merchantmen during the decade of brilliant achievement following
the Revolution was that of Captain Robert Gray in the Columbia,
which was the first ship to visit and explore the northwest coast
and to lead the way for such adventurers as Richard Cleveland and
Amasa Delano. On his second voyage in 1792, Captain Gray
discovered the great river he christened Columbia and so gave to
the United States its valid title to that vast territory which
Lewis and Clark were to find after toiling over the mountains
thirteen years later.



CHAPTER VI. "FREE TRADE AND SAILORS' RIGHTS"

When the first Congress under the new Federal Constitution
assembled in 1789, a spirit of pride was manifested in the swift
recovery and the encouraging growth of the merchant marine,
together with a concerted determination to promote and protect it
by means of national legislation. The most imperative need was a
series of retaliatory measures to meet the burdensome navigation
laws of England, to give American ships a fair field and no
favors. The Atlantic trade was therefore stimulated by allowing a
reduction of ten per cent of the customs duties on goods imported
in vessels built and owned by American citizens. The East India
trade, which already employed forty New England ships, was
fostered in like manner. Teas brought direct under the American
flag paid an average duty of twelve cents a pound while teas in
foreign bottoms were taxed twenty-seven cents. It was sturdy
protection, for on a cargo of one hundred thousand pounds of
assorted teas from India or China, a British ship would pay