ADDRESS. gl 



them with whom you may be of its efficacy as a preservative 

 from the smallpox, and instruct and encourage them in the use 

 of it. This may be especially done wherever you winter. 



"As it is impossible for us to foresee in what manner you will 

 be received by those people, whether with hospitality or hostility, 

 so is it impossible to prescribe the exact degree of perseverance 

 with which you are to pursue your journey. We value too much 

 the lives of citizens to offer them to probable destruction. Your 

 numbers will be sufficient to secure you against the unauthorized 

 opposition of individuals, or of small parties ; but if a superior 

 force, authorized, or not authorized, by a nation, should be arrayed 

 against your further passage, and inflexibly determined to arrest 

 it, you must decline its further pursuit and return. In the loss of 

 yourselves we should also lose the information you will have ac* 

 quired. By returning safely with that, you may enable us to renew 

 the essay with better calculated means. To your own discretion, 

 therefore, must be left the degree of danger you may risk, and the 

 point at which you should decline, only saying, we wish you to 

 err on the side of your safety, and to bring back your party safe, 

 even if it be with less information. 



"As far up the Missouri as the white settlements extend, an 

 intercourse will probably be found to exist between them and the 

 Spanish ports of St. Louis opposite Cahokia, or St. Genevieve 

 opposite Kaskaskia. From still further up the river, the traders 

 may furnish a conveyance for letters. Beyond that, you may 

 perhaps be able to engage Indians to bring letters for the govern- 

 ment to Cahokia, or Kaskaskia, on promising that they shall there 

 receive such special compensation as you shall have stipulated 

 with them. Avail yourself of these means to communicate to us, 

 at seasonable intervals, a copy of your journal, notes, and obser- 

 vations of every kind, putting into cypher whatever might do injury 

 if betrayed. 



"Should you reach the Pacific Ocean, inform yourself of the 



11 



