

At this point it is worth considering the importance of personality and character as agents in historical process. John Kendrick, though not free from engagement in violent episodes on the coast, was on the whole more amenable to Indigenous peoples than was Robert Gray. The latter was difficult, vengeful and self-interested to a fault (giving his ship owners concerns that he was not acting fully in their interests). He was resolute and self-reliant, and although of kindly disposition was prone to outbursts of temper. Kendrick, with all sorts of experience in making real estate deals there and elsewhere, believed in fair compensation for items traded with the Northwest Coast peoples. Perhaps he feared what might happen when Gray got into Clayoquot. His orders to Captain Gray are instructive: “Treet the Natives with Respect where Ever you go. Cultivate frindship with them as much as possibel and take Nothing from them But what you pay them for according to a fair agreement, and not suffer your peopel to affront them or treet them Ill.”¹¹¹ Such were Kendrick’s pronounced intentions, and his orders to Gray. As so often happens, matters turned out differently.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, Gray made his second voyage from Boston in 1790, this time commanding the Columbia (his ship on the first voyage had been the Lady Washington). He reached Nootka Sound on August 28, 1790. The speed of these global circumnavigations catches our imagination and wins our admiration.

From Nootka Sound, Gray coasted southward in the Columbia with confident expectation of reaching Neah Bay, near Cape Flattery. There he intended to winter and construct the schooner he had brought out from Boston in frame. Fog shrouded the coast; strong currents persisted; roaring surf warned of the dangerous shore. Clouds prevented any observation that would have given them a position. Once again stormy conditions ruled the day, and a southwesterly gale drove him back toward Nootka. Gray now had it in mind to winter in Nasparti, or Columbia’s, Cove in what he called Bullfinch’s Sound—now Nasparti Inlet or, the Nuu-chah-nulth name, Quin-ecx. This is on the Brooks Peninsula, Vancouver Island. First Mate Robert Haswell, realizing that this destination could not be achieved, suggested Clayoquot as an alternative. The captain agreed that this would be the best place they could winter if, as Gray made clear, “proper wood could be found to saw into plank.”¹¹² It took two attempts but on the second, September 18, Gray steered safely through the dangerous southeast entrance, lost an anchor in a stiff breeze, and just after midnight found welcome refuge in Clayoquot Sound, coming to anchor in Port Cox.

The young mate, John Boit, Jr., takes up the story: “This day anchor’d in our Old Station in Clioquot Harbour . . . At this Harbour Captain Gray had determin’d to Winter, if he cou’d find a suitable place to build a sloop of 45 tons . . . The stem and stern post with part of the floor timbers had been brought from Boston for that purpose.”¹¹³ Ship’s boats were sent out on reconnaissance, and they found a commodious and snug cove completely suitable to their needs on the east shore of what is now Lemmens Inlet, about three miles north and east of Opitsat, the perfect location on a rugged coast, free from winter’s ravages and blessed with many other advantages.

Before the Columbia shifted to the cove, Gray had a happy meeting with Kendrick, in the Lady Washington, who had anchored nearby at a small island he had fortified and named Fort Washington, after the US president (exact location unknown). Kendrick was about to sail for Hawaii. That evening the two ship’s companies visited each other, swapping accounts, tales and stories. Many must have recounted their departure from Boston all those many years and months ago, and all the experiences they had had in the Pacific since then. Nothing is known of what they said about Clayoquot Sound and its peoples.

After Kendrick’s departure, the Columbia moved to the cove. Upon arrival, no time was to be lost as the season was fast advancing. The first necessity was shelter ashore. The Columbia arrived at the site on September 21, and that same day carpenters and other artisans, as well as regular sailor hands, started clearing the land and constructing a fortified log shelter. This was designed to contain a boat builder’s shed and a blacksmith’s shop with forge, along with several lodging rooms, “the whole well armed, two cannon mounted outside and one inside of the house through a port, and in every direction loopholes for our small arms and pistols, of which we have a tolerable plenty, and our party is augmented to ten in all.”¹¹⁴ From a pole at the front apex of the roof flew the Stars and Stripes. Two saw-pits were in use frequently to cut plank sheathing from logs towed to the spot. The place had the appearance of a “young” shipyard, reported Boit.¹¹⁵

“I am daily visited by some one or other of the Chiefs,” wrote Haswell in his log, “who express great admiration at our artisans. The sawing of plank, the smith work, and the dexterity with which our people cut down and hew trees strikes them with wonder. They almost always when they come sell a few skins, and generally bring a few wild geese and ducks for sale.”¹¹⁶ The water being shallow there, the Americans cleared a small channel so the vessel could be extricated from the shipways; it would be used at launch time. On October 3 the keel of the sloop was laid, “every person busily employed.”¹¹⁷ Meares Island’s forest provided the ship’s carpenter with what he needed: a shore party cut planks for the sloop’s decks. Trees could be felled near to where they were required. Haswell wrote tellingly of the forest: “It was as compact a thicket as ever grew, few of the trees were less than two fathoms [12 feet] round and many of them four [24 feet].”¹¹⁸ Weather proved favourable to their work—that is, it was not too rainy—but daylight hours were shortening, made even shorter by the height of the trees, which obscured the sun. Many of the Europeans were confined with severe colds and rheumatic pain, resulting from cold wet weather, but the forest also met every requirement for warming fires.

The location became known as Adventure Cove (sometimes Winter Cove)—Hoskins says the Indigenous people called it Clickelecutsee—and the shore establishment Fort Defiance. It mounted four cannon, and had forty muskets and several blunderbusses. The cove not only gave the Columbia shelter from winter storms but also offered a beach where they erected the shipways. A stream afforded drinking water. The Columbia was kept berthed abreast a sheer (and natural) rock face in the north, sheltering, arm of the cove. This unusual geological formation was called Rock Bluff, and is described in Boit’s log as “a bluff point of rocks, where she [the Columbia] lay’d as to a wharfe not even touching the ground at low water.”¹¹⁹ Again, nature provided benefits. The Columbia remained there for a time and then was shifted across the cove and brought to anchor beside the ways and near the house. This move was made to give defence against impending attack.

Fort Defiance was a temporary structure sufficient for the occasion, but was perhaps built with the thought that American traders might come again in some future year. On October 12, Wickaninnish and one or two of his brothers visited the place: “They gazed with much admiration at our house and vessel and expressed much wonder.”¹²⁰ And well may we ask if they had also begun to think that the Americans might not go away. Perhaps they had become uncomfortable with the lingering presence of strangers. Events were turning decidedly uncordial.

On March 25 the Adventure was hauled down the ways. She was then fitted for sea and supplied for a four-month cruise among the Queen Charlottes under Haswell (and a crew of ten). Meanwhile, the Columbia had been re-rigged and stowed with the items kept safely ashore. She was ready for sea again. The two vessels left Adventure Cove in company. They passed down Lemmens Inlet, probably under tow of their boats. Adverse winds delayed their outbound progress. They eventually passed through Templar Channel and out into the wide Pacific’s swells.

Before they left, however, on March 27, 1792, John Boit, under instructions from Captain Gray, took three boats, well-armed and manned, to destroy Opitsat village. He used the word “destroyed,” and we may wonder if he means that the boat landing parties set fire—put the torch—to what was likely the main house and other buildings, some with carved and painted fronts. “It was a Command I was no ways tenacious of,” he wrote in his log for that day, with regret, “and am grieved to think Captain Gray shou’d let his passions go so far. This village was about half a mile in Diameter, and Contained upwards of 200 Houses, generally well built for Indians. Ev’ry door that you enter’d was in resemblance to an human and Beasts head . . . Ther was much more rude carved work about the dwellings some of which was by no means innelegant [sic]. This fine Village, the work of Ages, was in a short time destroy’d.”¹²¹

After they left Clayoquot Sound, Gray dispatched the Adventure to barter for furs in the rich Queen Charlotte Islands. Gray himself, meanwhile, sailed south toward Cape Flattery, looking for trade and the glories of discoveries. He sailed south almost to the California line, then hauled to the north, seeking bays and estuaries suitable for trade. Once again weather determined action: winds and currents obliged him to beat offshore for days. Then, in the vicinity of 46˚ 10˚ N, Gray noticed evidence of a large river. The outflowing current was too strong to chance an entry, but Gray would return presently to what we now know as the Columbia River.

As the Columbia was working in squally seas off the coast of present-day Washington State, two British warships, the Discovery and Chatham, under Captain George Vancouver and Lieutenant William Robert Broughton, were approaching the coast of Nova Albion. In mid-April they raised land near Cape Mendocino, California, and were making their way to Nootka, surveying the coast as they went, investigating the possibility of a northwest passage. In their possession the officers and midshipmen had copies of Meares’ Voyages, published just two years previously. When fabulous Mount Olympus (7,915 feet) came into view, they were delighted to see the majestic peak just as Meares had reported it in his writing. On board the vessels, many doubts were held about this strange, uncharted American continent. So many geographical mysteries presented themselves. It was the mission of this naval expedition to solve these mysteries. The skeptical Captain Vancouver, taking James Cook’s opinion as a given, could not imagine that a Strait of Juan de Fuca existed. But, as Homer says, after the event any fool can be wise.

Late that same month, early on April 29, 1792, lookouts posted aloft spied a strange sail. This proved to be the Columbia, flying the Stars and Stripes. This chance encounter occurred south of Cape Flattery. In the circumstances, mutual suspicion reigned. Vancouver, we are reminded, had the dual purpose of completing Cook’s survey between 50˚ N and Cook’s River (now Cook’s Inlet) and receiving restitution of territories from the Spanish, but Captain Gray of the Columbia could not believe the British were on an official expedition of geographical inquiry. He preferred to regard the British as rivals in trade, and, mused Vancouver’s surgeon Archibald Menzies, “this is conformable to the general practice among traders on this Coast, which is always to mislead competitors as far as they can even at the expence of truth.”¹²² In any event, the vessels hove to, lying near one another, all the time rising and falling with the swells of the sea. Vancouver sent Menzies and Lieutenant Peter Puget across in a boat to talk to the American captain. Vancouver wanted to find out from Gray if it was indeed true that the Lady Washington had found an interior channel (thus proving the insularity of Vancouver Island) as Meares had stated in his Voyages. No, said the astonished Gray, none of that was true: in his 1789 voyage he had sailed into the strait only a distance of seventeen leagues—about fifty-one nautical miles—found no trade there and returned to the wide Pacific.

And what about Clayoquot and Opitsat? Surgeon Menzies has left an account of what Gray said, and Vancouver did likewise, including his in the official voyage account. Vancouver wrote: “Whilst he [Gray] remained at Clayoquot, Wicananish, the chief of that district, had concerted a plan to capture his ship, by bribing a native of Owhyee [Hawaii], whom Mr. Gray had with him, to wet the priming of all the fire-arms on board, which were constantly kept loaded; upon which the chief would easily have overpowered the ship’s crew, by a number of daring Indians who were assembled for that purpose. This project was happily discovered, and the Americans being on their guard the fatal effects of the enterprise were prevented.”¹²³ It seems entirely possible to me that the “preventive” measures taken may have fallen under the heading “the best defence is attack,” and this may be why John Boit was sent with the boats to burn Opitsat, but Gray did not talk about this attack, or if he did, Menzies and Puget did not mention it.

After his meeting with the British, Gray continued his journey down the coast. On May 11 he carefully guided the Columbia across the treacherous bar and into the river whose presence he had noticed twice already, finding safe anchorage inside. This was the first entry of what an earlier land-based explorer, Jonathan Carver, had imagined as the River Oregon,¹²⁴ and others had speculated as “the River of the West.” Gray named the river Columbia after his ship. The trading, however, proved a disappointment, and Gray left his great “discovery.” He traded on the coast, then sailed for China. He returned to Boston on July 20, 1793, having circumnavigated the globe a second time. He died of yellow fever and was buried at sea in 1806. He is less well known in Clayoquot and Canadian history, but his finding of the Columbia River was of monumental importance to the United States: it stimulated further efforts to get a foothold on Pacific shores and was a factor in official decisions to send Lewis and Clark there. His discovery of the great river gave the United States a tenuous claim to these parts of the Pacific coast.

As for the little Adventure, the first sailing vessel built in Clayoquot Sound, and the second on the Northwest Coast (Meares’ North West America, at Nootka, being the first), she made an extensive cruise around the Queen Charlotte Islands and collected a handsome 500 skins. At Nootka she rendezvoused with the Columbia and transferred furs to her. The vessels sailed in company for the Charlottes and completed their profitable trading. They returned to Nootka. There the swift and nimble Adventure, of great value in the coastal trade but now expendable, was sold to the Spanish for seventy-two prime sea otter skins.¹²⁵ Renamed Horcasitas, after the Viceroy of Mexico, she sailed for Monterey in October and was sent back to Nootka with dispatches, returning in December. She proved her worth as a dispatch vessel, but eventually disappeared from the record.¹²⁶

It will always be a subject of mystery—and disappointment to Canadians—that Captain Vancouver did not discover the river (though Broughton, of the Chatham, made an act of possession upriver in October of that same year). It is also a matter of dissatisfaction that the Canadian fur trader David Thompson, travelling overland, did not get to the mouth of the Columbia River sooner. I discuss these matters below.

Before we leave Captain Vancouver, whose voyage account gives us instructive insight concerning Captain Gray’s strong and undeniable views about the treachery of the Clayoquot and the reason for his ordering the wasting of Opitsat, as recounted by Boit, we have one further and final window on this world of sea otter traders. Again, we cite the British naval captain as our authority. When at Nootka, Vancouver was told by American traders that a British captain, James Baker, of the merchant vessel Jenny of London, 78 tons, had fired on the people of Clayoquot Sound and had committed an act of piracy. This must date from 1792. Vancouver was suspicious of this report; he thought the Americans were seeking “the prejudice and dishonour of the British subjects trading on the coast.”¹²⁷ This may well be true but is not conclusive. Little love was lost between the two nationalities. The Spanish sometimes felt themselves in between, and the Muchalaht and Mowachaht at Nootka were at the whim of these rivalries swirling around them.

As for Fort Defiance, whatever shore structure the Bostonians left behind fell into disuse. The relentlessly growing forest and impenetrable salal soon reclaimed the site. As a Canadian historical site it counted for next to nothing because it originated in American activities, but the quest to find it was kept alive by certain individuals interested in the history of trade and exploration. Perhaps someday, they reasoned, someone would chance upon the bricks that were used in the hearth and chimney. The hunt to find the location consumed many years and attracted many residents of Vancouver Island, notably those of Tofino. But, as might be expected, it was Americans who first sought to find the site in order to close an amazing chapter in their oceanic endeavours.

Captain Gray and the Columbia hold a unique place in US history as the first to carry the Stars and Stripes around the world. Boston had a solid interest in the story, and over the years the Massachusetts Historical Society acquired several logs and journals of Boston mariners who had been involved. One by one these appeared in published form, and some years before F.W. Howay, that unequalled pioneer of sea otter trade history, edited the logs of the Columbia for publication by that society (1940), the key facts were made known about where a search might prove effective in locating Adventure Cove. It was propitious that none other than Samuel Eliot Morison, the famed Harvard scholar and a seasoned mariner, should interest himself in the matter, demonstrating yet again the roles of sailor-historians in the preservation of sea history. Morison, who had written the seminal Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783–1860, first published 1921, knew the history of the Bostonians in the trade at Nootka, Clayoquot and the Queen Charlotte Islands, with connections to Hawaii and China and thence around the world. He wanted to find the Boston pioneering spot on the Northwest Coast. In the mid-1930s he solicited the help of Edmund Hayes, a Portland, Oregon, timber baron, himself a yachtsman and a keen student of coastal history.¹²⁸ Hayes had his own sailing vessel, the ketch Seaway, and he had deep pockets. Curiosity ruled his world, but he also had a particular nationalistic interest in the matter, for as he mused, “The sovereignty of the states of Washington and Oregon was undoubtedly determined by the discovery in May, 1792, of the Columbia River by the ship Columbia of Boston.”¹²⁹ Hayes was fascinated by all things connected to this famous ship, including the destructive episode at Adventure Cove. Thus, sailing from the Columbia River on their quest, Hayes and Morison began the search for Gray’s winter headquarters. They had the records of Boit, Hoskins, Howay and others at their disposal. They also had in their possession photographic copies of inspiring, sprightly watercolours executed by George Davidson, a carpenter on Captain Gray’s ship in 1792.¹³⁰

Morison and Hayes knew they had to search for a sheltered cove, one where the Columbia could moor to trees on either side, and where the entrance was not more than one hundred feet wide. Further, the cove must bear east by north from Port Cox, the anchorage off the village of present-day Tofino. There were many possibilities. Just south of Morpheus Island they thought they had found the site but were wrong—and later Hayes stated that the search had been somewhat superficial due to time constraints. All the same, you cannot blame Morison for waxing poetic: “It was quite a thrill for a Bostonian like myself, who has followed the history of the northwest fur trade, to visit the site of the lively scene depicted by the brush of Davidson and described in the Columbia’s log. We all wished that we had time to search among the salal and the fir and cedar that have grown up since 1792 for bricks from Fort Defiance’s chimney and other relics of that busy winter. When we visited the place no vestige of human life was visible; the place had reverted to its original state, and some fresh elk track on the beach showed that the game had come back too.”

He also remarked on the large trees there. Some of the cedars were 250 to 300 years old, so in Columbia’s day they would have been mature trees. “The sight of many great gnarled cedars that had been old when the Columbia came made us feel that mankind was still but an intruder and temporary occupant in this northwest coast of America.”¹³¹ That was the view of the newcomer.

Kenneth Gibson of Tofino, contractor and keen local history enthusiast, had been gathering information on the site for some considerable time as well. He got to know Hayes, who made several trips to Tofino in search of the Tonquin wreck (of which more below). Hayes, who had studied the trader narratives, the Native traditions at Clayoquot, and the several writings of Judge Howay and other publications, provided Gibson with additional historical information on the lost cove, including two old drawings on glass by George Davidson.¹³² In 1966 the Vancouver Sun printed an article by Major George Nicholson of Victoria, veteran west coast historian and sometime postmaster at Opitsat, announcing the renewed quest for Adventure Cove undertaken by Gibson.¹³³ When Gibson found brick rubble about one foot underground, he knew at once that this was probably Gray’s Fort Defiance. But he needed to test the bricks, and with Hayes’ help the bricks were identified as some of the two thousand that had been sent out from Boston for the purpose. A small axe, similar to a lathing axe, was found. When the site was compared to the illustrations and to all the extant logs and journals, the case was proven beyond a shadow of doubt. Hayes credited Gibson with the discovery, rightly so, and recognition was also owing to Nicholson, the chronicler of the coast.

On December 9, 1966, the British Columbia government, by order-in-council, declared “that the remains of Fort Defiance, the winter quarters of Robert Gray in the years 1791–1792, have been located on lands situated in the west coast of Vancouver Island in the vicinity of Lemmens Inlet.” The site was designated by the provincial cabinet under the Archaeological and Historic Sites Protection Act, which gave protection to 135 acres to keep souvenir seekers away until archaeologists could probe the find. Willard Ireland, the Provincial Archivist, interested the Government of Canada in having the Historic Sites and Monuments Board, Department of Natural Resources at Ottawa, provide assistance in clearing the site. William Folan undertook that site visit for the Department of Northern Affairs, and Dr. Donald H. Mitchell, University of Victoria, began archaeological examination of Fort Defiance. The site was verified, and later excavations were made and reports published in the scholarly BC Studies in 1970 and 1972–1973.¹³⁴ Dr. Mitchell’s work stands as the first scholarly treatise on Fort Defiance. Meares Island, or a fragment of its history, had now been possessed by archaeology.

To Hayes goes the last word, for he had pressed the search for years and delighted in the final result. He could see the larger view. He wrote:

"

Adventure Cove was an important base for the Columbia, from which she sallied forth in March 1792, to carry on her trade, but more importantly, to discover the Columbia River. Captain Cook (1778) and Captain Vancouver (1792) both missed this river, although well-equipped, for those times, with splendid vessels and crews. The Northwest Coast in 1792 was uncharted, except for Nootka Sound (Cook, 1778), and an almost unknown region of the world. Explorers were still seeking the mythical Straits of Anian. It was not unlike Little America in the Antarctic of today. The accomplishment of Captain Gray, in the Columbia, in establishing winter quarters and building a vessel, the Adventure, was an outstanding feat. It is for this reason that the finding of the exact site is historically important.¹³⁵

"

We retrace our steps. We must now return to the few days before the Columbia and the Adventure made their exits from Clayoquot Sound. Specifically, we examine what happened on March 27, 1792: the destruction of Opitsat village.

When I composed my Meares Island historical account for the legal team, I left Boit to speak for himself. What he says of the attack on Opitsat is part of the record. It cannot be wished away. What else could I do? But no other evidence from his contemporaries supports his story. Haswell and Hoskins, there at the time, do not mention it in their narratives. This is odd. And Gray’s own account does not survive.

History “in the dock,” so to speak, takes on added meaning. And unsurprisingly, when the Meares Island case came to trial in 1993, the burning of Opitsat, as recounted by Boit and by nobody else, came up for close examination. I had no doubt it would. Mr. Woodward questioned Dr. Barbara Lane, the anthropologist and ethnologist of our team of experts, on the matter. She made the point that the weather had been very wet at that time. Using flint to start fires would have been difficult. Further, many of those persons who lived at Opitsat had relocated to other sites at the end of the herring season. That would explain, incidentally, why Boit does not mention any damage to persons. Dr. Lane did not discount the difficulties that existed between Wickaninnish and Gray; nor did she shy away from the fact that war and vengeance were possibilities. But on the basis of what she knew about the documentation, she did not think Boit’s written appreciation of the episode credible.

I have my doubts about this. Why would Boit lie? Did he write his account to do damage to Gray’s reputation? No. Had he had been overlooked for promotion? No. Maybe Boit exaggerated the damage caused. If the attack were as destructive as Boit says, surely Hoskins and Haswell would have mentioned it. Or maybe not: perhaps it was all in a day’s work.

So what did happen on Meares Island more than 225 years ago? And why? Over many years I looked elsewhere for confirming evidence and came up with three accounts from the time that provide a plausible explanation of Gray’s motivation.

The various diaries and journals of the American officers and mates that survive from this date in history tell of growing, unmistakable tensions between the Clayoquot peoples and the Americans. The former, quite naturally, wondered if the Americans were going to take up permanent residence, which must have given them cause for alarm. The Americans found themselves placed on the defensive, which was their natural inclination, given that they were in the lands of a very populous people of warlike propensities. Besides, the Americans would have known of other encounters in those very waters, or on the Northwest Coast more generally. Fresh in their minds was the violence on the coast north of Cape Mendocino (mentioned in Chapter 3), where in August 1788 they had met canoes of fierce and warlike bands addicted to thieving. At or near Tillamook Bay, thirty miles south of where the Columbia River enters the Pacific, the Americans used muskets and swivel guns to drive off the canoes intent on piracy. A Black sailor from Madeira, isolated from the ship, was killed ashore. The name Murderers’ Harbor was given to this place.¹³⁶

Near Adventure Cove, Native military and political power was being exercised. Wintertime demonstrations intensified. On January 18, 1792, an attack was made on the Columbia—mainly a demonstration of force, it included profuse verbal declarations or, as Boit described them, “a most hideous hooping . . ., and at every shout they seem’d to come nearer.” One of the Americans saw “many large Canoes off the entrance of the Cove.” All hands were brought to arms in preparation to repel an attack. “After this,” Boit writes, “no more of the Natives visited Adventure Cove, except some old women and young girls, who brought us berries and fish—and most probable they was sent as spies.”¹³⁷

We may imagine that Gray’s destruction of Opitsat, described by Boit, was designed to check the Natives and destroy their military power. It could be classified as a reprisal combined with a pre-emptive raid, and was a premediated act, not done in a fit of anger or fear. New Englanders were old hands at this sort of “forest diplomacy.” So here we have a plausible motivation for Gray, and this incident is corroborated. Haswell also writes that on February 20 there were 2,000 well-armed men in Opitsat village. Informants said the Opitsat men intended to attack the “Highskaht” (presumably the Hesquiaht), but Haswell and others regarded this as a pretext—their real intent was to attack the Americans.¹³⁸

Searching further, examining the various narrative and journals of Captain George Vancouver’s visit to the Northwest Coast, I found a general description given by Captain Gray on April 29, 1792, that is 33 days after the Opitsat event, as to why the Americans might be moved to such an act of revenge. This is to be found in the journal of Archibald Menzies, surgeon and naturalist in Vancouver’s expedition.

As mentioned earlier, on the 29th Vancouver sent Menzies and Puget in a boat across to the Columbia to determine what Gray knew about the prospects of a northwest passage. After expressing his astonishment at Meares’ claim that he had discovered such a seaway, Gray turned to the matter of Clayoquot Sound. My opinion is that it was a matter of some consideration to the American captain, otherwise he would not have mentioned it.

Here is what Menzies recalled of the conversation:

"

He further informd us that in his present Voyage he had been 9 months on the Coast & winterd at Cloiquot a district a little to the Eastward of Nootka where he built a small sloop which was at this time employd in collecting Furs to the Northward about Queen Charlotte’s Isles—That in the winter the Natives of Cloiquat calling to their aid 3 or 4 other Tribes collected in the number of upwards of three thousand to attack his Vessel, but their premeditated schemes being discovered to him by a Native of the Sandwich Islands he had on board whom the Chiefs had attempted to sway over to their diabolic plots in soliciting him to wet the locks & priming of the Musquets & Guns before they boarded. By this means he was fortunately enabled by timely precautions to frustrate their horrid stratagems at the very moment they had assembled to execute them.¹³⁹

"

An echo of this is to be found in Vancouver’s published narrative. It is clear that Gray intended that Vancouver should be warned of the warlike propensities of the Nuu-chah-nulth.

Menzies’ recounting of the meeting with Captain Gray just after the event is as close as we will get to confirming this matter. Gray’s view was that his vessel was going to be attacked by a large number of Natives gathered from various locations. A sailor’s first instinct is to save his ship, and thus Gray sent Boit to put the matter out of all contention. Gray did not mention the Opitsat matter directly. Or if he did, Menzies and Puget did not take note of it. But what Gray did say seems like an epitome of his feelings about the whole matter. It is close to being the corroborative evidence we have been seeking. If he ordered the village’s destruction, it was part of a general reprisal against the gathering of warriors intent on attacking the American ships. In Gray’s thinking, the second (the Native attack) would be more important than the first (his own attack on the village).

Thus, in conclusion, I would not, as Dr. Lane did, say that Boit’s written appreciation of the episode lacked credibility; only that it stands nakedly alone. It is true that Gray did not tell Menzies and Puget that Opitsat had been destroyed, but what he did tell them could explain why he destroyed the village, if he did.

One last and illuminating point from an outside source. In the journal of Charles Bishop, captain of the British trading vessel Ruby, we have an insightful explanation of Wickaninnish’s possible motivation for approaching the Americans at Adventure Cove so boldly and so often. This occurred three years after that violent year of 1792. When Bishop met Wickaninnish, the chief gave the captain two otter skins, and in return received a beautiful greatcoat and a hat. The preliminaries had been accomplished. Bishop then purchased a good many furs from that chief. Now came a twist in the story, unique in trading annals of this coast. Wickaninnish, to the captain’s surprise, demanded to buy the Ruby, for which he would procure the necessary furs. He even suggested that Bishop and his crew could sail to China with an American snow—that is, the Columbia, which had gone into the cove to clean her bottom before clearing the coast for the voyage to China. Sale of the Ruby was impossible, naturally, for Captain Bishop did not own the vessel. Discussions continued, involving two brothers of the chief. Bishop took down these details of what Wickaninnish was hoping for: a schooner-rigged vessel, 54 feet in length and 16 feet in beam, mounting six carriage guns and complete with gig or whaleboat.¹⁴⁰ Such a vessel was never forthcoming, it is true. But the point is this: Wickaninnish wanted to keep his ascendancy, and possessing his own sailing vessel—his own instrument of sea power—would be advantageous to his wealth, power and position. Here is exhibited Wickaninnish’s acumen at business and his foresight. Having a schooner would also bring the Clayoquot people greater power and prestige, plus commercial benefits.

This is a possible, and I think likely, explanation for the attempted seizure of the Columbia.

In any event, the Opitsat episode did not halt the trade: in later years American ships arrived and departed—for example, the Hope in the summer of 1792; the Jefferson, which wintered 1793–1794; and the Union in 1795. “Thereafter,” writes Mary Malloy, “the decline in sea otters led to a decreasing trade.”¹⁴¹