ADDRESS. 77 



officer, are invested with all the powers the laws give in such a 

 case. 



"As your movements, while within the limits of the United 

 States, will be better directed by occasional communications, 

 adapted to circumstances as they arise, they will not be noticed 

 here. What follows will respect your proceedings after your 

 departure from the United States. 



"Your mission has been communicated to the ministers here 

 from France, Spain, and Great Britain, and through them to their 

 governments; and such assurances given them as to its objects, 

 as we trust will satisfy them. The country of Louisiana having 

 been ceded by Spain to France, the passports you have from the 

 minister of France, the representative of the present sovereign of 

 the country, will be a protection with all its subjects; and that 

 from the minister of England will entitle you to the friendly aid 

 of any traders of that allegiance with whom you may happen to 

 meet. 



"The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, 

 and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communica- 

 tion with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, 

 Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct 

 and practicable water communication across the continent, for the 

 purposes of commerce. 



" Beginning at the mouth of the Missouri, you will take obser- 

 vations of latitude and longitude, at all remarkable points on the 

 river, and especially at the mouths of rivers, at rapids, at islands, 

 and other places and objects distinguished by such natural marks 

 and characters, of a durable kind, as that they may with certainty 

 be recognised hereafter. The courses of the river between these 

 points of observation may be supplied by the compass, the log- 

 line, and by time, corrected by the observations themselves. The 

 variations of the needle, too, in different places should be noticed. 



"The interesting points of the portage between the heads of the 



