[June, 1792.]

[Original Journal, Page 170.]

GIA; in honor of His present Majesty. This branch of Admiralty inlet obtained the name of POSSESSION Sound; its western arm, after Vice Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, I distinguished by the name of PORT GARDNER, and its smaller eastern one by that of PORT SUSAN.

of her wedding to the day of the king's first illness she had never known a day of real sorrow. This illness was a mental malady, developing periods of insanity. During his last nine years this malady was constant, and added to it was that of blindness. In perfect darkness he was led about the palace or its gardens, waiting for the call to rest which came on January 29, 1820.

Vancouver was a sailor. He was no politician. In selecting the names of great men to be honored during his explorations, he chose friends and enemies of the king with reckless impartiality. In one sense this was inevitable if he honored those great men at all. In his struggle with ministries the king had alternately loved and hated, trusted and suspected, almost every one of the great men of his realm. Take, for example, Lord Grenville, whose name Vancouver gave to that magnificent headland on the western coast of the State of Washington. George III trusted Grenville's father, but, as minister, he scolded and lectured the king about his stubborn blundering until George III hated him. But Grenville was powerful and was eventually called back to office. The king struggled against that necessity and petulantly declared, "I would rather see the devil in my closet than George Grenville." The son of this man was also suspected and then trusted, raised to the peerage, and made prime minister. Contrasted with this is the case of the Earl of Bute, whom the ministers hated and opposed as the king's favorite. Vancouver honored him also by naming in his honor Bute Canal, now Bute Inlet.

The portrait used in this work is Number 223 in the National Portrait Gallery. It is the work of Allan Ramsay, a Scottish portrait painter, son of the poet of the same name. Fortunately, the portrait of Queen Charlotte is by the same artist, as is also the one of the Earl of Bute. Evidently all three were painted in the same palace, for the same Corinthian pillar appears in each, suggesting the similarity of background found in a series of photographs made in a gallery of the present day. The setting, the artist, and all suggest also the time when Bute was a prime favorite of the king.

Sir Alan Gardner. This is one of the names that is loved and respected by British seamen everywhere. It is a matter of regret that the name Port Gardner is gradually disappearing from the geographies of Puget Sound. Originally Vancouver applied it to the waterway extending from Deception Pass to Possession Sound, or the present site of Everett. Now that waterway is charted as Saratoga Passage and occasionally we see the name Port Gardner applied to the bay of Everett. At this rate it will be the matter of but a few years when Port Gardner will be extinct as a geographic term.

Not so is the name of Port Susan as applied to the waterway between Camano Island and the mainland. Alan has been dismissed, but the geographers have remained constant to Susan. For more than a century Vancouver's curt and brief honor to Susan has proved a baffling enigma. It has often been suggested that Susan was the sweetheart in England whom Vancouver did not live long enough to wed. The mystery is cleared away, however, when it is learned that Captain Alan Gardner, while serving in the West Indies, met, wooed, and wed a widow and heiress at Jamaica in 1769. Her name was Susanna Hyde Turner. Vancouver had served under Gardner and the latter recommended Vancouver, who had just returned with him from the West Indies, to be second in command of the proposed expedition under Captain Henry Roberts. This was the very expedition of which Vancouver was later given the chief command. Then it was that Gardner as one of the Lords of the Admiralty signed his "Additional Instructions" for his great voyage. Therefore, when he named one port after Admiral Gardner, he named the other after the admiral's esteemed lady.

Alan Gardner, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Gardner of the Eleventh Dragoon Guards, was born at Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, on April 12, 1742. Like most of the British naval heroes, he entered service at a tender age, joining the Medway, under Captain Peter Denis, in May, 1755. In January, 1758, he followed Captain Denis into the Dorsetshire and was present at the battle of Quiberon Bay. He was promoted to be lieutenant of the Bellona, still under Denis, but he remained with that ship after she passed to the command of Captain Faulknor. He took part in the capture of the Courageux on August 14, 1761.

On April 12, 1762, he was promoted to be commander of the Raven fireship. On May 17, 1766, he was advanced to post rank and given command of the Preston. In her he went to Jamaica as flagship of Rear-Admiral Parry. In 1768 he was removed to the Levant frigate, which he commanded on the same station until 1771. It was while in command of this frigate that he married Susan.

In 1775 he received command of the Maidstone of twenty-eight guns, and was again sent to the West Indies. In 1778 he was sent to join Lord Howe on the North American coast, and carried the first news of the approach of the French fleet. On November 3, 1778, he captured a French merchantship, which he carried with him to Antigua. He was then appointed to the Sultan of seventy-four guns, and had a share in the battle of Grenada on July 6, 1779. In 1781, in the Duke of ninety-eight guns, he accompanied Sir George Rodney to the West Indies and took part in the victory of April, 1782.

After the peace of 1783 he returned to England, but in 1786 he went again to the West Indies as commander-in-chief. His flag as commodore was in the Europa. During part of this time the captain of his flagship was James Vashon, and during the whole of the cruise one of his midshipmen was Peter Puget.

He returned to England in 1787 and was appointed to a seat at the Board of Admiralty in January, 1790, which he held until March, 1795. During the famous Spanish Armament in 1790 he commanded the Courageux for a short time. In February, 1793, having been appointed Rear-Admiral, he went once more to the West Indies with a large squadron, his own flag being in the Queen. This expedition against the French colonies was a failure, through lack of troops to cooperate with the navy. On returning to England he was attached to the grand fleet under Lord Howe and took part in the battle of June 1, 1794, when the loss of the battleship Queen proved a severe matter. However, for his share in this action, Gardner was created a Baronet, and on July 4, 1794, was advanced to the grade of Vice-Admiral. Vancouver evidently took it for granted that the advance was due to arrive, for he uses that as Gardner's rank in 1792. Gardner was again with the fleet under Lord Bridfort, but had little share in the action of June 23, 1795, off Lorient.

During this time Gardner was also a member of Parliament, being elected in 1790 for Plymouth, which seat he held until 1796, when he was elected for Westminster.

At the time of the mutiny at Spithead, in April, 1797, Gardner had his flag in the Royal Sovereign. He had a conference with the delegates on board the Queen Charlotte, in which Gardner lost his temper. He seized one of the delegates by the collar and threatened to have him and his companions hanged. The admiral with difficulty escaped from the human tempest stirred up by his hasty threat.

He was promoted to be Admiral of the Blue on February 14, 1799, and in August, 1800, was appointed Commander-in-Chief on the coast of Ireland. In December, 1800, he was created a peer of Ireland, with the title of Baron Gardner. He was still being returned to Parliament by Westminster until he was transferred to the upper House by being raised in 1806 to the peerage of the United Kingdom, with the title of Baron Gardner of Uttoxeter.

In 1807 he was appointed to command the Channel Fleet, but his health was failing. He resigned his command in 1808, and on January 1, 1809, he died.

CHAPTER IX

WORK AROUND BELLINGHAM BAY AND THE GULF OF GEORGIA, NOW CALLED WASHINGTON SOUND

[Original Journal, Pages 171-172, Book II,

Chapter VII.]

[June, 1792.]

A LIGHT breeze springing up from the N. W. about seven in the morning of Tuesday the 5th of June, we sailed down Possession sound. This wind brought with it, as usual, serene and pleasant weather. Whilst we were passing gently on, the chief, who had shown so much friendly attention to Mr. Whidbey and his party, with several of his friends came on board, and presentd us with some fruit and dried fish. He entered the ship with some reluctance, but was no sooner on deck than he seemed perfectly reconciled; and with much inquisitive earnestness regarded the surrounding objects, the novelty of which seemed to fill his mind with surprise and admiration. The unaffected hospitable attention he had shewn our people, was not likely upon this occasion to be forgotten. After he had visited the different parts of the ship, at which he expressed the greatest astonishment, I presented him and his friends with an assortment of such things as they esteemed to be most valuable; and then they took their leave, seemingly highly pleased with their recep

tion.

The N. W. wind was unfavorable after we were clear of Possession sound, and obliged us to work to windward, which discovered to us a shoal lying in a bay, just to the westward of the north point of entrance into the sound, a little distance from the shore. It shews itself above the water, and is discoverable by the soundings gradually decreasing to ten, seven, and five fathoms, and cannot be considered as any material impediment to the navigation of the bay. As the ebb-tide was greatly in our favor, I did not wait to examine

(June, 1792.]

[Original Journal, Pages 172-173.]

it further, but continued plying to windward until midnight, when being unable to gain any ground against the strength of the flood, we anchored in 22 fathoms water about half a mile from the western shore of Admiralty inlet, and about half way between Oak cove and Marrowstone point; the Chatham having anchored before us some distance astern.

The ebb again returned at the rate of about three miles per hour; but as it was calm we did not move until the N. W. wind set in about seven in the morning of Wednesday the 6th, when we worked out of the inlet.

Having reached its entrance, we were met by several canoes from the westward. Some of the headmost, when they had advanced near to the ship made signs of peace, and came alongside, giving us to understand that their friends behind wished to do the same, and requested we would shorten sail for that purpose. They seemed very solicitous to dissuade us from proceeding to the northward by very vociferous and vehement arguments; but as their language was completely unintelligible, and their wishes not appertaining to the object of our pursuit, so far as we were enabled to comprehend their meaning, we treated their advice with perfect indifference, on which they departed, joined the rest of their countrymen, and proceeded up Admiralty inlet, whose north point, called by me POINT PARTRIDGE, is situated in latitude 48° 16', longitude 237° 31', and is formed by a high white sandy cliff, having one of the verdant lawns on either side of it. Passing at the distance of about a mile from this point we very suddenly came on a small space of ten fathoms water, but immediately again increased our depth to 20 and 30 fathoms. After advancing a few miles along the eastern shore of the gulf, we found no effect either from the ebb or flood tide, and the wind being light and variable from the northward, at

Point Partridge. It is probable that this name came from seeing there a pheasant or a grouse, or something that reminded them of a partridge. No individual bearing that name was listed with either the Discovery or the Chatham. If the name were that of some friend at home, the fact would likely be mentioned.