Adventures of a Sea Hunter_ In Search of Famous Shipwrecks - James P. Delgado [5]
Now, the end of the voyage was in sight. Ryan’s orders were to slowly work Isabella up the Columbia River for no miles to Fort Vancouver, the Pacific coast headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company. There, he would discharge his cargo of trade goods and take on bundles of valuable fur, gathered by trappers and traders, for the return trip to England.
But as Isabella sailed across the bar, Ryan immediately realized that he had made a mistake. The sea surged and rolled over the shallows, picking up the ship and hurtling it towards a patch of broken water. They were not in the channel, but on the bar itself. Then Isabella hit hard at the stern. “She’s not answering the helm,” shouted the mate. Looking over the stern, Ryan saw broken pieces of the rudder swirling in the sea. Without her steering, the ship swung wildly. Waves crashed over the side and filled the deck with masses of water. As each wave rolled over the ship, Isabella pounded hard on the sand. Ryan had to act quickly, or the ship would be lost. Using the sails to catch the wind and steer off the bar was his only chance. But first, the crew had to lighten the ship. Pinned by her heavy cargo, Isabella was slowly sinking into the sand as the waves washed around the hull.
The men set to work, heaving overboard piles of lumber stacked on the deck. With axes, they smashed open the heavy water casks to empty them. Then, laboring in the surging surf, they dumped 30 tons of cargo and stores into the sea, but still Isabella would not budge. As the sun climbed into the sky, Ryan saw that they were stuck fast and pounding hard, and that water was flooding into the hold. He later explained to his superiors that as “there appeared little prospect of saving her and being surrounded by heavy breakers fearing she would drive on shore into them when it would be impossible to save ourselves,” he gave the order to abandon ship. Grabbing what they could, the crew piled into the ship’s two boats and dropped into the sea. “Pull! Pull for your lives!” the mate roared as the boats climbed one breaker, then another, and Isabella disappeared behind them in the towering waves.
The men strained at the oars until the boats at last pulled free of the breakers and flying surf. Wiping the stinging salt water from his eyes, Ryan scanned the horizon. Darkness had fallen, and along the shore, he saw fires blazing up. Some of the men saw them, too, and muttered among themselves. Ryan’s voice, loud and clear, reassured them: “We are strangers in this uncivilized country, and we shall not land, lest we be murdered by the natives.” Just the year before, the Hudson’s Bay Company supply ship William and Ann had wrecked on the Columbia bar, and none of the crew had survived. The headless body of her captain, identified by his blue uniform jacket, had borne mute witness to what the HBC was sure was the savagery of the neighboring Clatsop people. A search of the native village had turned up items from the wreck, and the HBC men had bombarded the Clatsop with cannon fire to punish them for pilfering the wreck.
Watching the fires on the beach, Ryan shivered at the thought of landing and falling into the hands of the Clatsop, having “heard such evil reports of the savage character” of the natives. So Isabella’s crew headed up the river to Fort Vancouver. It took them a full day to reach the fort.
At Fort Vancouver, Ryan and his men reported to Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor, or head of the fort, and the officer in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s activities on the Pacific coast. Tall, with a full head of flowing white hair, McLoughlin represented what was then the most powerful commercial interest on the continent. Chartered in 1670 by King Charles n as the “Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay,” the Hudson’s Bay Company had royal authority to exploit the resources of a vast area that stretched from the shores of Hudson Bay to encompass much of what eventually would become Canada and some of the United States.
The HBC’S first ship on the coast was the 161-ton,