Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/334

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284 F. W. HOWAY

the Washington left Nootka in the latter end of Septem- ber, that afterwards she went up de Fonti's Strait (He- cate Strait) and passing thro' a Sea came out at the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Kendrick named the Island formed by these Straits, Washington," etc., etc. 15 Fur- thermore Kendrick, on this trading voyage, visited Bar- rell Sound (Houston Stewart Channel), which separates Prevost Island from Moresby Island, in the Queen Char- lotte Islands group. There he had a difficulty with the Indians. Accounts of the trouble are to be found in Ingraham's Journal, Hoskins' Narrative, and Boit's Log of the Columbia. The version I give is that of his friend Hoskins. In order to obtain some clothing that had been stolen from the sloop, Kendrick seized Koyah and an- other chief and bound them to his guns, placing one leg of each in the barrels and making pretense of prepara- tions to discharge the guns and blow the chiefs to atoms. Seeing their leaders in such imminent peril, the Indians produced the stolen articles. Kendrick then, knowing as he says that all chance of further trade had vanished, required as a condition of their release that all the skins in the village be brought on board. This order was obeyed ; he paid for them at the regular trade price, and the Washington sailed away. Out of this episode arose a serious and tragic affair when Kendrick, two years later, returned to Barrell Sound.

At the Hawaiian Islands on his route to China his observant eye caught a glimpse of sandalwood; at once he saw a vision of wealth ; and he left three men to col- lect a quantity against his return. In this case it seems plain that Kendrick sowed, but reaped not ; he must how- ever be recognized as the founder of the sandalwood trade. When Ingraham in May 1791 enquired about these men he was told that two of them had tired of the


15 Report of the Provincial Archives Department of British Columbia for 1913, Victoria, 1914, p. 31.