128 CORRESPONDENCE. 



' 

 NEAR PROSPECT HILL, VA., May I, 1836. 



DEAR SIR You ask my opinion with regard to the number and 

 description of vessels most proper to ensure a successful prose- 

 cution of the voyage of exploration authorized by a recent act of 

 congress. 



To answer your inquiries satisfactorily, I ought, perhaps, to ask 

 what are the leading objects of the expedition ? Judging from the 

 report of the senate's committee, where the bill originated ; from 

 the tenour of debate on that bill in both branches of the national 

 legislature ; from the discussion of the subject in the public prints 

 for the last ten years ; and from my own observations and reflec 

 tions, I conclude that the objects of the enterprise may be classed 

 under two general heads scientific and military; that is, military 

 so far only as may be necessary for self-preservation and defence 

 against the barbarous, and sometimes ferocious, natives of the 

 countless islands which so thickly stud the most extensive, and 

 perhaps the most interesting field for scientific observation and 

 research that will be visited in the course of the voyage : I allude 

 to the great equatorial sea, stretching from the west coast of 

 America to the Asiatic shores. 



Under the scientific head, we naturally place every branch of 

 natural history, philosophy, and the sciences generally, embracing 

 every denomination and classification recognised by the literati of 

 the present day. These various and most interesting objects ought 

 only to be confided to the care of ivell qualified persons, who have 

 made the department for which they offer themselves the peculiar 

 subject of long study, and with the advantage of competent masters, 



