438 LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 



celebrity. As regards the English expeditions, I need not go far- 

 ther back than that of Cook ; and, among the French, to that of 

 Dentrecasteaux. Of what, sir, did the latter consist, and what 

 were the objects it was fitted out to attain ? 



In 1781, as no news had been received of La Peyrouse for three 

 years, " the National Assembly decreed that the king should be 

 desired to arm one or several vessels, in which should be embarked 

 scientific men (savans), naturalists and draughtsmen, and to give 

 the commander the double mission of searching for La Peyrouse, 

 and making, at the same time, researches relative to the sciences 

 and commerce ; in taking all measures in rendering that expedi- 

 tion, independent of the primary object, useful and advantageous 

 to navigation, geography, commerce, and the arts and sciences." 



Nothing like general exploration entered into the plans of this 

 voyage, and yet Dentrecasteaux required of the government two 

 vessels of five hundred tons each. In this mission, acquisitions in 

 geography, commerce, navigation,, and the arts and sciences, were 

 secondary objects ; and yet there were attached to these vessels 

 two astronomers, two hydrographers, five naturalists,, two garden- 

 ers, and two painters. Comparing, then, the limited range marked 

 out for that undertaking with the wide sphere of our present en- 

 terprise, and contrasting the necessary minuteness in scientific 

 research at this day with the far inferior accuracy which con- 

 sisted with the state of science then, you will find that, as re- 

 gards both naval force and the number of scientific observers, 

 you are totally unsustained in your position ; nay, that you must 

 add to rather than subtract from the force of the expedition as 

 already organized. 



Come, sir, let us proceed with the comparisons you have pro- 

 voked, and prepare to stand or fall by the issue. You have used 

 the words "recent voyages," and, for the sake of brevity, I will 

 come down to them. The voyage of Captain Freycinet in the 

 Unanie, from 1817 to 1820, has been greatly and very justly cele- 

 brated. He had a corvette of twenty guns, and one hundred and 

 twenty men, besides officers. Here is a model that suits you ; 

 one to which you have impliedly referred Congress in justification 

 of your present course ; yet you might, with about as much pro- 

 priety, have cited the equipment of Lewis and Clark for their ex- 

 cursion over the Rocky Mountains as a pattern to be followed ia 



