the legislature for the grant of a soldier's portion of land each, as proposed in my message to congress, and repair yourself, with your papers, to the seat of government.
"To provide, on the accident of your death, against anarchy, dispersion, and the consequent danger to your party, and total failure of the enterprise, you are hereby authorized, by any instrument signed and written in your own hand, to name the person among them who shall succeed to the command on your decease, and by like instruments to change the nomination, from time to time, as further experience of the characters accompanying you shall point out superior fitness; and all the powers and authorities given to yourself are, in the event of your death, transferred to, and vested in the successor so named, with further power to him and his successors, in like manner to name each his successor, who, on the death of his predecessor, shall be invested with all the powers and authorities given to yourself. Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this twentieth day of June, 1803.
"THOMAS JEFFERSON, "President of the United States of America."
While these things were going on here, the country of Louisiana, lately ceded by Spain to France, had been the subject of negotiation at Paris between us and this last power; and had actually been transferred to us by treaties executed at Paris on the thirtieth of April. This information, received about the first day of July, increased infinitely the interest we felt in the expedition, and lessened the apprehensions of interruption from other powers. Every thing in this quarter being now prepared, captain Lewis left Washington on the fifth of July, 1803, and proceeded to Pittsburg, where other articles had been ordered to be provided for him. The men too were to be selected from the military stations on the Ohio. Delays of preparation, difficulties of navigation down the Ohio, and other untoward obstructions, retarded his arrival at Cahokia until the season was so far advanced as to render it prudent to suspend his entering the Missouri before the ice should break up in the succeeding spring.
From this time his journal, now published, will give the history of his journey to and from the Pacific ocean, until his return to St. Louis on the twenty-third of September, 1806. Never did a similar event excite more joy through the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience for the information it would furnish. Their anxieties too for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement by lugubrious rumours, circulated from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted by letters, or other direct information, from the time they had left the Mandan towns, on their ascent up the river in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual return to St. Louis.
It was the middle of February, 1807, before captain Lewis, with his companion captain Clarke, reached the city of Washington, where congress was then in session. That body granted to the two chiefs and their followers the donation of lands which they had been encouraged to expect in reward of their toil and dangers. Captain Lewis was soon after appointed governor of Louisiana, and captain Clarke a general of its militia, and agent of the United States for Indian affairs in that department.
A considerable time intervened before the governor's arrival at St. Louis. He found the territory distracted by feuds and contentions among the officers of the government, and the people themselves divided by these into factions and parties. He determined at once to take no side with either; but to use every endeavour to conciliate and harmonize them. The even-handed justice he administered to all soon established a respect for his person and authority; and perseverance and time wore down animosities, and reunited the citizens again into one family.