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* Affidavit of W. H. Gray.

The undersigned was in Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, Oregon, in the month of January, 1837. During my stay at that port of the Hudson’s Bay Company, news came that [Page 170] one of the Company’s vessels, I think it was the Steamer Beaver, had passed Haro Straits, and found it a shorter, deeper, and better channel from the Gulf of Georgia to Victoria than that nearer the main land.Affidavits on the canal de Haro.

I was informed, by the Masters of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s vessels, several of whom I have been well acquainted with since the winter of 1837, that the Haro Channel was the safest and the one they preferred to any other.

From 1858, and onward, I have frequently and invariably passed through the Haro Channel in American and the Company’s steamers, and been assured by all the masters that it was preferable to any other.

As to the question of the Company or British ignorance of the Haro Channel, I verily believe it wholly fictitious, and that it was well known to them as early as 1837, and that the Steamer Beaver had passed and repassed it from Victoria, on Vancouver’s Island, to Fort Langley, on Fraser’s River.

I, W. H. Gray, do solemnly swear that the foregoing statements are true to the best of my knowledge and belief. So help me God.

W. H. GRAY.

[l. s.]
A. VAN DUSEN, Notary Public for Clatsop County, State of Oregon.