Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/16

12 should proceed to North America in order to make a study of forest trees, and experiment with regard to their transplantation to France. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1785, he left France, taking with him his young son.

Landing in New York he passed a year and a half in that vicinity, herborizing, and attempting a botanical garden. Finding the latitude of the Southern states, however, more suited to his enterprise, he removed in the spring of 1787 to Charleston. Purchasing a plantation about ten miles from the city, he entered with enthusiasm into the search for new plants and their culture upon his estate. In this year he explored the mountains of the Carolinas, and a twelve-month later made a difficult and hazardous journey through the swamps and marshes of Florida. The next year (1789) was occupied by a voyage to the Bahamas, and another search among the mountains for plants of a commercial nature—notably ginseng, whose utility he taught the mountaineers.

In 1794 he undertook a most difficult expedition to Canada and the arctic regions about Hudson Bay, and upon his return proposed to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia an exploration of the great West by way of the Missouri River. A subscription was begun for this purpose, and Jefferson drafted for him detailed instructions for the journey; but his services were needed in another direction, and the Missouri exploration was abandoned for a political mission.

The discontent of the Western settlers with regard to the free navigation of the Mississippi had reached an acute stage; the French minister to the United States had come armed with instructions to secure the