Although, however, the discovery of this river was so essentially imperfect, being attended by no exploration, as hardly to warrant the admission of it into charts which professed to be well authenticated, still its existence was believed upon the evidence which Heceta's report furnished, and as subsequent examination has confirmed its existence, the Spaniards seem warranted in claiming the credit of the discovery for their countryman.
No further notice of this supposed river occurs until Meares' voyage in the Felice, in 1788. Meares, according to his published narrative, reached the bay of the river on July 6th, and steered into it, with every expectation of finding there, according to the Spanish accounts, a good port. In this hope, however, he was disappointed, as breakers were observed, as he approached, extending across the bay. He in consequence gave to the northern headland the name of Cape Disappointment, and to the bay itself the title of Deception Bay. "We can now with safety assert," he writes, "that no such river as that of Saint Roc exists, as laid down in the Spanish charts." Meares had been led from these charts to expect that he should find a place of shelter for his ship at the mouth of this river, and Heceta, in his plan, upon which the Spanish charts were based, had supposed that there was a port there formed by an island: so that, as "it blew very strong in the offing, and a great westerly swell tumbled in on the land," it was not surprising that Meares should have concluded, from there being no opening in the breakers, that there was no such port, and therefore no such river.
There can be no doubt that the locality of the bay which Meares reconnoitred was the locality of the Ensenada de Heceta; and on the other hand it cannot be gainsayed, that Meares was right in concluding that there was _no such river_ as that of St. Roque, as laid down in the Spanish charts, for the context of Meares' narrative explains the meaning of the word "such." Meares states beforehand, that they were in expectation that the distant land beyond the promontory would prove to be "the Cape St. Roque of the Spaniards, near which they _were said to have found a good port_." The river, then, of St. Roque, such as it was laid down in Spanish charts, was a river "near which was a good port," and the disappointment which Meares handed down to posterity by the name which he gave to the promontory, was that of _not obtaining a place of shelter for his vessel_. Meares, it must be remembered, was not in search of the Straits of Anian. He had already in the previous month of June ascertained the existence of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, which he supposed might be one of the passages into Hudson's Bay: but he was in search of some harbour or port, where the ship could remain in safety, while the boats might be employed in exploring the coast. (Voyage, p. 166.) Such a harbour indeed Deception Bay most assuredly does not supply, and though Baker's Bay within the bar of the river affords on the north side a good and secure anchorage, yet, as Lieut. Broughton subsequently ascertained, "the heavy and confused swell that rolls in over the shallow entrance, and breaks in three fathoms water, renders the place between Baker's Bay and Chinock Point a very indifferent roadstead."