In 1830, the British ship _Isabel_ was lost on Sand Island--the second known to have been wrecked on the bar, or in attempting to enter the river. The crew were all saved, and it was the opinion of the company at Vancouver that, had the crew remained with the ship, no great loss would have been sustained. In 1832, Captain Bonneville, of the United States army, on furlough, started, with over one hundred men, on an expedition into the Rocky Mountains. He crossed the mountains, and reached the Wallawalla Valley, on the Columbia River; but, through the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company, his men were nearly all induced to leave him, so that he was obliged to abandon his property, and his expedition was a total failure, except the little scientific knowledge of the country gained by it. To charge the failure of Captain Bonneville directly to the Hudson's Bay Company would not be strictly true; but their great influence over the Indians was sufficient to prevent them from furnishing his party with food or horses, while he was within reach of their forts. Hence, many of his men became dissatisfied, and left him, till his party became too weak to effect their return to the States with their valuable furs and property. These eventually were lost, or fell into the hands of the Indians, and through them, his furs reached the Hudson's Bay traders' establishments. This same year, 1832, Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, of Massachusetts, started on an exploring expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River, with a view of establishing a permanent trade in the Oregon country. He traveled across the continent and gathered all the information requisite for the undertaking, and returned to Boston in 1833; and in 1834, having completed his arrangements, chartered the brig _May Dacre_, and dispatched her with his own, and the goods of the Methodist Mission, for the Columbia River.