As a result of these voyages, the direct trade between the North Pacific and China fell almost exclusively into the hands of American traders. British merchants were restrained from engaging in it by the opposition of their East India Company. Russian vessels were not admitted into Chinese ports. We find the British explorer, Mackenzie, speaking with much ill-humor about this state of things, which, nevertheless, only goes to prove the energy and skill of American merchants and ship-masters, who, from the first voyages of the "Columbia," were known to the Indians of the north-west coast as Bostons, because these vessels hailed from that port. FOOTNOTES [1] BOTH VESSELS. The "Washington," being a sort of tender to the "Columbia," coasted about Vancouver Island and Straits of Fuca. In pursuance of his instructions, her master bought large tracts of land from native chiefs, from whom he took regular deeds. Copper coins, and medals struck for the purpose, were also given to the natives. Kendrick was the first to collect sandalwood as an article of commerce. [2] THE OWNERS LOST MONEY. "All concerned in that enterprise have sunk fifty per cent of their capital. This is a heavy disappointment to them, as they had calculated, every owner, to make an independent fortune."—_Letter to General H. Knox._ [3] THE COLUMBIA RIVER. The entrance was sighted by Heceta (Spaniard), 1775, who called the northern promontory St. Roque. This name was soon given, on Spanish maps, to a river St. Roque, flowing out into Heceta's inlet, who says, "These eddies of the water caused me to believe that the place is the mouth of some great river." He did not, however, attempt to enter. Captain Meares (1788), in searching for this River St. Roque, ran into the inlet, but, seeing nothing but breakers ahead, left it under the conviction that there was no such river. On this account he called the northern promontory Cape Disappointment. The southern point was named by Gray, Point Adams. THE WEST AT THE OPENING OF THE CENTURY. "_America now attains her majority._" At the close of the Revolutionary War, almost nothing was known in the American colonies about the country lying to the west of the Mississippi. The sources of the Missouri[1] were unknown even to French traders. Nobody knew that a great sister river carried the snows of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, or that the head waters of these two noble streams lay coiled about the feet of the same lofty chain. Where, then, should we locate the West? Possibly central along the eastern base of the Alleghanies, certainly remote at Pittsburg, and perhaps reaching its vanishing-point somewhere about the Dark and Bloody Ground of Kentucky. Among a host of foes civilization stood at bay here, but would take no backward step.