Robert Gray had set sail from Boston for the northwest coast again in the Columbia on September 28, 1790, reaching his destination in 1792.

Gray and John Kendrick had rejoined each other for a time, after Gray's return to the region.

On this voyage Gray, though he is still a private merchant, is sailing under papers of the United States of America signed by President George Washington.

Gray had put in at Nootka Sound on June 5, 1791, and wintered at a stockade his crew built and named Fort Defiance.

Over this winter, the crew has built a forty-five-ton sloop named Adventure, which is launched in the spring with Gray’s first mate, Robert Haswell, in charge.

He sails as far north as the Queen Charlotte Islands during this voyage.

Gray and the Columbia sail south once April comes, while the Adventure sails north.

After wintering on Vancouver Island, Gray sets sail again on April 2, 1792 when he leaves the trading post of Clayoquot.

As he departs, Gray orders the destruction of the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) village of Opitsitah (Opitsaht).

The attack is in retaliation for insults he thought he had endured and in response to rumors of a plot against his men, conceived by some local natives and a Sandwich Islander of his own crew.

The plot may have been real, but might equally have been a misunderstanding.

The village of Opitsaht, which consists of about two hundred houses with much carved work—a "fine village, the Work of Ages", according to Gray's officer John Boit, is "in a short time totally destroy'd".

Fortunately, it is deserted at the time.

John Boit, the keeper of his own ship's log, writes that Gray had let his passions go too far. (In 2005, descendants of Gray will formally apologize for the destruction of Opitsaht.)