"There is a rich harvest to be reaped by those who are on the ground first out there," remarked Joseph Barrell. Then the thing was to be on the ground first--that {212} was the unanimous decision of the shrewd-headed men gathered in Bulfinch's study. [Illustration: Charles Bulfinch.] The sequence was that Charles Bulfinch and the other five at once formed a partnership with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, divided into fourteen shares, for trade on the Pacific. This was ten years before Lewis and Clark reached the Columbia, almost twenty years before Astor had thought of his Pacific Company. The Columbia, a full-rigged two-decker, two hundred and twelve tons and eighty-three feet long, mounting {213} ten guns, which had been built fourteen years before on Hobart's Landing, North River, was immediately purchased. But a smaller ship to cruise about inland waters and collect furs was also needed; and for this purpose the partners bought the _Lady Washington_, a little sloop of ninety tons. Captain John Kendrick of the merchant marine was chosen to command the _Columbia_, Robert Gray, a native of Rhode Island, who had served in the revolutionary navy, a friend of Kendrick's, to be master of the _Lady Washington_. Kendrick was of middle age, cautious almost to indecision; but Gray was younger with the daring characteristic of youth. In order to insure a good reception for the ships, letters were obtained from the federal government to foreign powers. Massachusetts furnished passports; and the Spanish minister to the United States gave letters to the viceroy of New Spain. Just how the information of Boston plans to intrude on the Pacific coast was received by New Spain may be judged by the confidential commands at once issued from Santa Barbara to the Spanish officer at San Francisco: "_Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San Francisco, a ship named the Columbia said to belong to General Wanghington (Washington) of the American States, under command of John Kendrick which sailed from Boston in September 1787 bound on a voyage of Discovery and of Examination of the Russian Establishments on the Northern Coast of this Peninsula, you {214} will cause said vessel to be secured together with her officers and crew._"