On May 19, 1792, the British sloop-of-war Discovery drops anchor between Bainbridge and Blake islands. The following morning, Capt. George Vancouver (1757-1798) dispatches Lt. Peter Puget and Master Joseph Whidbey to conduct a detailed survey of the waters to the south. This is the first penetration of "Puget's Sound" by white men.

Lt. Puget shoved off at 4 a.m. on May 20 in a launch, escorted by Whidbey in a cutter, on a six-day tour of the southern sound. The Vancouver expedition charted and named numerous landmarks, including Mt. Rainier (for British Admiral Peter Rainier), Whidbey Island, Hood Canal, and of course, Puget Sound (which originally denoted only the waters south of Bainbridge Island). Contacts with the natives were cordial if mutually wary, and legend maintains that a very young Chief Seattle (178?-1866) witnessed Vancouver's arrival on Puget Sound.

Although anchored directly across from the future city of Seattle and King County, Vancouver evinced no interest in the area. His goals were much bigger: to discover the fabled Northwest Passage linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and to fly the Union Jack in waters that were attracting ships from Spain and from the newly independent United States of America.

Vancouver died in England on May 10, 1798, while preparing the report on his expedition.

Puget and Whidbey's Trip was very productive, and bode well for future settlement.

About four miles up the western (Whidbey) side of the passage, they noted a village with numerous inhabitants. In keeping with Vancouver’s orders to avoid landing near large numbers of people, they crossed to the Camano side, but were nevertheless met by several hundred people, who received them in a friendly manner. Some families were in canoes, others were walking on the shore, and Whidbey reported they had with them "about forty dogs in a drove, shorn close to the skin like sheep" (Meany, 162).

The next day, having sailed another nine miles up Saratoga Passage, the British landed on Whidbey Island. The people there were also very friendly, presenting the exploring party with water, roasted roots, dried fish, and other food. Although they appeared never to have seen Europeans, being surprised at the color of Whidbey’s skin, they had some European artifacts that they had evidently acquired in trade. When one of the British boats ran aground, the village leader organized his people to help push it off. At the top of Saratoga Passage, Whidbey turned east to explore what is now Skagit Bay. He found navigation difficult, and at this time failed to find the narrow passage separating Whidbey Island from Fidalgo Island.

The British returned to Whidbey Island, where they again met the friendly villagers, and explored a large cove opening west into the island, which Vancouver named Penn’s Cove and is today called Penn Cove. Whidbey found deserted villages on both points at the entrance to the cove. Despite this, Whidbey found the passage he was exploring to be more populous than any other area of Puget Sound the expedition had seen, estimating it had some 600 inhabitants. Vancouver’s journals record that throughout the region there were burial sites, deserted villages and few living inhabitants, evidence of the small pox epidemics that had been devastating Indian inhabitants of the region.