crew of the _Imperial Eagle_, under the command of Captain Barclay,[23] who discovered and named in his own honour the Sound so called, were murdered at "Queenhythe,"[24] south of Juan de Fuca Strait, which Barclay was amongst the first to explore, or rather to rediscover. At a later date, namely, in 1805, the _Atahualpa_ of Rhode Island was attacked in Millbank Sound, and her captain, mate, and six seamen were killed. In 1811 the _Tonquin_, belonging to John Jacob Astor's romantic fur-trading adventure, which is so well known from Washington Irving's _Astoria_, was seized by the savages on this coast, and then blown up by M'Kay, the chief trader, with the entire crew and their assailants. The scene of the catastrophe has been stated to be Nootka, but other commentators have fixed upon Barclay Sound, and as late as 1863 an intelligent trader informed me that some ship's timbers, half buried in the sand there, were attributed by the Indians to some disastrous event, which he believed to have been the one in question.[25] I am, however, now inclined to think that in crediting Nahwitti, at the northern end of Vancouver Island, with this notable event in the early history of North-West America,[26] Dr. George Dawson has arrived at the truth. To this day--or until very recently--the Indians of the North-West coast are not accounted very trustworthy, and at the period when I knew them they were suspected of killing several traders and of looting more than one small vessel, acts which earned for them frequent visits from the gunboats at Esquimault, and in several instances the undesirable distinction of having their villages shelled when they refused to give up the offenders--generally a difficult operation, since it meant pretty well the entire village. [Illustration: INDIAN ENCAMPMENT NEAR THE LANDING-STAGE, ESQUIMAULT.] [Sidenote: John Jewitt and the capture of the "Boston" in 1803.]