X PEEFACE. 



A word may be added respecting the period of these explora- 

 tions. The year 1820 marked a time of much activity in geogra- 

 phical discovery in the United States, The treaty of Ghent, a 

 few years before, had relieved the frontiers from a most sanguinary 

 Indian war. This event enlarged the region for settlement, and 

 created an intense desire for information respecting the new 

 countries. Government had, indeed, at an earlier period, shown 

 a disposition to aid and encourage discoveries. The feeling on 

 this subject cannot be well understood, without allusion to the 

 name of John Ledyard. This intrepid traveller had accompanied 

 Captain Cook on his last voyage round the world. In 1786, he 

 presented himself to Mr. Jefferson, the American minister at Paris, 

 with a plan of extensive explorations. He proposed to set out 

 from St. Petersburg, and, passing through Russia and Tartary to 

 Behring's Straits, to traverse the north Pacific to Oregon, and 

 thence cross the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri Valley.* Mr. 

 Jefferson communicated the matter to the Russian plenipotentiary 

 at Paris — and to the Baron Grimm, the confidential agent of the 

 Empress Catherine — through whose influence he received the re- 

 quired passports. He proceeded on this adventure, and had reached 

 within two hundred miles of Kamschatka, where he was arrested, 

 and taken back, in a close carriage, to Moscow, and thence con- 

 ducted to the frontiers of Poland. On reaching London, the 

 African Association selected him to make explorations in the 

 direction of the Niger. Reaching Egypt, he proceeded up the 

 Nile to Cairo, where, having completed his preparations for en- 

 tering the interior of Africa, he sickened and died, in the month of 

 November, 1788. — Life of Ledyard^ Sparks's Amer. Biog. vol. xvi. 



The suggestion of Ledyard to explore Oregon became the germ 

 of the voyages of Lewis and Clark. It appears that, in 1792, Mr. 

 Jefferson proposed the subject to the American Philosophical 

 Society at Philadelphia. -" It is not known that its action resulted 

 in anything practical. After Mr. Jefferson himself, however, came 

 to the presidency, in 1801, he called the attention of Congress to 

 the matter. Louisiana had been acquired, under his auspices, in 

 1803, which furnished a strong public reason for its exploration. 

 To conduct it, he selected his private secretary and relative, Mer- 



* Lewis and Clark. 



