stripes, and we have need to expand our ideas of our destiny as we have expanded our territory. The present is no time for faint-heartedness in the councils of the Republic.

MODE OF DEFINING WESTERN BOUNDARY.

The western boundary of the vast territory ceded to the United States under the name of Louisiana was a geographical problem, incapable of any other than a forced solution. It was claimed that by the treaty of Utrecht, concluded in 1713, the 49th parallel of latitude had been adopted and definitively settled as the dividing line between the French possessions of Western Canada and Louisiana on the south, and the British territories of Hudson Bay on the north, and that this boundary extended westward to the Pacific. So unreliable was the evidence in support of this claim, that it was finally determined, in the settlement of the western boundary of Louisiana, to adopt such lines as were indicated by nature, namely, the crest of mountains separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the Pacific. This left in an unsettled condition the respective claims of Spain, Russia, Great Britain and the United States to the vast territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, extending along the 42nd parallel of latitude west to the Pacific on the south, thence north up the coast indefinitely, thence east to the crest of the Rocky Mountains, thence following the crest, south, to the place of beginning. Both our country and Great Britain recognized an indefeasible right in Spain to some portion of this country, but our relations with Spain were such at the time, that this opinion was not openly promulgated. The territory included the mouth of the Columbia, the entire region drained by that river and its tributaries, and an extensive region still further north independent of this great river system. The most valuable portion of it at this early period in our history was that traversed by the Columbia and its tributaries.

DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA BY CAPTAIN GRAY.

Great Britain had no right, by discovery or otherwise, to any portion of this part of the territory. "The opening," says Greenhow, "through which its waters are discharged into the ocean was first seen in August, 1776, by the Spanish navigator

Heceta, and was distinguished on Spanish charts within the thirteen years next following, as the mouth of the River San Roque. It was examined in July, 1788, by Meares, who quitted it with the conviction that no river existed there. This opinion of Meares was subscribed, without qualification, by Vancouver, after he had minutely examined the coast, 'under the most favorable conditions of wind and weather,' and notwithstanding the assurance of Gray to the contrary." The actual discovery of the mouth of the Columbia was made on the 11th of May, 1792, by Captain Robert Gray, a New England navigator, who says in his logbook under that date: "Beheld our desired port, bearing east-south-east, distant six leagues. At eight a. m., being a little to the windward of the entrance of the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-north-east between the breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water.

we were over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh water, up which we steered."

Captain Gray remained in the Columbia from the 11th until the 20th of May, during which time he sailed up the river fifteen miles, gave to it the name it still bears, trafficked with the natives, and named the capes at the entrance and other points above.

ATTITUDE OF JEFFERSON.

The United States had this claim to the mouth of the river and the interior drained by it and its tributaries eleven years before the Louisiana Purchase was made. President Jefferson evidently believed that Gray's discovery fully established our claim to all that region, and that it was not embraced within the limits of the territory ceded by Spain to France in 1800 by the treaty of St. Ildephonso:-for in January, 1803, while negotiations with Napoleon were in progress, and three months before the Louisiana treaty was signed, he sent a confidential message to Congress, which resulted in an appropriation by that body of twenty-five hundred dollars for an exploration of the region. No public documents accessible to me at this time throw much light upon this secret or confidential message, but it is probable that the hidden purpose contained in it was privately brought to the notice of a sufficient number of the members of Congress to insure the small appropriation asked

for it. In a letter to Dr. Barton, dated Feb. 27, 1803, Jefferson refers to these "secret proceedings" as follows:

You know we have been many years wishing to have the Missouri explored, and whatever river, heading with that, runs into the Western ocean. Congress, in some secret proceedings, have yielded to a proposition I made them for permitting me to have it done.

That Jefferson desired to enshroud in secrecy the real purpose of this expedition, and conceal it from the knowledge of Great Britain and the Northwest Company, is evident from his suggestions relative to the title of the bill providing for the appropriation, and from the small number of persons he desired to enlist in the enterprise, as well as from other mysterious and covert suggestions contained in this secret message to Congress, from which I here quote. After outlining a project for the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes of the Missouri and the western ocean, he says:

An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the enterprise and willing to undertake it, taken from our posts where they may be spared without inconvenience, might explore the whole line, even to the Western Ocean, have conference with the natives on the subject of commercial intercourse, * * and return with the information acquired in the course of two summers. * * Their pay would be going on while here or there. While other civilized nations have encountered great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by undertaking voyages of discovery and for other literary purposes, in various parts and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, as well as to its own interests, to explore this only line of easy communication across the continent, and so directly traversing our own part of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within the constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, can not but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view it with Jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of $2,500 "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States," while understood and considered by the Executive as giving the legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice, and prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise previously prepare in its way.

LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION.

The expedition was not organized, however, before the purchase from France was concluded. After that was agreed

upon, Captain Meriwether Lewis, whose grand-uncle married a sister of Washington, and who, at the time of his appointment, was the private secretary of President Jefferson, and Captain William Clark, were, at the instance of Jefferson, appointed to explore the country up the Missouri to its source and to the Pacific. From the moment of their appearance on the Missouri, their movements were watched by the British, and as soon as the object of their expedition was discovered, the Northwest Company, in 1805, sent out its men to establish posts and occupy territories on the Columbia. The British Company proceeded no farther than the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Another party, dispatched on the same errand in 1806, crossed the Rocky Mountains near the passage of the Peace river, and formed a small trading establishment in the 54th degree of north latitude,-the first British post west of the Rocky Mountains. Neither at this nor at any subsequent time until 1811 does it appear that any of the waters of the Columbia were seen by persons in the service of the Northwest Company.

Lewis and Clark arrived at the Kooskooskee river, a tributary of the Columbia, in latitude 46° 34', early in October, 1805, and on the 7th of that month began their descent in five canoes. They entered the great southern tributary, which they called Lewis, and proceeded to its confluence, giving the name of Clark to the northern branch; thence they sailed down the Columbia to its mouth, and wintered there until the middle of March, 1806. They then returned, exploring the streams which emptied into the Columbia and furnishing an accurate geographical description of the entire country through which they passed.

ASTOR EXPEDITION.

Early in 1811 the men sent by John Jacob Astor to the northwest coast in the interest of the Pacific Fur Company, erected buildings and a stockade, with a view to permanent settlement, on a point of land ten miles above the mouth of the Columbia, which they called Astoria. With the exception of one or two trading posts on some of the small streams constituting the head waters of the river, the country had not at this time been visited by the English. Further detail of the history and trials of the Pacific Fur Company is unnecessary in this place, but the reader who desires to acquaint himself

with it is referred to Irving's "Astoria" for one of the most thrilling narratives in American history.

In 1818, after Astoria had been sold by the Americans to the British Fur Company and the stockade occupied by British troops, it was restored to the United States under a provision of the Treaty of Ghent, without prejudice to any of the claims that either the United States, Great Britain, Spain or Russia might have to the ultimate sovereignty of the territory. The claims of the respective nations were afterward considered by the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and the United States. Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, who represented our Government, proposed that the dividing line between the territories should be drawn from the northwestern extremity of the Lake of the Woods north or south, as the case might require, to the 49th parallel of latitude, thence west to the Pacific. The British commissioners, Messrs. Goldburn and Robinson, agreed to admit the line as far west as the Rocky Mountains. Our representatives on that occasion supported the claim of our Government by citing Gray's discovery, the exploration of the Columbia from source to mouth by Lewis and Clark, and the first settlement and occupancy of the country by the Pacific Fur Company. The British commissioners asserted superior claims by virtue of former voyages, especially those of Captain Cook, and refused to agree to any boundary which did not give them the harbor at the mouth of the river in common with the United States. Finding it impossible to agree upon a boundary, it was at length agreed that all territories and their waters claimed by either power west of the Rocky Mountains should be free and open to the vessels, citizens and subjects of both for the space of ten years; provided, however, that no claim of either or of any other nation to any part of those territories should be prejudiced by the arrangement.

FLORIDA TREATY.

On the 22nd of February, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and by the treaty it was agreed that a line drawn on the meridian from the source of the Arkansas northward to the 42nd parallel of latitude, and thence along that parallel westward to the Pacific, should form the northern boundary of the Spanish possessions and the southern boundary of those of the United States in that quarter.