XXX The President Talks With Meriwether
Hours by themselves Jefferson sat talking to Lewis. With face sunny, lit with enthusiasm, he spoke rapidly, even brilliantly, a dreamer, a seer, a prophet, believing in the future of America.
“I have never given it up, Meriwether. Before the peace treaty was signed, after the Revolution, I was scheming for a western exploration. We discussed it at Annapolis; I even went so far as to write to George Rogers Clark on the subject. Then Congress sent me to France.
“In France a frequent guest at my table was John Ledyard, of Connecticut. He had accompanied Captain Cook on his voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and now panted for some new enterprise. He had endeavoured to engage the merchants of Boston in the Northwest fur trade, but the times were too unsettled. ‘Why, Mr. Jefferson,’ he was wont to say, ‘that northwest land belongs to us. I felt I breathed the air of home the day we touched at Nootka Sound. The very Indians are just like ours. And furs,—that coast is rich in beaver, bear, and otter. Depend upon it,’ he used to say, ‘untold fortunes lie untouched at the back of the United States.’”
“I then proposed to him to go by land to Kamtchatka, cross in some Russian vessel to Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri, and penetrate to and through that to the United States. Ledyard eagerly seized the idea. I obtained him a permit from the Empress Catherine, and he set out; went to St. Petersburg, crossed the Russian possessions to within two hundred miles of Kamtchatka. Here he was arrested by order of the Empress, who by this time had changed her mind, and forbidden his proceeding. He was put in a close carriage, and conveyed day and night, without ever stopping, till they reached Poland; where he was set down and left to himself. The fatigue of this journey broke down his constitution, and when he returned to me at Paris his bodily strength was much impaired. His mind, however, remained firm and he set out for Egypt to find the sources of the Nile, but died suddenly at Cairo. Thus failed the first attempt to explore the western part of our northern continent.
“Imagine my interest, later, to learn that after reading of Captain Cook’s voyages the Boston merchants had taken up Ledyard’s idea and in 1787 sent two little ships, the ‘Columbia Rediviva’ and the ‘Lady Washington’ into the Pacific Ocean.
“Barely was I back and seated in Washington’s cabinet as Secretary of State, before those Boston merchants begged my intercession with the Court of Spain, for one Don Blas Gonzalez, Governor of Juan Fernandez. Passing near that island, one of the ships was damaged by a storm, her rudder broken, her masts disabled, and herself separated from her companion. She put into the island to refit, and at the same time to wood and water. Don Blas Gonzalez, after examining her, and finding she had nothing on board but provisions and charts, and that her distress was real, permitted her to stay a few days, to refit and take in fresh supplies of wood and water. For this act of common hospitality, he was immediately deprived of his government, unheard, by superior order, and placed under disgrace. Nor was I ever able to obtain a hearing at the Court of Spain, and the reinstatement of this benevolent Governor.
“The little ships went on, however, and on May 11, 1792, Captain Robert Gray, a tar of the Revolution, discovered the great river of the west and named it for his gallant ship, the ‘Columbia.’
“In that very year, 1792, not yet having news of this discovery, I proposed to the American Philosophical Society that we should set on foot a subscription to engage some competent person to explore that region, by ascending the Missouri and crossing the Stony Mountains, and descending the nearest river to the Pacific. The sum of five thousand dollars was raised for that purpose, and André Michaux, a French botanist, was engaged as scientist, but when about to start he was sent by the French minister on political business to Kentucky.”
Meriwether Lewis laughed. “I remember. I was then at Charlottesville on the recruiting service, and warmly solicited you to obtain for me the appointment to execute that adventure. But Mr. André Michaux offering his services, they were accepted.”
Both were silent for a time. Michaux had gone on his journey as far as Kentucky, become the confidential agent between Genet and George Rogers Clark for the French expedition, and been recalled by request of Washington.
“Meriwether,” continued the President, “I see now some chance of accomplishing that northwest expedition. The act establishing trading posts among the Indians is about to expire. My plan is to induce the Indians to abandon hunting and become agriculturists. As this may deprive our traders of a source of profit, I would direct their attention to the fur trade of the Missouri. In a few weeks I shall make a confidential communication to Congress requesting an appropriation for the exploration of the northwest. We shall undertake it as a literary and commercial pursuit.”
“And, sir, may I lead that exploration?”
“You certainly shall,” answered the President. “How much money do you think it would take?”
Secretary Lewis spent the next few days in making an estimate.
“Mathematical instruments, arms and accoutrements, camp equipage, medicine and packing, means for transportation, Indian presents, provisions, pay for hunters, guides, interpreters, and contingencies,—twenty-five hundred dollars will cover it all, I think.”
Then followed that secret message of January 18, 1803, dictated by Jefferson, penned by Lewis, in which the President requested an appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars, “for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United States.”
Congress granted the request, and busy days of preparation followed.
The cabinet were in the secret, and the ladies, particularly Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Gallatin, were most interested and sympathetic, providing everything that could possibly be needed in such a perilous journey, fearing that Lewis might never return from that distant land of savages. The President’s daughters, Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Eppes, were there, handsome, accomplished, delicate women, who rode about in silk pelisses purchasing at the shops the necessaries for “housewives,” pins, needles, darning yarn, and the thousand and one little items that women always give to soldier boys.
Dolly Madison, in mulberry-coloured satin, a tulle kerchief on her neck and dainty cap on her head, stitched, stitched; and in the streets, almost impassable for mud, she and Martha, the President’s daughter, were often mistaken for each other as they went to and fro guided by Dolly’s cousin, Edward Coles, a youth destined to win renown himself one day, as the “anti-slavery governor” of Illinois.
In his green knee pants and red waistcoat, long stockings and slippers, the genial President looked in on the busy ladies at the White House, but his anxiety was on matters of far more moment than the stitchery of the cabinet ladies.
Alexander Mackenzie’s journal of his wonderful transcontinental journey in 1793 was just out, the book of the day. It thrilled Lewis,—he devoured it.
Before starting on his tour Alexander Mackenzie went to London and studied mathematics and astronomy. “It is my own dream,” exclaimed Lewis, as the President came upon him with the volumes in hand. “But the scientific features, to take observations, to be sure of my botany, to map longitude—”
“That must come by study,” said Jefferson. “I would have you go to Philadelphia to prosecute your studies in the sciences. I think you had better go at once to Dr. Barton,—I will write to him to-day.”
And again in the letter to Dr. Barton, Meriwether’s hand penned the prosecution of his fortune.
“I must ask the favour of you to prepare for him a note of those lines of botany, zoölogy, or of Indian history which you think most worthy of study or observation. He will be with you in Philadelphia in two or three weeks and will wait on you and receive thankfully on paper any communications you may make to him.”
Jefferson had ever been a father to Meriwether Lewis, had himself watched and taught him. And Lewis in his soul revered the great man’s learning, as never before he regretted the wasted hours at Parson Maury’s when often he left his books to go hunting on Peter’s Mount. But proudly lifting his head from these meditations:
“I am a born woodsman, Mr. Jefferson. You know that.”
“Know it!” Jefferson laughed. “Does not the fame of your youthful achievements linger yet around the woods of Monticello? I have not forgotten, Meriwether, that when you were not more than eight years old you were accustomed to go out into the forest at night alone in the depth of winter with your dogs and gun to hunt the raccoon and opossum. Nor have I forgotten when the Cherokees attacked your camp in Georgia.” The young man flushed.
“Your mother has often told it. It was when you were bringing them home to Albemarle. How old were you then? About eighteen? The Indians whooped and you put out the fire, the only cool head among them. A boy that could do that can as a man lead a great exploration like this.
“Nor need you fret about your lack of science,—the very study of Latin you did with Parson Maury fits you to prepare for me those Indian vocabularies. I am fortunate to have one so trained. Latin gives an insight into the structure of all languages. For years, now, I have been collecting and studying the Indian tongues. Fortune now permits you to become my most valued coadjutor.”
And so Lewis noted in his book of memorandum, “Vocabularies of Indian languages.”
“You ought to have a companion, a military man like George Rogers Clark. I have always wished to bring him forward in Indian affairs; no man better understands the savage.”
“But Clark has a brother,” quickly spoke Lewis, “a brave fellow, absolutely unflinching in the face of danger. If I could have my choice, Captain William Clark should be my companion and the sharer of my command.”
Two years Lewis had been Jefferson’s private secretary, when, appointed to this work, he went to Philadelphia to study natural science and make astronomical observations for the geography of the route. This youth, who had inherited a fortune and every inducement to a life of ease, now spent three months in severest toil, under the instruction of able professors, learning scientific terms and calculating latitude and longitude.
Early in June he was back at Washington. Already the President had secured letters of passport from the British, French, and Spanish ministers, for this expedition through foreign territory.
“The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado, or any other river, may offer the most direct and practicable water-communication across the continent, for the purpose of commerce.”
Far into the June night Jefferson discussed his instructions, and signed the historic document.
“I have no doubt you will use every possible exertion to get off, as the delay of a month now may lose a year in the end.”
Lewis felt the pressure; he was packing his instruments, writing to military posts for men to be ready when he came down the river, and hurrying up orders at Harper’s Ferry, when a strange and startling event occurred, beyond the vision of dreamers.