Acquisition of Oregon Volume 1; And the Long Suppressed Evidence about Marcus Whitman (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION IN 1803-6. After escaping in 1782 from a British frigate on which he was compelled to serve against his native land, John Ledyard interested the famous Robt. Morris in a project to trade on the N. W. Coast, but the ruin of Morris' fortunes spoiled the plan, and in February, 1786, Ledyard was in Paris, trying to interest French capital in the North West Coast fur trade, but failing to succeed, his adventurous spirit led him to accept a proposition made him by Thos. Jefferson, then our minister at Paris, which is stated in Jefferson's own words as follows: "I then proposed to him to go by land to Kamtchatka, cross in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sd., fall down into the latitude of the Mo., and penerate to and through the "U. S." (Coues' Ed. of Lewis and Clark, Intro, pp. XVIII. and XIX. See also Biography of Ledyard by Jared Sparks, pp. 233-372. Also Greenhow, 1845 Ed. pp. 162-63). Jefferson, through the famous Baron de Grimm, obtained the consent of the Empress Catharine of Russia and Ledyard had proceeded as far as Irkutsk, in Siberia, where, on the night of the 28th of February, 1788, he was arrested by order of the Empress (probably at the instigation of the Russian American Co., who wished to keep all the details of their operations secret), and conveyed night and day in a closed carriage to the border of Poland, and there released with strict orders not to again set foot on Russian territory. In 1792, Jefferson (then Secretary of State) arranged with Captain Merriwether Lewis to attempt to cross the continent, with Michaux the famous French botanist as his only companion, and they had proceeded as far as Kentucky, when Michaux was unexpectedly recalled by the French government, and so the tra...