234 T. C Eluott
placed the ship nearly midway between the two capes, I sounded and found bottom in twenty-four brazas (?). The currents and eddies were so strong that notwithstanding a press of sailit was difficult to get out clear of the northern cape toward which the current ran, though its direction was eastward in consequence of the tide being at flood. These currents and eddies caused me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river, or of some passage to another sea." He goes on to say that he was dissuaded from entering the bay by his officers because of inability, with the depleted crew, to anchor and use the long boat to sound the channel. The lateness of the hour of day prevented more extended observa- tion, and it is evident that the ship narrowly escaped being wrecked on Peacock Spit. He charted the entrance as "the Rio de San Roque," lay to at three leagues off the capes and was carried away to the south during the night by the strong ciurents caused, he thought, by the ebb tides out of the river. Thus Bruno Heceta actually discovered the mouth of the Columbia River and now is generally accorded that honor.
Heceta's record, as copied for Greenhow, reads: "sond6 en viente y cuatro brazas," translated "found bottom in twenty- four brazas." The Spanish braza is equivalent to about five feet nine inches and it is not within reason to suppose that Heceta considered himself in danger when in nearly 140 feet of water. He probably intended to record or the translation should be BETWEEN twenty and four brazas, or in twenty TO four brazas.
Thirteen years now elapse until 'an Englishman, Captain John Meares, previously a lieutenant in the British navy, but at the time engaged in the fur trade and in ccnnmand of the Felice, a vessel with two masts square rigged and a gunter mast with spanker, of two hundred and thirty tons burden, and carrying a crew of fifty seamen and artisans, sailed south from Nootka Sound for the express purpose of entering the reported river of San Roque. His acooqnt states that on July 5th, 1788, at 11 :30 AL M., he was off the river in perfectly clear weather
