Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/23

Rh Mississipi [sic] to California." He reports "a very large sum of money" subscribed for such an expedition to start from England. "They pretend," he says, "it is only to promote knoledge [sic]. I am afraid they have thoughts of colonizing into that quarter." This is our first record of his alert guardianship for the retention of this continent for American institutions. Two years later, while in Paris as Minister to France, 'he became aware of the equipment of the expedition of La Perouse for the exploration of the Pacific. He is again roused lest it be an attempt to colonize these western shores, this time by France. Jefferson was not partial with his suspicions of designs by the different European countries upon any part of the America he proposed to have kept intact for American principles of liberty, equality, and enlightenment. He had John Paul Jones look into the La Perouse matter for him.

A few months later Jefferson met the explorer John Ledyard who had, a few years before, been with Captain Cook on this coast, but who was now unhappy because he had no project of adventure on hand. Jefferson kindled in him the resolution to cross Europe and Siberia to the Pacific, to take a Russian vessel thence to this coast and penetrate the continent from west to east. Ledyard was balked in this venture, but Jefferson soon had him under pledge to start again to the Pacific, this time overland from Kentucky. The explorer, however, perished in an attempted African exploration which came first in turn.

Explorers coming under Jefferson's influence seemed never immune against the fever for a transcontinental trip to the Pacific. In 1793 he had Andre Michaux, a French botanist on his way to proceed up the Missouri to the Pacific. Michaux had been subsidized by a subscription, and was to make his venture under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia.