Sea of Glory

Strait of Juan de Fuca and down the coast, he drew up the necessary orders. Then, of course, there was the matter of the survey of the Columbia River, which he assumed Hudson and his officers would have already begun by the time he reached the bar.
     
    On August 6, Hudson received word in Astoria of Wilkes’s arrival at the bar. That evening, after the Flying Fish delivered him to the Vincennes, Hudson had a long talk with the Expedition’s leader. In his official report, Wilkes would have nothing but praise for his second-in-command’s handling of the cruise to the Central Pacific, even finding no fault with Hudson’s conduct during the wreck of the Peacock. In his journal, however, he would record his frustrations. It was Hudson’s inability to prioritize the Expedition’s goals that truly rankled him. “[S]uch a waste of force, time and object,” he wrote, “I would not have believed it.” Wilkes had vowed to himself that he would not allow his dissatisfaction with Hudson’s performance to interfere with their friendship, but future events would make it a difficult promise to keep.
    Given what had happened to the Peacock, Wilkes decided it was too much of a risk to bring the Vincennes across the bar. Instead, he would use the Porpoise during the survey of the river while Ringgold sailed the Vincennes to San Francisco Bay, where the squadron would reconvene once the survey had been completed. The next morning Knox was temporarily transferred to the Porpoise to act as her pilot, leaving Reynolds in command of the Flying Fish for the first time in the Expedition. The schooner was to follow the brig across the bar, and both vessels were to sail to Astoria. For a twenty-five-year-old passed midshipman, this was a position of considerable responsibility, especially since it involved negotiating the waters of one of the world’s most dangerous rivers. Making the assignment all the more tension-filled was that Reynolds had a considerable audience; the Flying Fish had been crammed with sailors from the Vincennes. Luckily, he had the help of George, the one-eyed Chinook pilot.
    They made it safely across the bar, but with all the people aboard, the little schooner was so weighted down that she was having a difficult time keeping up with the brig, which soon disappeared in the mist up ahead. Then George, with a broad grin stretched across his face, tapped Reynolds on the shoulder. There was the Porpoise, aground beside a sandbank. “George was much elated . . . ,” Reynolds wrote. “[A]s we passed near to the Brig I sent the Launch to her assistance, & I chuckled as much as George did, to find myself sailing ahead of the grand Commodore.”
    As they approached Astoria, the sun began to show through the clouds. Although Astoria was the oldest nonnative settlement in the region, the trading post had fallen on hard times. Fort Vancouver (not far from modern Portland) had become the trading center on the river, reducing Astoria (renamed Fort George by the British) to just a few permanent structures. For Americans, however, Astoria—recently popularized in a best-selling book by Washington Irving—was visible proof of the impressive breadth of American mercantile ambitions. “It did certainly hurt my eyes to see the red banner of England flying over our possessions,” Reynolds wrote, “and I do most devoutly trust that the day will soon come for it to be struck in [this] region forever.”
    In the last few days, an inspiring change had come to Astoria. The officers and men of the Peacock had been busy erecting a collection of crude buildings that included a barbershop, a ninepin alley, and a bakery. Reynolds could see the houses “spread over the sunny side of the hill, with the big ensign of the Peacock, waving over the largest shantee.” With considerable pride, Reynolds guided the Flying Fish into the anchorage. “And so I had the honor of anchoring the first public vessel of the United States, in the waters of this famous place.”
    Wilkes soon discovered that Hudson had done virtually nothing when it came to furthering the survey of the river. It also became apparent that the Peacock ’s officers and men had not yet recovered from the trauma they’d experienced at the bar. “I at once inaugurated the strictest discipline,” Wilkes wrote, “and with all my energies thrown into the work, I soon made an impression upon them.”
    They began at Bakers Bay just inside the bar. One evening early on in