Glass. Book. THE STAR OF THE WEST OB, internal glen art ftaiiral Bt^ures. ANNA ELLA CARROLL, AUTHOR OF THE " GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE," ETO. Our country's glory is our chief concern : For this we struggle, and for this we burn ; For this we smile, for this alone we sigh ; For this we live, for this would freely die." THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. NEW YORK: MILLER, ORTON & CO 1857. E33g .Ca **H Entexsd according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by W. S. TISDALE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. >" II. TINK')N, PRINTER A STSHEOTYPKR. TO COMMODORE CHARLES STEWART, OF THE AMERICAN NAVY. "When the honor, the rank, the commission, or the subsistence, of any class of Americans is at stake, the Constitution does not allow secret proceedings to be instituted against them ; because an act so perpetrated directly interferes with their inalienable and fun- damental rights. It forbids all conclaves, or cabals, which are invested with power, to make deductions upon the accusations they themselves have made when, unseen by the public eye, the parties so arraigned have been denied the means of personal explanation or defense ! As Americans, we claim to belong to a nation distinguished for its freedom, its justice, and its intelligence ; and to deprive a citi- zen of all that is dear in life, while absent and unconscious; to malign his reputation, without opportunity of defense, and thus bring upon him shame or destitution, is a crime by the laws of God and the country, and cannot but endanger the safety of the people ! Whatever proceeding, under our institutions, tends to elicit truth and justice, requires the sanction of religious obligation, the exami- nation of witnesses, and a faithful record ! The board of officers that have recently sat in judgment upon the reputation, fortune, and happiness, of the entire naval corps, have exercised just such discretionary power as we know to be at war with the Federal Constitution, and at variance with the spirit and intent of the law of Congress. No class of citizens in our land are more tenacious of their rank than officers of the navy ; and the desire for honorable promotion is cherished with an interest that no suffering nor sacrifice can 8 IV DEDICATION. remove. Is it for the mere consideration it confers, or the addi- tional pecuniary advantage it involves? No; but because of the voluntary surrender of a life-service to the honor, usefulness, defense and glory of their country. And hence, no apparent rank, however high, no compensation, however adequate to his personal ease and comfort, ever atones, in the estimation of a right-minded and gal- lant officer, for the sullied honor which has destroyed equality with his associates in the service. To the integrity, the talents, the distinguished services, and the lofty patriotism of the senior post-Captain, the highest and the oldest officer of the navy, of whose record the whole country is proud, the author now respectfully dedicates these pages. The noblest motives that could actuate an American belong to him. The great exploits of the navy belong to him. The most enduring and substantial benefits of this great arm of the public service have been conferred by him ! No greater glory, therefore, has been shed upon our country's history than that reflected by its distinguished citizen, Commodore Charles Stewart. He surrendered a lucrative and honorable position in the commer- cial marine, and, under the commission of lieutenant, entered the service of the navy the 9th of March, 1798. In 1800, during our hostilities with France, he commanded the small schooner Experi- ment, of twelve guns, with which he captured several armed vessels of the enemy ! He subsequently secured the La Diane from his adversaries, a three-masted ship, and, with his small force, put to flight a brig of eighteen guns, which ordinary sagacity would have assumed to be an impossibility. In 1801, when the reduction of the navy was made, under Mr. Jefferson, this brave officer was retained to reflect his own heroism upon the service, and, like the stars he displayed in so much tri- umph, to add new lustre to the American name! When the war was waged against Tripoli, the gallant Stewart was in the squadron of Commodore Preble, and was ready to enter the second conflict with a hostile power. We find him commanding the Siren, and actively engaged in burning the Philadelphia in the very harbor of the enemy, and afterwards received upon his deck the illustrious officer to whom that achievement was especially committed! The naval encounters of the subsequent four years won for the young lieutenant a reputation which has grown brighter ever since; while the navy acquired for the fame of our country, under her flag, so DEDICATION. V gallantly borne by bim, a halo of light which has never been over- shadowed ! Very early after the cessation of these*hostilities, Commodore Stew- art was tendered the commission of Captain, bearing date the 22d April, 1806, a position under which he lias sacrificed every personal consideration to the honor of the American flag and the fair fame of his own pure and beautiful name. In order to become familiar- ized witli the ocean and the practical arts and habits of navigation, Captain Stewart, with the permission of the Government, entered several private expeditions for exploration and trade ; thus enlarging his experience for the service during the seven years interval which preceded our war with Great Britain in 1812; so that imbued with every quality to defend the honor and glory of his country, he was prepared to rush into action on the first summons to the battle! President Madison, supposing there was no other way to save our armed vessels but by drawing them into the docks for protection, would have adopted that policy to shield them from the foe, but for the timely counsel of Commodore Stewart! To him, therefore, are we indebted for the fresh pride and exultation that was awakened for our country on the ocean in the last war with England, as every note of victory from that scene of action sent a new throb of joy, which was consecrated to the just and glorious interests of our nation ! Commodore Stewart commanded the frigate Constitution, and while cruising on the Portuguese coast, he engaged in a conflict with the Gyane and Levant, two English vessels, and conquered both ! At the close of this war, it was at once seen that our ocean victories, so important in their national bearing, had resulted from the wisdom of Commodore Stewart, to whom the administration of Mr. Madison had deferred ! And the Congress of the United States in 1816 — February 22d, passed a resolution requiring the President to present this illustrious officer with a gold medal, expressive of the high sense the country entertained for his character, conduct, and services ; and the Legislatures of New York and Philadelphia like- wise tendered similar exhibitions of praise. lie then followed our pennant upon the shores of South America, in behalf of liberty, and watched the condition of these new born republics ; where from 1821 to 1824 he commanded the squadron of the Pacific. When science and humanity demanded, we found him penetrating VI DEDICATION. the ices of the poles ; when despotic vengeance demanded, we found him there too, nobly executing the mission of this great nation! And now, with what indignation and shame do we recall the fact, that Commodore Stewart was made the distinguished victim of that irresponsible cabal, whose judgment the President of the country, without a single disinterested channel of explanation or enquiry, adopted! But the verdict of the people rejects the decision of that President and Board ! And grateful for the eminent public services, which have given prestige to the Navy, and elevated and adorned the history of the country in the sight of all mankind, the Author, as an humble representative of millions of her countrymen, re-affirms the truth of history, and inscribes this evidence of her admiration and confidence to Commodore Charles Stewart. CONTENTS. THE FIRST AMERICAN EXPLORING EXPEDITION. CHAPTER I. Americans pensioners upon foreign governments, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, in respect to nautical knowledge— Spain's advancement at that time— The Italians and Portuguese— The Danes and Norwegians— Knowledge of the Torrid Zone — Of the Frigid Zone — Russia's discoveries and their extent — England's explora- tions—Transfer of the Whale Fisheries— Owen— King— England's tenacity in pursuit of a northwest passage — The first American who proposed a scientific exploration — Hon. J. N. Reynolds — His enviable distinction, 13 Section I.— Act of Congress authorizing Expedition— The universal concession as to its authorship — Its effects upon men of science — Its benefit to France and England — The Geographical Society of England, France, and the United States make the Southern Continent on the same day — President Jackson — Mr. Reynolds' attainments as a scholar — His enthusiasm in the cause of Science — His address in the hall of the House of Representatives — His resolution to accomplish this undertaking — Mr. Jefferson, 16 Section II.— The tonnage of the United States— The early settlers— John Smith's survey —The Pilgrims— The jealousy of England— New England enterprise— New York— The Indians— The envy of France and England— Cause of the French Wars— Ammunition obtained from the enemy, which saved the American cause — The institution of the American navy, 19 Section III.— The American spirit — The carrying trade— Berlin and Milan decrees— The extension of our commerce; — Introduction of cotton — Internal improvements — Their effects upon national interests— The demand for the merchants— Discovery of the Pacific Ocean — Balboa, 22 Section IV.— Charles V.— Magellan— Columbus— Court of Seville— What led to the dis- covery of the North American Continent — Hudson Bay Company — Reynolds' belief in a northwest passage — Memorials for a survey of a Northwest Expedition presented to Congress — The Press in its favor— The commercial community— The inhabitants of Nantucket — Resolution of Congress, in its favor, passed, 26 Section V.— The Navy Department— Samuel L. Southard— The next Session of Con- gress — Governor Branch — Administration of General Jackson — Mr. Reynolds goes abroad, • 30 CHAPTER II. Discoveries by whale ships — European constructors of maps — American fishermen — The mariners of New Bedford and Nantucket consulted — The Seal Trade — Emperor Alex- ander of Russia — Captain Palmer, 32 Section I.— East India Marine Society— The want of nautical knowledge in the Ameri- can Navy — Island of Sumatra— Sunday Isles— Feejee Isles— English bounties — Friends of the country — Ship Mentor, . . • 35 Scction II.— French Expedition— Kings of Denmark— England — Want of American charts— Our consul at Oahce— The national dignity of the Expedition— Its purpose— I's accordance with Mr. Jefferson's views, 37 Section III.— The religious view— Outlets of the Northern Polar Seas— The North Polar Seas inhabited— Cause of the ice in those regions — A million and a half of square miles unexplored by man— Captain Cook in search of a Southern Continent — His want of proper information, 40 Section IV.— Weddell— Briscol— Reynolds in the Antarctic Ocean— Isabella— Catherine oi Russia — Cause of the introduction of Philology, 43 Yti Vlll CONTENTS. Section V. — Advantages of the Exploration in the eyes of statesmen — Congratulatory letters — Hon. J. K. Paulding — James E. De Kay — Prof. Silliman — Hon. Benj. Rodman — Hon. Joseph Delafield, 40 Section VI. — Payment of the debt for practical science and intelligence — Winslow Lewis, Jr. — Hon. H. D. Gilpin — Henry Junius Nott — Caleb Cushing, . . .49 CHAPTER III. Origin of the Aborigines — Mr. Duponceau — Woman's influence — President Washington — Sir Humphry Davy— Cuvier — Origin of the Gipsies— Sandwich Islanders — Hon. John Pickering, 53 Section I —Prof. Charles Anthon — Prof. Josiah F. Gibbs — Prof. Charles Grey — Botany — Zoology— Dr. Charles Pickering— The patriotism of Reynolds — The final passage of the Bill — Earner's speech — The eight States which recommended it — The distinguished commanders, 55 Section II. — Eight years before Congress — Twice adopted by the House— The first impe- diment to its being carried into effect — Its correspondence with the views of Jefferson and Monroe — Channel of New York — Our commercial marine, . . . .59 Section III — Hon. Michael Hoffman— Mr. Ripley— Reynold's Report of 1828 — His knowledge extraordinary— His Declarations — The want of proper maps and charts for the country — Tyre, Greece, etc. — Foreign nations keeping our commerce in lead- ing strings — Reynold's remarks, 62 Section IV. — Capture of America by the Barbary Powers — Burke — Coast of California — Four hundred islands made known by Reynolds — The tonnage, men, and capital engaged in the whaling business — The wealth of the fisheries, . . . .66 Section V. — Did the execution of the Expedition meet the design of its projector, and the intention of Congress? — Incompetent officials — Hon. Mahlon Dickenson — The French Government — Energy of Americans — President Jackson — The attempt to strangle the Expedition — The action of Congress judged by a committee — Instructions of the Secretary, 69 Section VI. — Forbearance towards the dead — Willful perversion of the object — General Ripley's report— Dutee J. Pierce — Commodore Downes' letter — Attempt 1o curtail the Expedition— Lord Byron — Commodore Hull — Samuel L. Southard, . . . T3 CHAPTER IV. The effect of the delay on Congress — Vacillation of the Department — General Jackson's order — Jealousy fomented between officer and citizen— Treatment of the Scientific Corps — The American Revolution — Reasons assigned for the delay of the Expedi- tion, T8 Section I. — Commodore Jones — Refusal of money by the Department — Extra pay pro- vided by Congress — Prevarication of the cabal — Incongruous report of the Head of the Department — Anecdote, 82 Section II — The draw on the Treasury — A national Expedition — American Artists — Lieutenant Wilkes — His ridiculous purchase in Europe — The Naval Board ap- pointed, 85 Section III. — The Instruments detained — Degradation put upon Science — American seamen shipwrecked — The effect of a frigate, 89 Section IV. — Hull, Biddle, and Aulick — The Peacock — Commodore Jones resigns — Cap- tain Kearney — Poinsett appointed to direct the Expedition — Captain Gregory— Lieut. Gedney — Wilkes declares his superior's want of talents, 92 Section V. — Captain James Armstrong — Commodores Chauncy, Bainbridge, and Hull — The instrument of the cabal — Appointment of Wilkes, ...... 96 CHAPTER V. Celebrated Report of 1837 — The Macedonia — Expedition delayed three years after being ordered by Congress — Governor Wise's speech— Ingham's defense — The force given to Wilkes, 105 Section I. — The Macedonia withdrawn — Wilkes' Squadron — The squadron under Jones — Dodging Congress — Van Bureu and Poinsett — Wilkes' falsehood, . . . 109 Section II. — Entomology — Crustaceology— Paleontology— Cuvier — Deshaye — Agassiz — Hostility to Reynolds, 112 CONTENTS. IX Section III. — Deception practised on General Jackson— Prof. William R. Johnson — Kearney's squadron — Dr. Reynell Coates — Wilkes' subterfuge to thwart Reynolds — Reynolds' letter to Poinsett, 116 Section IV. — Collision between Poinsett and Van Uuren — Attempt to implicate PauMing — Various letters from Members of Congress favoring Reynolds' appointment to con- trol the civil department of the Expedition — Cincinnati Republican — The results accruing to Science from Reynold's efforts, 120 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. CHAPTER I. Invention and effects of printing — The commerce of the world controlled by a railroad through this continent — Anglo-American enterprise — Joel Barlow — Erie Canal — Rail- road from Portland, Maine, to Nova Scotia, 13T CHAPTER II. Four and a half days' travel from New York to California by railroad — Columbus — Twenty-four days between New York and China — The opium trade — Tobacco versus opium — English jealousy — Tea trade — The road in a moral and educational view — The tliree routes 143 CHAPTER III. Value of the whaling trade — Grants of Texas lands to aid the road— The central route — Canals, . 160 CHAPTER IV. Romanism opposed to the road — Gold of California and Australia — Silver mines of Sonora — Laborers and manufacturers benefited by the road, 171 CHAPTER V. Effects of the gold of California upon real estate, commerce, currency, labor, and manu- factures — Telegraph — Method of laying the submarine telegraph — Congress and the Pacific Railroad — The democratic administration against the road — The American party and Millard Fillmore committed to the road, ....... 180 LOSS OF THE SLOOP OF WAR ALBANY, COMMANDER GERRY, OFFICERS, AND CREW. CHAPTER I. The Author's apology — Commander Gerry — Captains Eagle and Mitchell sent in search of the Albany — Ports visited by the Albany — Elbridge Gerry — His participation in the Declaration and Constitution — Governor of Massachusetts— One of the original seven signers of the Declaration of Independence— Presided over the United States Senate, in 1813 — Captain Gerry — His official acts — Names of the officers of the Albany, . 187 CHAPTER II. Last seen of the Albany — Anecdote — Long Cruise — Captain Gerry's religious character — He was a Communicant — Elbridge Gerry, Jr. — Lieutenant Bleecker — Nicholas Fish Monis, 199 CULPABILITY INVOLVED IN THE LOSS OF THE ALBANY. CHAPTER I. Who caused the loss — The Albany's Defects — Secretary's letter to Newton — Newtou's letter at the Gulf of Samana— Dobbin's approval — The order for the fatal cruise — Newtou's excuse— Officer-like conduct of Gerry, 209 1* CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. Elbridge Gerry first proposed an American Navy— Jefferson's opposition— Newton's life saved by Gerry— Yellow fever— Newton's antecedents— Loss of the Fulton— Acci- dents to the Missouri— Dobbin's call on Newton for Commander Gerry's letter— New- ton's Staten Island letter, 219 CHAPTER III. Gerry deceived— Dobbin's expressed ignorance of the Albany's defective condition, after her loss — Newton rewarded, 229 THE AMERICAN NAVY. CHAPTER I. Foreign navies — Navy Retiring Board — Noble daring of Lieut. Rolando — Pierce and Dobbin— Affray between Captain Perry and Heath— Shubrick, .... 232 CHAPTER II. Stribling and Diaboleto — Commodore Hull— Pendegrast's inefficiency, . . . 247 CHAPTER III. Commodore Perry — Japan expedition — Captains Graham, Inman, and Levy — Abolish- ment of flogging in the navy— Conduct of Pierce, 257 CHAPTER IV. Cost of a naval education — Corruption — Mallory, a foreigner, aims to destroy the navy — Insufficiency of the bureaus, 269 AN AMERICAN HERO THE VICTIM OF A CONSPIRACY. CAPTAIN BARTLETT'S VINDICATION. CHAPTER I. Chief Justice Gilchrist — Lieutenant Bartlett on duty when broken in the service — No official notice — The devotion of his wife, 278 Section I. — Testimonials of his Commodore, commanders, associates, and subalterns — Extraordinary strength of this evidence — Letters of Commodores Lavallette and Montgomery, 283 Section II. — Captain Bartlett in command of the Ewing — Prof. Bache's testimony — Bartlett at the mouth of the Columbia River — Wilkes' ignorance as to the mode of entering the channel of the Columbia — Benton's prophecy — Bartlett's Report, . 289 Suction III. — Contrast between the sea service of Wilkes and Bartlett — Lieutenant Moffat, a naval Commodore — The military and civil services of Bartlett in California — Montgomery's letter — Several high offices filled by Bartlett in California — His legal attainments — Elected by the people to the chief magistracy — His extraordinary tact in administering the government — Conduct as Judge, 295 Section IV. — Bartlett the first to suggest lighting the approaches to San Francisco— His improvements upon the old system — Why he was sent to Paris — How he was instructed, 302 CHAPTER II. The appropriation of his labors by the Lighthouse Board — Plenary power with which Bartktt was invested — Misroon's falsehood — Testimony of Professors Bache and Henry, ..." 307 Section I. — Bartlett goes to Paris before the creation of the Lighthouse Board — His discretionary power continues — The Board's Report — The number of lights purchased by Bartlett — The interest exhibited among the Savans of Europe — Letter of the Audi- tor of the Treasury, 311 CONTENTS. Xi Suction II.— Bartlett's integrity unimpeachable— His services— His lawful claim— The unjust deductions of the Secretary of the Treasury, gjg Section m.— The Secretary's knowledge of Bartlett's services— Bartlett's philanthropy —Incident— His appeal In behali of the Cape de Verde Island sufferers— Misroon his enemy — Bartlett's associations, 3^3 Section IV.— The American Consul, Heart— Bartlett's generosity— His family— Com- mencement of his naval career— His gallant action as a midshipman, . . . 881 Section V.— Bartlett's messmates on the Fairfield— His advantages as a linguist— Com- modore Wadsworth— His friendship with Captain Montgomery— Commodore Perry's letter— Bartlett's first naval services, # 337 Section VX— Bartlett as a Hydrographer— Joins the Portsmouth— His conduct there— The Author's defense founded upon data and vouchers, 840 CENTRAL AMERICA. CHAPTER I. Our commercial relations— The Federal Republic of Central America— General Francisco Morazan— Destruction of the republic— General William Walker— His first expedition —President of Lower California— Invasion of Sonora— Commercial company formed in California— Grant of land— Castellan, the republican democrat— Chamorra. the aristocrat— Cabanos— The priesthood unite with the autocrat Chamorra, . . 345 CHAPTER II. The battle of Rivas— Its effect upon the Nicaragnans— Battle of Virgin Bay— Granada- Romish church used as a fort— Battle of Granada— Walker is offered the presidency of Nicaragua— He declines in favor of General Corral— St. George cannonaded— Walker reinforced— Arrival of Colonel Fry and Parker H. French— Expedition against San Carlos— Padre Vijil— Walker's forces augmented— Display of firmness— Treason of General Corral— His execution— Rivas president— The " N%caraguen.se " newspaper started— Col. French sent as minister plenipotentiary to Washington— Is not received —Shamefully treated by the Pierce administration— Natural scenery of Nicaragua— Schlessinger, * & g55 CHAPTER III. Battle at Santa Rosa— Schlessinger's treachery— Battle of Rivas— German deserters- Individual prowess — The testimonial at Nashville, , 370 CHAPTER IV. English interference— American enterprise— Popularity of Gen. Walker— His election to the Presidency — Inauguration— March of Christianity in Nicaragua, . . . 8S3 THE ROMISH SYSTEM A POLITICAL CORPORATION. CHAPTER I. Rome opposed to the circulation of the Bible— Contrast between enlightened freedom and Romish ignorance and servitude— Power of the Confessional— Secrets extorted by confessors — Ballot-box, 302 CHAPTER II. Rome opposed to printing and freedom of the Press— The Council of Lateran— Pro- hibited books— Booksellers subjected to penalties and restrictions— Penalty of " ex- communication " for reading " heretical " books, 401 CHAPTER III. Encyclical letter of Pope Gregory XVI.— Arrogated power of the priesthood— Rome persecutes beyond the grave— Political agents of the Papacy in America— Blighting effects of Popery— History of the interdict of Venice fulminated by Pope Paul V., 410 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. The Pope and the sword — The claim of the Romish church to infallibility — Preposterous claims of the Pope — Bull against Queen Elizabeth — Leo III. — " Ceremonies of the Holy Ro man Church"— Romanism the same now as ever, 480 CHAPTER V. Bishop England's authority — The "Host" — Catholic Telegraph of Cincinnati denounces republicanism — Bishop Flaget, of Kentucky, against our republican government — The canon laws, 441 CHAPTER VI. The Eternal City — The effects of Romanism and Protestantism contrasted — Luther — America is Bible ground — The Jesuits and state politics — Spies — The silent Press — America the last battle-field of Popery, 449 ROMANISM OPPOSED TO OUR LIBERTIES. CHAPTER I. First prayer in Congress — Washington the Protestant — Franklin — Pownal's prophecy — Brownson and McMasters betray the objects of the Papacy in America — Romanism opposed to progress — Marriage — Absolution — Power of the Pope, .... 456 CHAPTER II. The sacrament of marriage — Dispensation — Romanists disqualified from holding trusts under Protestant governments — Creed of Pope Pius IV.- — Sacrifice of the mass — The wafer-God — Purgatory — Saints — Images and relics — Indulgences — Bills of exchange on Purgatory — Council of Trent, 467 CHAPTER III. The bishop's oath — The Jesuits — The Bible— Forgery — The commentary of Menochius — Bellarmine — Curse of Pope Benedict VIII. — The Council of Constance— Maynooth College — Dens' theology — Pope Urban II. — Pope Sixtus V. — The Inquisition— Roman- ism unchangeable — Illustrations of the spirit of Popery — The nature of Romanism, 4T7 A PROTESTANT EDUCATION FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS. CHAPTER I. Papists opposed to public schools— Education— " Christian Brothers "—Rules of the Order— Archbishop Hughes — Romish convention — Proscription of Americans by Franklin Pierce— Bible banished from our schools, 498 CHAPTER II. Superficial education at Romish seminaries — Sisters of Charity — Jesuistesses — Their plan of operations — Hypocrisy — White and black veil, 510 CHAPTER III. jprived of the Bible — Roc CHAPTER IV. ustiniani — Dangerous te CHAPTER V. Pupils in Romish Seminaries deprived of the Bible— Rome afraid of the Bible— Interest- ing narrative, 513 CHAPTER IV. The fruits of Romanism— Dr. Giustiniani— Dangerous tendencies of Romish instructions — Dogma* of the Jesuits, • 526 Cardinal Wiseman— Ribbon societies— Pope Barberini— St. Peter and Jupiter— Rome persecutes genius — The power of Popery in America, 534 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF EDWIN 0. PERRIN, 541 " " " SIDNEY KOPMAN, ...... 651 m .« u NATHAN RAMSEY, 555 3P?-/ - ^. THE FIRST AMERICAN EXPLORING EXPEDITION, CHAPTER I. Whatever tends to increase the stimulus to commercial or maritime research, adds to our national resources, and becomes an impor- tant element to the foundation of our national power. For fifty years after our independence as a nation had been acknowledged by the civilized powers of the earth, and more than forty after our present matchless form of government had been adopted, we remained, for maritime and scientific knowledge, wholly pensioners upon foreign governments. We had not given a single impetus to a national enterprise ; we had not contributed a single dollar for the promotion of scientific 18 14 FIRST AMERICAN intelligence ; we had not taken a step to ad- vance navigation as a science ; our ships sailed by charts which we had no part in making ; and not a mathematical instrument had we then con- structed. Even Spain, with her exclusive sys- tem of monopoly, had shamed us by contribu- tions to geographical knowledge, in the form of numerous charts. The Italians and Portu- guese had ventured into unknown seas and made important discoveries. The Danes and Norwegians had pushed into the Arctic regions and planted colonies on the ice-bound shores of Greenland. The torrid zone, supposed to have nothing but sandy deserts and a vertical sun, had been found to teem with organic life, and with a denser population than the tempe- rate zone. The frigid, too, no longer lay under perpetual snows, and navigators had seen plants grow, and flowers bloom, in its partial summer. Russia had made discoveries in every part of the globe. Her expeditions had penetrated into Tartary, north of Thibet, and under the snow- capped ranges of the Himalaya and Imans, and the northwest portion of our own continent. While in the Southern Ocean, she had gone as far as the 70th parallel of latitude, and boasted EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 15 of having discovered islands that Cook never saw. England, however, had been preeminent in her scientific explorations. Under her auspices the whale-fishery was transferred from East to West Greenland. She had sent Owen to the southeastern coast of Africa, King to the Straits of Magellan, and constructed charts for that almost unknown passage to the Pacific ; while, for three centuries, she had persevered in her attempt to find a northwest passage, no generation having yielded to its supposed im- practicability. Thus were we occupying a national position which humiliated the American character in the sight of the whole scientific world, when the first man, who was a citizen of our country, a son of our soil, appeared, to elevate by his efforts, the scientific intelligence of the people, and to equal- ize our condition, in this repect, with every for- eign government of the Old World. Hon. J. N". Reynolds, of New York, was the projector of the first exploring expedition in the United States. An expedition which, though shorn of much of the magnitude of its original design by the scan- dalous action of weak, incompetent, and unfaith- 16 FIRST AMERICAN ful officials of the government, has, nevertheless, been pregnant with beneficial results to this na- tion — the greatness or limit of which no human eye can foresee ? This American, then, con- ceived and accomplished for his country, what the most undaunted navigator had not before imagined, or had the moral courage to propose. And he stands alone, at an unapproachable dis- tance, possessing a claim to this distinction, not merely for having attempted, but having actu- ally accomplished his purpose ! SECTION I. The act of Congress which passed the 14th of May, 1836, authorizing the First Exploring Ex- pedition, was the result of the arduous labors of that single individual. No one within the pre- cincts of Congress ignored that fact ; while he received from the scientific professions and the country, the highest evidences of honor it was in their power to bestow. And when we con- sider the immense public benefit which has re- sulted to the country in its commerce, science, literature, and arts, by the services of Mr. Rey- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 17 nolds, we cannot but invoke the judgment of the American people to these results. His labors have become to all the subsequent expeditions which we have accomplished, what the "tamping bar" of England is to miners. They have guided our men of science in their explorations, as that bar guides the miner through inflammable gases, without the fear of being fired by the rocks. Nor was the effect of that first efficient action of our American Con- gress confined to our exclusive national benefit. The governments of France and England very soon appropriated the valuable information eli- cited by Mr. Reynolds in maturing out that ex- pedition. The Geographical Society of England was in session when the news of our contem- plated exploration reached Europe, and the deepest interest was so instantly awakened, that similar expeditions were at once fitted out by both England and France. And soon the Lion, the Lily, and the American Eagle appeared in the same constellation ; and, what is more sin- gular, the ensigns of France and the United States made the Southern Continent the same day! Americans will remember that it was under 18 FIRST AMERICAN the administration of President Jackson that this exploring expedition obtained the sanction of Congress, and in the success of which Jack- son felt the deepest solicitude. Mr. Reynolds having been early distinguished for excellence and eminence in classical attain- ments among his contemporaries, soon became noted not only for science, but for literary dis- tinction ; and, with all his acknowledged ability, he seems to have singularly striven for that modest incognito which, fortunately for his coun- try, he has not been able to maintain. His love of wild adventure, and his travel around the cir- cumference of the earth, had given him extraor- dinary experience as a navigator, and his enthusi- asm in the cause of science had brought him into notice through his works at an early age. While his address in the Hall of the House of Repre- sentatives, on the 3d of April, 1836, on the sub- ject of the surveying and exploring expedition to the Pacific Ocean, and South Seas, with his inimitable discussions upon the manner, that expedition was finally dispatched, will ever re- main among the classical productions of the English language in this country, and wherever that tongue is spoken or read. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 19 It is not wonderful that when this American surveyed the earth in its magnitude, and beheld the natural greatness of his native land, her une- qualled institutions, the genius, enterprise, and energy, of his countrymen, that he should have mourned to see American libraries filled with the maps, charts, and histories, of what science had done in other nations, and that he made the resolution of the boy, voluntarily acted out in the man, his purpose to stimulate and develop these national resources. The only wonder is, that this had not been done before ! For, although the survey of the coast had been re- commended by Mr. Jefferson, the work had but then been commenced. And much of its merit was, therefore, neutralized by such national ne- glect. SECTION II. In the meantime, we had more tonnage than all the nations of Europe together when Colum- bus discovered America, and owned a navy larger than was all the effective force of the Old World at that day. Americans, do you wish to know what made 20 FIRST AMERICAN you so early able to compete with England in familiarity with the ocean ? It was the severe hardships to which the early settlers of our country were inured. Six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, John Smith had coasted from the James River to Ports- mouth, and surveyed all the islands and harbors of New England. This was in 1614. When the Pilgrims came, in 1620, they went to work and built ships at once, in order to survey the south- ern coast, and traffic with the natives. In less than fifty years after that, the American tonnage was great enough to excite the jealousy of Eng- land ! Even when, in 1665, Massachusetts had a militia of but four thousand, she owned one hundred and forty vessels of between twenty and one hundred tons burden. So of New York, at that time in British power. The very first thing her colonists did was to hollow out a tree, to cross the adjacent waters, and commune with the settlers. Indeed, maritime enterprise has been the earliest characteristic of the Ameri- can people. And this drew the seafarer and emigrant to the Atlantic shores. The Indians, at the dawn of the seventeenth century,' prowled around the dwellings of the emigrants, and the EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 21 necessaries of life were raised in scanty supplies, because these sagacious adventurers were busied in fitting out expeditions to ascertain the inden- tures on our coast, its rivers and harbors. The fisheries, then, were more ardently pursued than any other enterprise, and from them, in connec- tion with lumber, and the fur trade, the nation received its first impulse, and its first resources. Very soon this maritime enterprise of America excited the envy of France against England, and this was the primary and efficient cause of the first and second French wars, in which America became the common battle-ground. The Ameri- can privateers displayed, at that crisis, naval skill which rendered them the pride of the mo- ther country, while they added wealth to their own enterprise. These French wars then made the trying ordeal by which the American people were trained for the battle of Independence. We took, by these means, a step from base sub- serviency to England to the rank of a maritime nation, of no small account ! Nearly two thou- sand vessels were captured by American enter- prise, from the enemy, in the War of the Revo- lution. It was by this success solely, that ammu- nition and clothing were obtained for our cause, 22 FIRST AMERICAN in the darkest and most critical periods of that contest. General "Washington declared that this saved him from a retreat, and from the possible necessity of being obliged to disband the Ameri- can forces. At one time, when besieging Bos- ton, there were but two barrels of gunpowder for twenty thousand men ; two English ships, laden with military stores, came in sight just at that crisis, which were captured by Captain Manly, and appropriated to American use. The maritime affairs of the country, after the War of Independence, were managed by a Com- mittee, and we had no navy until 1794, several years after the present Constitution was adopted. In 1798, four years after its organization, our little navy humbled the fierce corsair in the Mediterranean, and gave promise of the future glory which it achieved for the country in 1812. SECTION III. It is remarkable that, as Colonists, more genu- ine American spirit was discoverable in behalf of commerce, than after we attained our nationality. Then it penetrated into dangerous shoals and sand-banks. It sent men of science twice into EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 23 distant parts to observe the transit of Yenus over the sun, and which duty, in consideration of the imperfect construction of instruments at that period, was performed with astonishing accuracy. But, from the Declaration of Inde- pendence to the Second War with England, in 1812, not a dollar was expended by government to aid a scientific exploration, with the exception of the small amount appropriated for an expe- dition to the Rocky Mountains. The Americans enjoyed the entire carrying trade during the French Revolution, when all Europe was in arms, and this gave our country an impetus to greatness, and an increase in wealth, without a modern parallel. This, as might have been anticipated, awakened jealousy on the part of France and England, and, in 1806, led to exactions on our commerce. The Berlin and Milan decrees followed in 1807, and caused non-intercourse, which resulted in the war of 1812. Our navy had not been then pro- perly increased, and though it won imperishable glory on the seas, we merged from the conflict with a weak commercial marine. But, after the war, commerce again took its onward march, our fisheries extended themselves from our own coasts 24 FIRST AMERICAN to the shores of Brazil, around all the capes of the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Maldives and Islands of Japan. Cotton, which had been several years before introduced into the country merely as a botani- cal experiment, now became an article of pri- mary importance, and took rank over all else, while the machinery of the North was at once ready to fabricate it, and millions of the race were soon clothed in this material. From that period manufacturers began to in- fluence national economy. The sugar of the South, and flax of the West, were then brought into general use. Internal improvements soon developed new markets for both agricultural and manufacturing articles ; the necessaries of life were at the command of all ; the inhabitants of the interior sought the commerce of the sea- board, while the traveller from the seaboard penetrated into the interior. Thus was the great impulse given to individual labor, which indi- rectly opened the resources of the nation. In laboring for themselves they benefited their neighbors, find soon, almost by intuition, con- cluded that this labor, divided among the three great interests of the nation, would best sub- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 25 serve the happiness of the whole. This called for the merchants. They sent their keels into unknown seas, and, in a sober business spirit, they sacrificed to utility. They caused the na- tional industry to combine all the elements of productiveness, so that every atom should bear its fair proportion in the great result. Our fathers, in the midst of gloom and adver- sity, saw with prescience the rising glory of the western orb. They beheld afar the gardens they planted and the treasures which would be un- folded to their children through the shedding of their blood ! The knowledge of the most enlightened nations was confined to a circuit of but a few thousand miles, several years after Galileo had taught the sublime doctrine, that the eighty millions of fixed stars seen through a telescope were centres of other systems. The mere existence of the Pacific ocean was unknown until 1513. Then Balboa, a Spanish commander, crossed the ridge, which divides the Andes Mountains at the Isthmus of Darien. Immediately it became a desideratum to open a passage, by sea, to this unexplored ocean, and thus to reach the Moluccas and Ep«t India possessions of the Spanish crown. 26 FIRST AMERICAN SECTION IV. Charles the Fifth sent Magellan, in 1520, for that purpose, and the straits of his name bear witness how he fulfilled the trust ! He ascertained the southern limit of this west- ern continent ; and is said to have wept in tri- umph, as this mighty ocean appeared before him. And while the Pacific was traversed and the Spice Islands reached, Magellan fell ingloriously by the spear of a native. His labors and suc- cesses were second to no voyager, save Columbus. And he must ever bear the palm of immortality, because he opened the pathway to a new hemis- phere ! which was soon penetrated by others, who found New Holland, New Zealand, and numerous other islands in the Indian, Pacific and Southern oceans. When the fact became known, as to what Magellan and his successors had done, the greatest excitement prevailed among com- mercial nations. The Court of Seville tried to keep secret this new route to the Moluccas. But this only roused other nations ; the Hollanders soon doubled Cape Horn, and with incredible energy the extent of the southern hemisphere, EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 27 in this western world, was made known. The history of the enterprise of our own land teaches the impossibility of computing the results of sci- entific research in advance. We know that England's efforts for a northwest passage to India led to the discovery of the North American continent. We know that the Hud- son Bay Company was opened by the same means. And neither Cabot, Hudson, Davis, or Baffin dreamed of the Newfoundland cod fish- eries and the whale fisheries of Davis 7 Straits, which were opened in the same unexpected manner. Mr. Reynolds declared that no insuper- able obstacle remained to prevent the final and complete success of English enterprise for this northwest passage. He showed that nearly the whole extent had been traced on a map, and that the effort was commended by all men of sense. "Let her have it," said the true American, "a nobler field and a wider range has opened the South to us," as he pressed upon the attention of Congress the necessity of a voyage of disco- very, with scientific appliances, to increase our national knowledge of the Southern and Pacific oceans. In 1826-7, Mr. Reynolds first brought the 28 FIRST AMERICAN importance of this subject before Congress, ac- companied by petitions from inhabitants of the several States, praying the aid of the govern- ment to carry the same into effect. Among these were a memorial from the State of New York, dated October 19th, 1827, signed by the Lieutenant-Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and almost the entire Legisla- ture. One from North Carolina, with the high officials of that State, and its House of Commons. A third from Virginia, dated Richmond, Jan- uary 1, 1828, sustained by the Speaker of the House of Delegates, and most of the members of her Legislature. And a very earnest appeal from the Maryland Legislature, accompanied by a cogent preamble and resolutions. The House appointed a Committee to consider the application, who entertained a favorable opinion of Mr. Reynolds' novel project ; and who, desirous to promote inquiry, moved its special reference to the Navy Department. Dur- ing the interval between the first and second sessions of that Congress, the proposed expedi- tion was much discussed in the public journals, and it is a significant fact that not a solitary press in the country opposed the measure. While EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 29 the commercial community, and particularly such as were interested in the fishery, whale, or fur interest, came to the support of Mr. Reynolds' measure, as one man. This class of memorialists had, more than others, felt the want of this expedition ; and their ardor in its behalf was marked with energy. The memorial from the inhabitants of Nantucket was commended to Con- gress in the report of the Secretary of the Navy, who evidenced much laborious and extended re- search, and set forth the necessity of protection to our commerce in the Southern Ocean, with a zeal becoming its magnitude. The session, however, was too near its close to pass a law on the subject, and, in lieu of a bill, the House voted a resolution, affirming the expediency of sending one of our small public vessels into the Pacific and South Seas, and requesting the President of the United States to allow such facilities to the Navy Department as would enable this exploration to be under- taken. These resolutions reflected, at that moment, the sentiments of all our great commercial cities, the Legislatures of the States, comprising more than half the population of the Union, and re- 30 FIRST AMERICAN presented on the floor of Congress, by one hun- dred and twenty-nine of its members. • section v. The Navy Department went about the work it was thus empowered to do, for there was neither time nor pretext for delay. The Pea- cock was repaired for the expedition — officers of approved skill were ordered to be in readi- ness — seamen were enlisted — books and mathe- matical instruments ordered — and the aid of scientific counsel sought by correspondence with men of science throughout the country. Samuel L. Southard was then Secretary of the Navy, and, giving- to the expedition the sanction of his highly cultivated mind, did all that prudent foresight could suggest to render it alike useful and honorable to the nation. The succeeding session of Congress, the reported bill of the pre- ceding one passed the House of Representatives by a large majority. In the Senate, too, there was known to have been a decided majority in its favor. But the detail of the plan elicited a difference in opinion, and in the confusion inci- dent to the close of the session, Congress finally EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 31 adjourned before the bill, as modified, was reached by the Senate. This was the termination of President Adams' administration. Under General Jackson, Governor Branch of North Carolina was placed over the Navy De- partment. He was opposed to the expedition, and the tone and feeling of the new administration corresponded with his view. "Retrenchment and economy" had been the party watchword, and, under its specious pretence, the expedition, so well-matured and auspicious of such salutary re- sults to the country, was suspended ! It was then that Mr. Reynolds went abroad and gave five years of his life to the circumnavi- gation of the globe. He penetrated the South Seas, and sailed along the confines of the Antarc- tic circle. He confirmed, by personal investiga- tion, all the information previously derived from others, and, with an abiding conviction that honor, interest, duty, and humanity, called for this na- tional expedition, more than ever before, he returned to the United States, to that end, in 1834, and renewed his labors before Congress, which were most happily triumphant. 32 FIRST AMERICAN CHAPTER II. Our whale ships, in their untried paths, had, for years, been discovering new reefs, new is- lands, and new dangers ; and these facts were always communicated to whatever vessels they might chance to meet. Instead of the beaten track, these American whalers, after doubling Cape Horn, made their voyages along the Span- ish main. And, for more than thirty years, the European constructors of maps and charts ap- propriated this very information, obtained through Americans, to their own benefit, and without ever alluding to the name of the individuals from whom the information was derived. The annals of no other nation furnish the same record of daring and successful enterprise that is presented by the silent and unobtrusive action of the American fishermen ! Mr. Reynolds ascertained, from this pure and original source, the topography of the whole EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 33 range of seas from the Pacific to the Chinese and Indian oceans, and visited Newport, New Bedford, and Nantucket, in 1828, to consult the log of each of the sturdy mariners he might find in port, and to commune with them on the great commercial importance of the national enterprise. So, of those engaged in the seal trade. The occupation of these men is still more adventurous and daring. In the smallest vessels they sweep the rocky shores of Patagonia, and the islands around Cape Horn, and the whole coast of South America. They skirt the eastern and western shores of Africa ; they circle the islands of the Pacific ; plunge into the Southern Ocean, and are often close to the limits of the Antarctic circle ! When the Emperor Alexander of Russia sent out two ships for discovery, they became, on one oc- casion, involved in a thick fog between the South Shetland Islands and Palmer's Land ; to their great astonishment, as it dissipated, they descried a small vessel, of fifty tons' burden, between their ships, with the American flag at the masthead ! The Russian commander hoisted his colors, and sent an invitation to the American captain to visit his ship. After the customary interchanges, the commodore inquired of the captain as to 2* 34 FIRST AMERICAN their present locality, and was informed that they were in sight of the South Shetland Isles ; " and if you wish to visit any of them in particu- lar," added the American, "it will afford me pleasure to be your pilot." "We were felicita- ting ourselves," said the Russian, " that we had made a discovenj, until the light showed us an American vessel alongside, which now offers to pilot me into port, where several of his own na- tion are at anchor ! We must surrender the enterprise to you Americans, and be content to follow in your train. I behold, before me, a pattern for the oldest nation of Europe, since, instead of making discoveries, I find here the American flag, a small fleet, and a pilot." Captain Palmer was the American, and the Russian commander, Stanjykowitsch, was so highly impressed, that he named the coast Palm- er's Land, which name is still inscribe don Rus- sian charts. Mr. Reynolds afterwards visited the whole of the extensive group of islands north of Palmer's Land. In 1831, a British vessel touched at a single spot, and substituted an English for the American name ! EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 35 SECTION I. The memorial of the East India Marine Soci- ety, fully setting forth the enterprise of Ameri- cans in behalf of commerce, and urging the expe- dition, projected by Mr. Reynolds, slept in man- uscript until 1835, when it was communicated to Congress by a call of the House. The exposure of so many of our citizens to shipwreck on seas, on coasts, and among islands, without a chart to guide them, and often their massacre by savages, for lack of maritime power to enforce respect, had become alarming to that class of our countrymen engaged in maritime en- terprise ; for it was a well-known fact, that only a few years before, when the government sent the Potomac to avenge the savage slaughter of our citizens on the coast of Sumatra; on the news reaching here that the "Friendship" had been captured, the Department had not a single chart of that coast, against which it ordered a heavy armament ! And the captain, having to rely on his wits, with such information as he could gather, ran the frigate on the shore of Sumatra before he knew he was in anchoring / 36 FIRST AMERICAN distance ! At the beginning of the present cen- tury we had, at least, thirty vessels, in a single season, at the Island of Sumatra, on account of its trade in pepper. And the English and Dutch had almost allowed our sagacious merchants, by direct and indirect traffic, a monopoly of the com- merce of the Sunda Isles. And yet, there we were, with no chart by which to sail a United States vessel ! What a shame ! There, too, were the Fejee, or Betee Islands. Captain Cook named, but did not visit them. They consisted of fifty or sixty, without any data by which their harbors or dangers could be made known. We have seen how differently other nations have acted under like (circumstances. England, ambitious to rule the waves, paid, before 1770, three millions in bounties, to compete with the Dutch whale fisheries, and, before 1786, had drawn six millions, and upwards, for the same end ! The American whale fishermen never had a cent of bounty in all their lives ! These sailors, too, have been the best friends of the country ; and the fisheries reach the inter- ests of every class of our people. Oh, how many brave spirits have been the victims of mutiny and massacre, because the government remained EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 37 so long indifferent to the fate of seamen, or the means to advance their welfare ! The capture of the ship Mentor, of New Bed- ford, December 6, 1831, illustrates our position. That vessel struck the rocks near the Pelew Is- lands, not then mentioned on any chart, and, after losing an officer and part of her crew among the breakers, the captain and remainder of the crew were made prisoners by the natives. The recital of the death of some of these, the barbarous treatment of others, and their escape, as well as the condition of those left as hostages in the hands of the Pelew chiefs, is enough to sicken the heart of the most obdurate. SECTION II. The question may now be asked, "Are the lives of our mariners less precious than those of for- eigners ?" We know that many ships, freighted with human souls, have sailed from our coasts, never to return. Other nations have not paused under like circumstances, to consider the expense. The French expedition to ascertain the fate of La Perouse, who commanded the Boussole, and As- 38 FIRST AMERICAN trolabe, in 1791, was more creditable to that go- vernment than all its discoveries. The kings of Denmark bound themselves, by their coronation oaths, to protect their inhabitants when exposed to the Arctic regions. So, England no sooner knew that several of her whale ships were locked into the Arctic seas, than the Admiralty antici- pated the government. The expedition was fit- ted out, and the distinguished Captain Ross ten- dered the command. And the French govern- ment, subsequently, on learning the loss of the Silloise, in the polar seas, offered one hundred thousand francs to any nation that might extri- cate the suffering crew. Mr. Reynolds found the charts given of the Pacific defective, and islands, like the Gallapago group, without any chart indications whatever. The American whalers, therefore, were the con- stant prey of the natives. Our consul, at Oahu, wrote, at that time, to Commodore Downs, that often fifty or sixty Americans were confined in the fort, and not a single whaler entered without mutiny ensuing, and constant desertion thereby occurring. Similar reports were made from other consulates ; all going to prove that no commercial and free people should withhold their contribu EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 39 tions, while a spot of ground remains on the whole earth unexplored ! Mr. Reynolds showed, by the most incontesta- ble evidence, that the national dignity and honor called for the expedition he had matured for the United States ; that our commanding position, as a commercial nation, required it, that nature and her laws must be better understood, in a country like ours, where so much mind is ready to act upon matter, in subserving the great purposes of life ; and that the astonishing progress we had made, imposed the duty upon our statesmen of making surveys of new islands, remote seas, and unknown territory. He, therefore, conceived a plan for our first national exploration, which should be worthy of the magnitude of its impor- tance ; and proposed that an enlightened body of naval officers should be joined harmoniously with a corps of the most scientific men of the country. Not only to attain to high southern latitudes, but to explore from the west coast of South America, running down the longitude among the islands, on both sides of the equator, especially south to the very shores of Asia, was the field to which Mr. Reynolds invited the attention of 40 FIRST AMERICAN Congress and the country. His views of the detail were in exact accordance with those ex- pressed by Mr. Jefferson, in 1803, in instructions he gave to Merriwether Lewis, for the expedition across the continent. This letter settled the con- stitutional scruples of the strictest construction- ists, and stands side by side with the Delaration of Independence by the same author ! SECTION III. A religious not less than a commercial view called now for this enterprise. There is no other way to make known the "salvation of our God unto the ends of the earth " but in pursuing geo- graphy as a science. God, in His wise provi- dence, left the figure and magnitude of the earth for man's investigation, and has stimulated this exertion by the "unsearchable riches of Christ!" The Bible and missions follow the moral and political movements of this nation, and are close to the American navigator who ploughs the ocean for new islands or continents ! And while patriotism, science, and commerce have interests, that of the Protestant faith has still more staked upon these results ! In this EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 41 connection with the utility of American researches, let us remember that those nations most prover- bial for wealth have scarcely a name in history, while the hardship and adventure of others, even though they failed to be successful, have been entitled to admiration and respect. It is well known that but two outlets exist to the Northern Polar Seas ; these are Bhering's Straits and the Spitzbergen Seas. Mr. Reynolds clearly demonstrated why the British navigators had failed in finding a northwest passage, which resulted entirely from adhering pertinaciously to the injudicious instructions of the British Ad- miralty. He maintained that the existence of this passage was no longer a question of doubt, and could be attained by keeping mid-channel through Bhering's Straits and rounding the head- land of our continent, thence into the Seas of Spitzbergen. He insisted, from the results of personal experience, that ice is never found in the main ocean, remote from the land — not even at the Pole itself ! And all subsequent investiga- tion has confirmed that assertion. The entire surrounding coast of the North Polar Seas is inhabited. The Laplanders and Fins occupy the European part ; the Samayedes 42 FIRST AMERICAN and other rude tribes the Asiatic part, and they subsist on reindeer and fish — the Esquimaux race occupy the American part. Many large rivers of Asia send their sluggish currents of fresh water into the Polar Seas. This cause, on such an ex- tent of coast, produces ice, which is drifted by northern currents, in the spring, between Green- land and Spitzbergen. It there collects, and is finally forced by pressure into the adjacent bays and islands. This was the route on which the British expedition was bound, and necessarily impeded it. It was indeed remarkable that at the time Mr. Reynolds projected the first scientific expedition, there was more than one million and a half of square miles in the southern hemisphere that had never felt the footprint of man ! Nor had the keel of a single navigator ever divided its waters ! Who can tolerate such culpable na- tional neglect? Some may inquire, were no efforts made before those of this American to explore the high southern latitudes ? We answer that, in 1772, Captain Cook, accompanied by Lieutenant Freneau, made the first voyage in search of a southern continent. They got as far as sixty-eight degrees of south latitude, and there EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 43 encountered ice of six or eight inches in thick- ness. It concentrated around the vessels, and sooner than attempt to go around the ice — sum- mer having almost closed — Captain Cook retro- graded, and went in pursuit of other discoveries northward. Had Cook possessed then the information Rey- nolds did, in 1834, he would have selected another meridian and pursued his journey south! For Reynolds proved that same ice to have come from large islands east from Palmer's Land. SECTION IV. In 1773, Captain Cook left New Zealand on his second search for southern lands. But again the ice arrested his progress ; and he declared it his opinion that the mass of crystallization ex- tended to the Pole, or joined to some land south- ward, which must be as frigid and sterile as the ice itself. Weddell, who attained in his day to a higher parallel than had been reached by any other man, did not agree with Cook at all, as to the ice extending to the Pole. His views encouraged Mr. Reynolds, and confirmed his own experience, 44 FIRST AMERICAN although he denied Weddell's assertion that cold was more intense in the distant Antarctic regions than in the Arctic. Briscol subsequently went out in the employ of Messrs. Enderby, of London, in a whale ship, in 1832, and the existence of southern land seemed to have had confirmation by him. But the mainland taken by him, .in the name of his sovereign, had been visited by our own sealers fifteen years before, and furs were taken then, by our people, in the American name ! Mr. Reynolds had beheld, on board two vessels — one of one hundred and sixty, the other of eighty tons burden — the castellated region of the Antarctic, with its floating pyramids of ice ; and he declared it as his opinion, that the nine- tieth degree, or South Pole, could be reached by the navigator, and that the effort ought to be made by the country, in connection with other objects of the enterprise. Without government patronage he had sought adventure, and satisfied himself; and he plead, earnestly, before the Congress of his country, that it might sanction his project, only to add new lustre to the annals of American philosophy, and add nautical glories to the imperishable EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 45 honor which connects itself with that name. He appealed to his countrywomen, at the same time, and contended that "their views of public meas- ures were the silken and golden threads in public opinion." And, when we consider that the jew- els which Isabella suspended from her person, enriched the world with a continent, when mon- archs hesitated, and ministers disputed, with ve- hemence and weak superlativeness, we shall not disclaim the fact, that it was woman, truly, who gave new hopes to liberty, when the race from whence it sprung was almost lost ! When our republic was in its infancy, the great Catharine, of Russia, sent to General Washington a request for the vocabularies of all the Indian tribes in our country. The result of this gave rise to a new science, which she insti- tuted, and has modified the grammars and lexi- cons of every language in Europe, which this science of philology now pervades. After Mr. Reynolds' admirable expose* of the nature and utility of the expedition to the South Seas, on the 3d of April, 1836, members of both Houses of Congress no longer doubted it was fully worthy of the patronage of the government. And, on the 14th of the succeeding month, they 46 FIRST AMERICAN demonstrated that wise concurrence, by giving to it the sanction of law. It was clearly manifest that, by it, the capital of human knowledge would be extended, the boundaries of science enlarged, and a substantial fame would, thereby, be added to our great republic. SECTION V. Our statesmen were, then, convinced that it was the policy of the government to point out harbors for our seamen, and save them from captivity, shipwreck, and famine, on unknown coasts, rather than to keep a useless fleet up the Mediterranean, to contract the follies and vices of European aristocracies ; they, therefore, rightly estimated the value of this American deed, by the moral sublimity of the motives which had incited it. Congratulatory letters from men, eminent for learning and science, came to Mr. Reynolds from all sections of the country ; and a full interchange of their views as to the per- sonnel of the expedition was thus elicited. Hon. J. K. Paulding suggested the frigate "Macedonia 7 ' should be attached for the benefit of scientific pursuits and occupations ; and that EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 47 Gaptain Catesby Jones should be appointed to the command. James E. De Kay thought the em- ployment of scientific citizens of the country a sine qua non, with such an harmonious arrange- ment as should impartially reward whoever might merit distinction. Professor Silliman, of Yale College, regarded the expedition so vital to na- tional honor, whether as connected with science, navigation, commerce, or the humanity of the country, that he urged, with great pertinacity, the acquisition of the highest scientific talent it possessed, without regard to the expense ; that meteorology, zoology, volcanoes, earthquakes, geology, mineralogy, magnetism, and electricity, osteology, entomology, ornithology, and natural history, generally, might each command its ap- propriate investigation. Hon. Benjamin Rodman, of New. Bedford, the home of the mariner, gave vent to his national and natural fervor at the same period, when ad- dressing his American brother : " I congratulate you on the success of your darling plan, and now there is a hope of a national duty being performed. I see no way that we can look for improvement, but by the means which, through your exertions, more than those of any other man living, are now appropriated for it ; and may Heaven bless you and the enterprise." 48 FIRST AMERICAN Thus did Mr. Reynolds soon concentrate the wisdom and virtue of the people. The seamen felt a thrill of inward joy to find preparations for a more stable protection, and the merchant breathed more freely when he saw that the moral influence of the nation was about to be cast upon the side of commercial intelligence and enter- prise. But such had been the advancement of the age, that geographical discoveries and an amended chart, would not alone satisfy the men or the wants of our country. Animate as well as inanimate creation needed, therefore, a critical examination. And commanders of liberal minds and expanded views became essentially necessary to the expedition. In this spirit, Hon. Jos. Dela- field, President of the Lyceum of Natural His- tory of New York, after thanking Mr. Reynolds for the fund of information he had been, through him, enabled to communicate to that Institution, said : 'Your [Reynolds'] efforts have been so far crowned with suc- cess. Your former services, present exertions, and the better part of a life devoted to the South Sea discoveries, have identified you with the expedition. We have long watched your untiring exer- tions in this matter, and trust the time has arrived when the wishes of your friends are to be gratified in learning that the superintend- ence or direction of the civil department is to be chiefly committed to you." EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 49 SECTION VI. The time seemed now to have arrived when the gratification of discharging the debt for prac- tical science and intelligence, too long due foreign nations, could be experienced. How ? By taking our national stand on the same platform of prac- tical intelligence. This was the first opportunity, and is it wonderful with what eagerness our wise and prudent men embraced it ? Winslow Lewis, Jr., of the Society of Natural History of Boston, in common with other friends, addressed the Author of the expedition : "I congratulate you on the successful termination of your appli- cation to Congress, in behalf of a South Sea Expedition. It was to your unmeasured zeal and untiring exertions that this great under- taking owes its existence ; and I learn, with much satisfaction, that, it still continues to have the advantage of your personal presence and experience." And as science as well as commerce relied on this exploration to enlarge their boundaries, Mr. Lewis urged the propriety of a practical anato- mist to accompany the expedition, with a special view to the advancement of natural history. So desirable did it seem in all eyes that this, the first American voyage of discovery, should j 3 50 FIRST AMERICAN worthy of the genius and enterprise of the na- tion, that the whole mercantile influence of the country looked upon it as eminently conducive to the commerce and navigation of the country, as well as to human prosperity and happiness. Hon. H. D. Gilpin, of Philadelphia, in address- ing Mr. Reynolds, dwelt upon the necessity of calling men of real science to its aid — men of the same courage, disinterestedness, and persever- ance, as those who had distinguished expeditions of the kind in the Old World. "But," said he, "to yon who have studied the subject so fully, and devoted to it so much thought and experience, it is scarcely necessary to say anything as to the contemplated arrangement." It was so manifest that Mr. Reynolds, in ma- turing his plan, had consulted all the great Euro- pean voyagers of discovery, that there appeared an entire unanimity in the conclusion of the scientific corps of the country, as to the solid additions which would be added thereby to the treasures of knowledge. So we find Hon. Henry Junius Nott, suggesting the expediency of con- fining men to a single branch of science, if possi- ble, and insisting on the importance of having an individual familiar with the languages and with philology. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 51 " The commercial investigations," said Mr. Nott, to the author, " I presume you will take under your own charge. I am happy to learn the voyage to the South Pacific is resolved on, and one of your activity, perseverance, and practical good sense, is to be con- nected with it." "I have often had this question put to me," writes Captain Thomas AP C. Jones, "as to 'what situation, if any, will Mr. Reynolds occupy in the expedition ?' " The answer, I presume, is with yourself; for it cannot be de- nied that to you, and your unwearied exertions, is due the credit of so interesting the public on the subject, as to induce Congress to pass the law. Who, then, has a better claim to participate in its toils, and to share its honors, than he who may justly be called the originator of the voyage ? Who can bring so much valuable know- ledge, derived from various sources, some of which you alone have been permitted to draw from, as you could? I mean not to flatter, when I say, not another citizen of the United States. "Then it cannot be doubted but that any commander, qualified to conduct the enterprise as the law contemplates, as well as the executive head under whose auspices it will be sent out, will gladly avail themselves of your services, to aid them in organizing the scientific department, and further identify you with the expedition, by assigning yoii some honorable station in it." Captain Jones, in this same letter, showed, by luminous argument, why a frigate should be at- tached to the expedition ; why able officers should be engaged for that particular service ; why it should be both of a military and scientific char- acter ; and why Mr. J. N. Reynolds, the great projector, was entitled to paramount considera- tion in its connection. The fact that the United States had, up to that moment, done nothing but abandon its own 52 FIRST AMERICAN survey of the coast ; that its books, maps, and charts, were but the imperfect productions of private individuals ; that England, France, Russia, and even Spain, had acquired a more accurate knowledge of the Atlantic and Pacific seas, was continually humiliating Americans, and subject- ing them to national and individual mortification abroad. In this view of the case, Hon. Caleb Cushing, present Attorney-General of the United States, then a member of Congress, thus ad- dressed Mr. Reynolds : " I think great credit is due to you for the successful exertions you have made to awaken the attention of the public, and of Con- gress, to this subject; and I hope that justice will be done to you in the arrangements to be made for the expedition." When at Madrid, Don Martin Fernandez de Navarette, a distinguished author and, then, su- perviser of the government bureau of maps and charts, in showing Mr. Cushing the advances of science, in all other enlightened nations, referred to the total absence of any from the opulent na- tion of the United States. For, even at that time, Topino had reaped precious results in the Mediterranean for Spain, and she had not been idle in collecting charts of the East and West India seas. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 53 CHAPTER III. There was another problem which this expe- dition was well calculated to solve, and in which every American has the deepest interest ; and this was the source of the aboriginal population of America. And strong hopes were now enter- tained that some American might by these means explain it. We had already taken the prize medal at the Royal Institute of Paris, for the best essay on the original languages of our country ; Mr. Duponceau, our countryman, was the author. But the fault of our people has been to study man too little, and hence the neglect of his dis- tinguishing characteristic, speech. In order to disseminate the benefits of our well organized society, and to extend the blessings of our heaven ordained government, we are called, as a people, to place high before mankind our elevated system of morals, and our pure Protes- tant religion. 54 FIRST AMERICAN Who doubts that the science of philology, now eliciting the attention of the most remarkable talent of Europe, got its first impulse from a woman ? We all know that, when Catharine the Great, of Russia, made her vocabulary of two hundred names, and sent it to President Wash- ington, for specimens of the Indian languages of North America, which he furnished, that she no more penetrated the vastness of that effort to the world, than did Sir Humphrey Davy com- prehend the brilliant results to chemical science, when he deduced observations from a frog, sus- pended on an iron hook ! No more than New- ton, as he watched the apple which fell from his tree, foresaw its effect on the laws of gravitation ! The facts, then, alone are needed, to bring to philology the prestige Cuvier has given to geology ! These must be had by studying the unwritten languages of the earth. In no other way, can we reach the affinity one nation bears to another. This science already has dispelled much that was fabulous and superstitious. The gypsies, a remarkable race, dispersed over Europe, and occasionally migrating to our own country, are shown by their language to belong to Hindosian, and not Egypt, as was supposed. The Hunga- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 56 rian and Laplander, though geographically apart, are found to have a common origin. The Sand- wich-Islander and the inhabitant of Otaheite, though twenty-five thousand miles distant, sprang from one family ! Seeing, therefore, how great an addition might be made to this science, by the American exploration to the South Seas, Hon. John Pickering, of Massachusetts, offered Mr. Reynolds his suggestions on the great impor- tance of employing a competent individual for this branch of knowledge, in which, so much of moment to the country might be attained. SECTION I. Nor were his thoughts on this matter peculiar, for we find similar suggestions, supported by argument and learning, from the pen of the dis- tinguished Charles Anthon of New York. It has been a favorite theory with the learned professor, that the early races of the American continent were identical with those from whence the inhabi- tants of the South Sea Islands have descended. The mummies found in the caves of the West, with the accompanying fabrics, strongly resemble those of the Sandwich, and other islands of the 56 FIRST AMERICAN Pacific. The language, which would decide the question, he thought, the expedition would then test. All the knowledge of the Indo-Grermanic languages was acquired by this science, and this might be the time to fill the gap in the early his- tory of the American nation ! Mr. Reynolds, like his friend, had given much research to this subject, and they alike concluded, as we believe justly, that the North American Indians never were the original settlers of America?! soil ! As might have been expected, the joy of Pro- fessor Anthon was soon indicated to Mr. Reynolds, and supposing he had accepted the appointment of corresponding secretary, in the intended South Sea expedition, he referred to it as a just mark of executive favor ; and adds : " If I know you well (and our long acquaintance leads me to think I have some claim to that privilege), no one could have been selected at the head of the scientific corps, better calculated to bring all things into full operation, and to direct them in such a way, as must lead to ultimate success. A mere naval officer would not have answered for such a post. A mere civilian would have been equally unfit. An individual was required, who should be conver- sant with both elements, and in whom enlarged and liberal views should be found. Not the result of information obtained from others, but the offspring of his own matured and manly intellect. I am glad to find that our executive has had the good sense and discrimination to select such an individual. It would have been EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 57 too bad for another to have reaped the harvest of praiso, after your untiring exertions had fostered so goodly a crop. Let me con- gratulate you, and express the earnest hope of the final success, which awaits yourself, your companions, and our common country." Professor Josiah F. Gibbs, of Yale College, soon seconded the motion of Professor Anthon, for an anthropologist and philologist. To the former, the physical conformations, features, complexions, habits, customs, political institu- tions, languages, traditions, literature, and, above all, the moral and religious impressions of the people, belonged for investigation. To the lat- ter, the phonology, or sound of language, its rad- ical words, its syntax, etc. Thus, the connection of the different tribes of men can be learned, and their common origin defined ; their progress and present location. This discovery in language is a new development of the human mind, and will become the best means of learning its operations. Except the mountains of the Moon, in Central Africa, the South Sea explorations promised more new facts from an investigation of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, than any part of the known world. Professor Charles Gray, of the Lyceum of Natural History, New York, zealous in support of the expedition, communi- 3* 58 FIRST AMERICAN cated with Mr. Reynolds upon the necessity of a practical botanist to be connected with the expe- dition. "We remember that the East India Com- pany set an example, worthy of imitation, in the splendid botanical collections of her Wallich ; and, in a commercial, as well as purely scientific view, it seemed impossible to compute the value of vegetable discoveries to the enterprise of the nation. Zoology, too, came in for its proper and im- portant share in Mr. Reynolds' programme of the South Sea expedition. He perceived that the original character of the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific was rapidly changing ; that the globe itself was occupied by a race of people, totally unlike their early progenitors, so that it was impossible for us to say from whence our own species sprang ; and that very much may be gathered from the animals, which are found, in a newly discovered country, to give an idea of the character of its inhabitants. The tortoise, huge and helpless, for example, would not have been found at the Galapagos had it not been evidently useful to that people. With these ideas, Dr. Charles Pickering, of Philadelphia, pressed upon Mr. Reynolds the great propriety of giving to EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 59 this branch of science the amplest scope for in- vestigation. SECTION II. The patriotism which dictated Mr. Reynolds to collect all possible light, in aid of the expedi- tion, was fully impressed, at this period, upon the intelligence of the country. The safety of our commerce, and our seamen, and the national honor, were all involved. The three great pow- ers of Europe had concentrated all the knowledge of a maritime nature on the globe, and now, the first step to place us in their rank in mari- time discoveries, was presented ! Hon. A. Beau- mont, of the House of Representatives, and Pe- ter S. Duponceau, of Philadelphia, expressed similar views in their letters to the author of the expedition, at the same period. When the bill, authorizing the exploration, was on its final passage in the House, a very large majority of the members voted for it, headed by the Hon. John Quincy Adams. It was then that the Hon. Mr. Hamer, of Ohio, the friend and neighbor of Mr. Reynolds, addressed that honor- able body. Mr. H. said : — "He bad known Reynolds from his boyhood, and knew bim 60 FIRST AMERICAN well. He came from his neighborhood, in Ohio, where he was educated, and studied law. He was a man of as pure principles and fair character, as any man on that floor. His efforts in this cause had been wholly free from any selfish considerations, and, in all he had done, in the last seven or eight years, to promote it, he had been actuated by those feelings of patriotism which should ani- mate every American heart. He had no doubt, if the expedition was authorized, Mr. Reynolds would be employed to accompany it ; for he possessed more information in regard to those seas, and was, every way, better calculated to make the expedition what it ought to be, than any man within the circle of his acquaintance. He was in possession of all the facts in reference to that portion of the globe which was to be examined and explored, and he possessed the entire confidence of all who knew him. His writings had at- tracted the attention of men of letters ; and literary societies and institutions had conferred upon him some of the highest honors they had to bestow. Still, this gentleman, who was an honor to Ohio, and the whole country, might not accompany the expedition. But that fact would have no influence upon his course. Mr. H. was authorized to say that Mr. Reynolds' zeal for the success of the measure, and for the interest of the expedition, would continue un- abated ; and whatever he could do to ensure its prosperous termi- nation would be cheerfully performed." Public opinion, the great moral element of triumph, was now strongly on the side of this national enterprise. Members of eight different State Legislatures, viz. : New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio, had recommended it to Congress. The Bast India Marine Society of Massachu- setts, whose members had doubled either Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, pressed it with EXPLORING EXPEDITION. f»l zeal and fervor. Two distinguished commanders in the American Navy, Commodore Downs and Captain Jones, defined its utility, and urged it as a practical business affair, and adopted every view expressed by Mr. Reynolds, in his able address before the Committee of Naval Affairs. The subject of the expedition, be it remem- bered, had been for eight years before Congress, when it was finally authorized. It had been twice adopted- by the House, and once by the Senate of the United States. The first of these resolutions passed in 1827, *2 8, the bill in 1828, '29, which was not acted upon by the Senate for want of time. The want of funds prevented the first action of Congress being made effective. No thoughts of disunion then entered into their calculations of this expedition. On the contrary, nothing seemed so well designed to render a people, one and indivisible. It was in all respects such a one as Thomas Jefferson endorsed, when he sent Lewis and Clark to the Rocky Mountains, to open the resources of the country, commune with the nations, and add to the treasures of science and general national intelligence. It was but a counterpart of those instructions, given by Mr. Monroe in 62 FIRST AMERICAN 1822, to Major Long, and those afterwards sub- mitted to Mr. Featherstonhaugh, the geologist, when the government sent him to Arkansas. Mr. Hassler made charts of materials he got within the very sight of our coast. Gedney had discovered a channel at the City of New York, two feet deeper than any known to the oldest inhabitant, or the most sagacious pilot. If such exhibitions of nautical science were to be made upon our constantly travelled, waters, how much more did the people of the United States engaged in the commercial marine, need this survey in the South Seas ? For as far North or South as our naval fleet had penetrated, it never lost view of our commercial marine. Commerce is to our country the very pulsation of life ! Its myste- rious channels make the revenues, and supply the means by which we exist as a nation ! It is the duty of the supreme legislature, and the interest of the sovereign people, therefore, to give every facility to its advancement ! SECTION III. Hon. Michael Hoffman, Chairman of the Com- mittee of Naval Affairs in 1828, requested Mr. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 63 Reynolds to furnish in writing, or otherwise, the advantages to commerce, by the exploring expe- dition to the South. So entirely satisfactory was Mr. Reynolds' response, so full of interesting detail, so familiar with the rank of every article of commercial benefit, that on the 14th of March, Mr. Ripley reported, that the information the committee had thus derived, was so entirely cor- roborated by that furnished through experienced naval officers, who had made reports by order of the Secretary of the Navy, on the subject, that they recommended the appropriation asked by Mr. Re}molds, and reported a bill for that pur- pose. Hon. Samuel L. Southard, then Secretary of the Nav}% gave briefly, but cogently, his rea- sons for favoring the expedition Mr. Reynolds had projected. In 1835, Mr. Reynolds' report of September 21th, 1828, was ordered by the House, and it was requested by Mr. Dickinson, then Secretary of the Navy, that it should be returned to the naval archives. This report was addressed to Hon. Samuel L. Southard, and furnishes a well digested mass of facts, in regard to the islands, reefs, commerce and hydrography of the Pacific and Indian Oceans ; and which it is incredible 64 FIRST AMERICAN almost to believe, could have been acquired by the researches of a single man, in the longest lifetime ! Mr. Reynolds in this document declared, "Power, judiciously exhibited, to be the great peace-maker of the world 1" He maintained that it was for our interest and honor, to be acquainted with the capacities of the globe, and to know what resources can be drawn from the great com- mon of nations, the ocean. That in South America, where new states and empires had arisen, our navy had enforced our greatness and our prosperity upon them. That we owed it to the merchant, who had put millions into the chan- nel of trade, before one cent was ever given by the government for his protection, to send out this United States naval expedition, on his ac- count. That whale ships could not become dis- coverers without detriment to their especial interest and business ; that the Northwest coast trader had a more definite object and -direct path than the whaler. That we could no more support our national importance without a navy, than our navy could be supported without commerce ! That we had not sent forth a particle of our strength, or expended a dollar of our money, to EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 65 add to the commercial and geographical informa- tion, except in partially exploring our own ter- ritory ! That we actually conducted our prizes into port, by the maps and charts of the people we had vanquished ! He appealed to the people of the United States, if it was honorable to repose on the knowledge furnished by other nations, and remain all the time idle ? Tyre, Greece, Carthage, Venice, and Florence, even after their opulence was gone, left the means of acquiring wealth and honor to succeeding ages. Their commercial and naval monuments were left standing ! As the Argonautic expedition opened a new path to commerce, and aggrandized its own country, so have the adventures of every people on the face of the globe gratified the avarice or pride of their country, and been the theme of commemoration for future ages ! Our commerce has been extending everywhere since we became a nation, and yet it had been protected nowhere ! The English, French, Spanish, Danish, Nea- politan, Norwegian, and Barbary powers, had cheated and insulted us. They laid out their milestones and guide-boards, and kept us in lead- ing strings ! 66 FIRST AMERICAN " The spirit ot the nation," said Mr. Keynolds, " is aroused, and will never sleep again; honor, justice, feeling, conscious physical strength, all forbid it. We fear no storms, no icebergs, no monsters of the deep in any sea. We will conduct ourselves with prudence, discretion and judgment; and if we succeed, the glory and profit will be yours, citizens of the United States. If we perish in our attempts, we alone shall suffer, for the very inquiry after us will redound to your honor !" SECTION IV. The memorial of the people of Nantucket, stated that there were more than one hundred and fifty islands, reefs and shoals, known to our whalemen, not laid down on any chart ; and around these, floated nearly forty thousand tons of our shipping ! Think, oh think, of the amount of life and property of this nation, then at the mercy of concealed dangers ! Had not our country once been agitated from centre to extreme by the capture of a few Ameri- can citizens by the powers of Barbary ? Did not the people then spontaneously proffer to bear the expense of their liberation ? And when the fate of enterprising navigators depended, probably, on some hidden reef or island, was it less a duty to respond to the wants of our suffering countrymen ? The touching solicitude Mr. Rey- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 67 nolds felt on this point, is best expressed in his own terse and beautiful language : "Everything conspires to urge us forward at this time. The advantage of commerce to science and national glory, seems now to be sealed and sanctified by the calls of humanity and an impe- rious duty. I wish not to be importunate, nor do I fear that I am, for the accumulated weight of circumstances is above all argu- ment and entreaty, as it strikes the heart and the understanding at the same time. " The future safety of our mariners demands this expedition ; tho advancement of commerce, and our navigating interests demand it ; the people demand it; and our national honor cannot Buffer this fact to go abroad, and not carry with it the probability of some effort for future information and security." This appeal, so characteristic of the intellect and energy of the author, recalls the remarks of the gifted Irish orator, Burke, in his celebrated speech in the English Parliament, on American conciliation : " As to the wealth which the Colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which that enter- prising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opin- ion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fisheries, whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay, and Davis's Straits ; whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold ; that they are at tho antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Serpent of 68 FIRST AMERICAN the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and roman- tic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. " Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the Poles. "We know that whilst some of them draw the line, and strike the harpoon, on. the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fish- eries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexter- ous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." Mr. Reynolds presented to Congress a list of four hundred newly discovered islands, run- ning through a series of consecutive years, and showed, thereby, that a thorough examination of these seas was needed, to encourage that class of our citizens who were absolutely engaged in the most dangerous service known to the coun- try, as well as for the preservation of our com- merce. The coast of California had been only imperfectly surveyed, Mr. Reynolds stated, at that period ; Vancouver had only partially ex- amined it, from Ceros Island, north ; and many islands, bays, harbors, and reefs, on that portion of the Pacific coast, had not been mapped. That our cruisers had extended from the coasts of Peru and Chili to the northwest coast of New EXPLORING EXPEDITION. P»9 Zealand, and the Isles of Japan ; and several vessels had been wrecked on islands, and reefs, not laid down ! He sustained himself by records which proved that there were, then, at least, one hundred and seventy thousand tons of shipping, twelve thousand men, and twelve millions of capital invested in the whaling and fur business, on our coasts, which derived from the govern- ment no more aid, as American interests, than those of Patagonia or New Zealand would have received ! This immense fleet of four hundred and sixty sail, from forty distinct ports, scattered along the seaboard of seven different States, made one tenth of all the tonnage of the United States ! And the fisheries, alone, even at that time, con- tributed over six millions, annually, to the wealth of the country. SECTION V. And now, having given the origin of the First American Exploring Expedition, we shall pro- ceed to show how far that expedition executed the intention of Congress, and the design of its distinguished projector, Hon. J. N. Reynolds. 70 FIRST AMERICAN In examining into the detail of the present ex- ecutive action, and of the cabal who have sought to shear from the navy of our country so much of its glory, the author found, in the public ar- chives, a case so remarkably illustrative of the same mysterious influence, so eminent for deep and base envy, and malignity towards elevated merit, which characterized this present action, that she at once seized upon the facts, in con- nection with the origin and history of the First American Exploring Expedition ; and will show that, as incompetent officials who occupied, but did not Jill, positions of authority, under the government, defeated the magnitude of the en- terprise, as designed by its author, so has justice to the wronged covered with denunciation the men, upon whom rests the responsibility of hav- ing defeated the spirit and intent, nay, the very letter of the law, which authorized the late " Navy Retiring Board !" A year after the law of Congress ordering the expedition, its departure seemed more and more doubtful in the public view. The people could not account for the delay, as the commissioners had reported to the President, in January, 1836, that the Macedonia could be ready for sea in EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 71 ninety days. It was now 1837! Hon. Mahlon Dickerson was known to have opposed the en- terprise in the preceding Congress, and urged members "to strike it out." But, as Secretary of the Navy, his obligations ought to have im- posed obedience to the law's behests. While this delay continued, the French government, seeing the future glories arising from this expedition to our young nation, aroused her maritime powers, and actually sent, well-equipped, three expedi- tions to the South Seas, each with a frigate, and was preparing a fourth expedition, before the Secretary of the Navy had done any thing that looked like sincerity in the matter ! No one would have believed that we were the descendants of that energetic people who, in 1797, when the French Directory insulted them, felled the oak from the forest, and built and manned their sloops of war, and were pouring their hot shot into the French cruisers in the West India Islands, within one hundred days from the time the order was given to build the vessels ! President Jackson, it was well-known, was fully resolved that the expedition should go out, wanting in nothing that could tend to pro- mote its ultimate object, or complete its triumph. 72 FIRST AMERICAN He was of too lofty a spirit to comprehend the design of the petty action of this contemptible cabal, ancf, even in sickness, his heart was full of the greatness of the enterprise ! In the mean- while, there was a secret action designed, at last, to strangle it, of which the General's philosophy had not dreamed. In order to derange the whole plan, and render it inadequate to meet the ex- pectations of the country, of the President, and of Congress, Mr. Dickerson, after devising other means for delay, called a committee, some thir- teen months after the law passed, to assist him in adopting means requisite for the exploration. Commodores Chauncey, Morris, Warrington, Patterson and Wadsworth, tried and trusty men, were assigned that unpleasant duty. For what could have been more so, than to be summoned to sit in judgment, upon the deliberate opinions of the people of the United States, in Congress assembled ? What more so, than to review the action of the President of the country, who had most thoroughly examined, not after President Pierce's fashion, but in sincerity and honesty, the character, scope and design of the expedition. But President Jackson had now been succeeded by Martin Yan Buren, or this board would never EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 7 6 have been instituted. The high hopes and expec- tations of the nation, would not have been so slighted, and its aspirations for an enviable fame, as well as for permanent benefit and distinction, spurned ! The instructions given to this body, were, so far as a perversion of the law was concerned, sim- ilar to those given by Mr. Dobbin to his Council of " Fifteen!" The major object of the expedi- tion was singularly omitted ! The great commer- cial interests among the islands of the Pacific, and the many ways by which science might be ele- vated, and the interest of the country extended, were all passed over, without scarcely an allu- sion. The whole purpose and plan was misrepre- sented, when this board were told that "The expedition was to explore the Seas of the Northern Hemisphere, more particularly in high latitudes, and in regions near the South Pole as could be approached without danger." etc. SECTION VI. Mr. Dickerson, then Secretary of the Navy, is now no more. And we shall therefore forbear to make any other comment on his action than 74 FIRST AMERICAN the truth of history imperiously demands, when justice is vindicated. In all the private relations of life, that gentleman was amiable and courteous, and he lived and died above reproach. But he, most unfortunately, was surrounded by a clique of small officers and vicious men, who possessed neither heads nor hearts of sufficient capacity to grasp the objects contemplated by this expedition. Men, who could no more comprehend the value of national renown, than they could build a world ! Men, who had no higher ideas of the navy, than to subserve their own interests, and overlooked the fact that it was made to give glory to the republic, and not to aggrandize themselves ! In a word, Mr. Dickerson was very much in the same category after the law of 183G, that Mr. Dobbin was after that of 1855 ! Both sur- rendered to weak and bad influences, and both proved, that any other place, than that of Secre- tary of the Navy, would have been better for themselves, better for their country ! When men commit felony on their own reputations, public opinion rises abovcparty, and fixes its imperisha- ble seal of condemnation where it belongs ! Witlithis remark, we proceed to treat the con- spirators to destroy the enterprise as the real EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 75 perpetrators of the act designed to throw back, with contempt, a solemn law of Congress upon its members, and upon the country ! We say the instructions given the board, were a willful perversion of the object of the expedi- tion. They knew very well that the memorials which came to Congress from that portion of our fellow citizens who had most interest in our com- merce, elicited from the members the greatest consideration. General Ripley's report in 1828, and Hon. Dutee J. Pearce's in 1835, were luminous and unanswerable arguments, in favor of protection to our fisheries in the North and South Pacific and Indian Oceans. These men had seen Com- modore Downs' letter, too, after he had circumna- vigated the globe in the Potomac, as well as the original report of Hon. J. N. Reynolds on "the islands, reefs, and shoals of the Pacific," in which there was irresistible evidence of the labor to be performed by the expedition, among the thousand islands laid down, through error, on the charts, as well as among those that had no place assigned them on these maps. In the very face of this knowledge, upon which such earnest comment had been made on the floor of Congress, this board 76 FIRST AMERICAN were directed to look mainly to the means of getting to the South Pole, or near it, and to see if the present force be not too large, for that sin- gle object! We, see then, the mournful spectacle before us, of a high, but weak official, attempt- ing to cut down the first national expedition undertaken by this great republic, and that, too, in the very face of a solemn law of the land ! If this cabal had taken the trouble to have searched among the archives of the Navy Department, they would have seen enough to convince them of the effect of a large force, in accomplishing the pur- poses of the expedition as designed. In 1824, the British Government sent Lord Byron in the Frigate Blonde, to the Sandwich, and other islands. What was the effect ? Why, these sav- ages at once were impressed with the belief that no nation on earth could equal the greatness of the English ! And the result upon the American residents and traders in that quarter was so un- fortunate, in consequence, that they wrote to Commodore Hull, then in command of the Pacific Squadron, to send a frigate immediately to remove or modify the effect the Blonde had pro- duced. Mr. Southard, then Secretary, sent the Frigate Potomac to Quallah-Battoo, to chastise EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 77 the Malays, whose hands had been stained with the blood of our countrymen. And more real and lasting benefit ensued, than a dozen sloops of war could have accomplished. 78 FIRST AMERICAN CHAPTER IV. When the French had not one-tenth of our interest afloat in the North and South Pacific oceans, they sent three frigates to these seas, to extend and protect their trade, and subserve the cause of science. Mr. Reynolds had taught the tricksters, but they forgot the lesson, that where our commerce was, there must be our navy to guard its interests ! And every speech made up- on the subject of the enterprise, which had been scattered over the nation, was a withering rebuke to the maladministration of the Navy Depart- ment, in convoking a naval board, to draw from it a report, to justify the reduction of the force the law authorized for the expedition. To show the miserable subterfuges of this cabal, it is only necessary to state, that, at one time they declared the idea of going to regions near the South Pole, was sheer nonsense ! While at another, they made it the primary object of the enterprise, in their instructions to the board ! EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 79 The truth about the matter was, that Mr. Dickerson was opposed so thoroughly to the ex- pedition, that although Congress had passed a law authorizing, and made ample provision to carry it into effect, he could not, as the servant of the government, so far sink his own individual en- mity, as to implicitly execute the act, as he was bound to have clone, and therefore allowed these men to rule. President Jackson overruled them, as soon as he saw the delay, and the Globe, on the 13th July, 1836, announced his order to have the Macedonia, two brigs of two hundred tons each, one or more tenders, and a storeship, immediately fitted out ; and, that Captain Thomas Ap C. Jones, had been appointed to the com- mand, and officers for the ofher vessels were about being selected. As soon as this official notice appeared, the clique sent Mr. Dickerson to the President, to correct a misunderstanding in his mind, by arguing, that ' ' protection of our com- merce," " the impression of our force," " our character, policy, and power," could not belong to an expedition intended only for high latitudes ! The next excuse made for the delay, was the im- possibility of procuring men. No conspirators ever labored so zealously to 80 FIRST AMERICAN defeat an enterprise as they did the First Ameri- can Exploring Expedition ! They held up the scientific corps as an encroachment on the rights of naval officers, and went so far as to say, that these officers should fix their salaries, or, at least, protest against this compensation exceeding a cer- tain annual sum ! Thus was jealousy fomented between officer and citizen ! There is no title of which a son of our soil may feel more proud than that of citizen. And who but they make our navy, and support and judge its officers ? It was no reproach to the navy that the varied scientific knowledge a national expedition re- quired, called for men in an entirely different line of action from that for which their duties unquali- fied them. It was a world wide fact that, while our national vessels had sailed round the globe, no record of a laborious scientific research existed ! Instead of checking a disorganizing spirit, then, at its first inception, the Secretary actually en- couraged it, as a means most fatal to the enter- prise ! He designated the scientific corps as mere oyster or clam catchers ! And so determined was he to dispirit and annoy these men, that, although Congress made a specific appropriation for their compensation, from the 1st of January, 1837, EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 81 their pay was withheld, and they were kept from active duty, until the 4th of July, of that year ! It was, really, a most humiliating position, un- der which we were thus placed before the en- lightened nations of the world. That our coun- try which, in the American Revolution, captured by her private armed ships, fifteen hundred sail from the enemy, broke the charm of British in- vincibility by sea, and humbled the spirited cor- sairs of the Mediterranean, should now, after marching into the front rank of nations, be thrown into derangement and excitement about manning a small squadron with a few hundred seamen ! But such was actually the case ! And, although the memorialists, committees, members of Congress, and the press, urged that a frigate and other vessels be at once fitted out for the expedition, it was, positively, fourteen months after the passage of the law, when the public were informed that "the only insurmountable difficult])" was finding the requisite men, "in three or four months, without interfering with arrangements already made!" Thus, did the cabal expedite that voyage of discovery ! Con- gress went so far as to make a special grant for the increase of the seamen's wages, at the pre- 4* 82 FIRST AMERICAN vious session, but every dollar of it was withheld from the poor sailors who were shipped for the expedition. SECTION I. Commodore Jones, too, was offered the "ex- traordinary facility" of detailing officers to visit New Bedford, New London, etc., for the purpose of procuring crews, but that inducement which is well known to be essential to cause men to ship, either in the merchant or naval service, was withheld, as no money for advances was allowed to these officers ! And it was an undeniable fact that, after prime haifds had consented, in New Bedford and other districts, and the commander of the squadron approved the requisition of an officer for one thousand dollars to pay the passage of these men to the naval rendezvous, the Secre- tary refused to cash the draft ! On another occa- sion, fourteen sailors reported themselves ready for enlistment, at the office of an agent, in Alex- andria, D. C. The agreement was about being consummated, when the officer repaired to Wash- ington, to ascertain whether the thirty dollars, the usual advance, should be charged to the men, EXPLORING EXPEDITION. So or whether, in compliance with the special provi- sion of Congress, that sum should be allowed as bounty. Before he had time even to make the inquiry, he was ordered to return the money placed in his hands forthwith to the treasury, and tell the seamen to "go to Norfolk upon their own hook ! and ship there." Of course, not one was so insane as to obey ! Such were the "extraordinary efforts," and such the "extraordinary success," in procuring men for the First Exploring Expedition of our country ! The belief that the feeling of the De- partment was enlisted against the measure, now became general throughout the nation. The fact that the uncertainty about the sailing of the ex- pedition had so long prevailed, and the non-al- lowance of the extra pay Congress had provided for the crew, soon had a chilling effect upon its ardent advocates. It was, evidently, the design of the Department to create the idea that great privation would follow this service, and all the wages of the crew would be expended in provi- ding clothing for the icy latitudes near the South Pole ! And the public mind was not long in comprehending the " facilities " which this great national enterprise received from the Navy De- 84 FIRST AMERICAN partment. With ordinary effort, the whole com- plement of every vessel might have been shipped in sixty or ninety days after the passage of the law, and that, too, without interfering with the protection of our commerce, or with the regular action of the naval service. The men, as we have shown, stood ready to enlist for the cruise ; men, who would have honored the expedition ! The public records, also, show that when the Department reported to the President, and, through him, to Congress, that " the frigate and storeship, which were on the stocks when this meas- ure was authorized, have been finished and equipped, and are now receiving their crews ;" that the ships were not finished, were not equipped, were not re- ceiving their crews! So far from it, it was not until the next June, six months after this official statement, that the frigate was completed, and in a condition to receive her complement of men ! When that report was made of the frigate's readiness for the expedition, she had not a single bulkhead up, or a yarn over the masthead ! We find, in this most incongruous report, that, after the foregoing statement, the President was informed that the Department had not "yet at- tempted to organize the scientific corps," but EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 85 would as soon as " the accommodations were ready for them in the vessels." The reader can make his own comments upon this singular consistency ! Now, every man and woman of common sense would know that the organization of a corps of men for scientific purposes had nothing to do with their apartments on shipboard ! No, no ; that was all the merest skulking of the cabal. But, one day, in December, a distinguished member of Congress remarked to the President, that ' ' no appointments for the expedition had been yet made for the civil department." General Jack- son, surprised, rang his bell, and summoned the Secretary to attend at 12 o'clock! In three days from that time, the scientific corps were commis- sioned ! And, to him, the sole credit is due for the able, efficient, and scientific board, which were attached to that exploration. SECTION II. Some may inquire, what reason was assigned to the President for not having made these ap- pointments before ? Why, that Mr. Secretary was waiting for a new appropriation by Congress ! But the General very soon dismissed that excuse, 86 FIRST AMERICAN by showing, from incontestable documentary evi- dence, that more than one hundred thousand dollar?, of the last year's appropriation, were at that very time unexpended. When the bill was pending before Congress for this national expedition, these mutineers sought constantly to create opposition, by representing the immense draw it would make on the treasury. Mr. Dickerson then declared to members, that it was an extravagant enterprise, which had noth- ing to do with the protection of our commerce, and was only to explore high latitudes South ! ! ! The object of this was apparent ! It is known, that a portion of our public men entertain the opinion that the government of the United States has no authority under the constitution, to send out an expedition solely to promote science. Therefore, to have divested it of its relations to commercial protection and general utility to the country, would have been to destroy it ! But, the clear- sighted Reynolds had made the measure impreg- nable, by the very defenses from which its enemies would gladly have separated it. Science was not the primary object of the expedition ! It was the cherished idea of Mr. Reynolds, in maturing this great American expedition, to have EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 87 it, in all respects, a national, American matter. N It was due to the country, and the just pride of her free-born sons ! And American artists deserved to have their skill at least fairly tried, before any step was taken to provide the instruments abroad. But the conspirators did not think so. And in- stead of first appointing the corps for whose use they were intended, and obtaining the views of these scientific men as to the instruments needed, as well as the mode of providing them, he sends an agent, Lieutenant Wilkes, off to Europe, to procure books and instruments for many branches of science, of which he knew no more than the Secretary himself! And reader, what instru- ments do you suppose were thus obtained, that could not be had in these United States ? The records tell us they consisted of two astronomical clocks, one journeyman's clock, two astronomical telescopes, and forty-one chronometers ! Now, we find upon examination, that for several years previous to that period, astronomical clocks had been made by American workmen, not surpassed in accuracy and finish by those of any foreign workshop in the world! And Halcomb, the American constructor of telescopes, had won pseans of praise for the accuracy and portability 88 FIRST AMERICAN of his instruments ; while our American box- chronometers had received premium after pre- mium from men who kept up with the time of day! Thus, among the heterogeneous melange of scien- tific works provided by this agent of the Secre- tary, not over ten, with the exception of the voyages, were worth any more to the object than the Arabian Nights ! There had evidently been no naturalist consulted ; for not a manual, model, or workbook was in the lot ! And such instru- ments as were really necessary to have been pro- cured in Europe, were never mentioned ! So it was, that after fifteen months had passed away, proper books were to be provided, and instruments were still to be constructed. All for the good faith of the government's official ! One thing ought not to be forgotten, that, after the studied attempt to excite enmity between the civilians and naval officers of the expedition, the Secretary was for taking the hydrographical and astronomical labors from them, to whose pro- fession they belonged, and making these improper assignments to unprofessional men. But as yet, the integuments of these men's consciences had not been penetrated ! The voice of public cen- sure had reached them in vain ! EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 89 The object of appointing the naval board, at this crisis, was clearly to defeat the law of Con- gress, by reducing the force of the expedition. For this reason, Commodore Jones had no place in it ! He was known to have been too fully committed to its interests to see the nation sent back fifty years in intelligence by any act on his part ! But, fortunately, the board bore no sem- blance to that subsequently selected by Mr. Dob- bin ! They were men who would not so far compromise themselves as to overlook the claims of patriotism and duty ! And, looking to the law of Congress and the memorialists, they decided to advise no other course than that pointed out by the proper authority ! SECTION III. In the meanwhile, the Department, expecting to be sustained by the board it created for the purpose, allowed Wilkes to take the instruments intended for the expedition, on board the Por- poise, in order to cause a new difficulty to its sailing! No men ever labored more zealously to defeat an object, than did that clique to de- stroy the expedition ! They represented the 90 FIRST AMERICAN duties of the civil corps as being degrading and irksome ! although, at the same period, the French expeditions, incited by our own, had volunteers from the best citizens of the country, even to stand before the masts ! In the expeditions of Napoleon into Egypt, he wisely foresaw the advantage of a corps of sa- vans, to the ising greatness of his country ; and he knows little of history who has not seen that, while they took nothing from the glory of the military commanders, they made imperishable the benefits of their own scientific discoveries. This was the enterprise in which we were to make our debut in the field of maritime enter- prise and discovery, and the projector had labored long and earnestly to make it national in all re- spects. By it, the commercial interests of our country were to be protected — new regions ex- plored — unfortunate seamen succored — charts of harbors made — dangerous passages surveyed — important islands penetrated — their population to be sought for conference — the lives of our mariners made more secure, and our trade in- creased ! More than one hundred mariners, American seamen, had been shipwrecked at the Feejee Is- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 91 lands, alone, and most of them cruelly murdered by the natives, while not a single effort had beer made to awe those savages by our power, or conciliate them by our kindness. The effect of a national frigate at such a spot was apparent to the common sense of all. The mere exhibition of such a force as Congress designed, and Commo- dore Jones recommended, might have tended to the immediate rescue of our captive mariners. Often a dozen vessels, from a single port in the United States, were engaged in traffic with these Feejee Islanders for the Chinese market. What was the result? These vessels returned to the United States, freighted with the rich goods of that country, the duties upon which had yearly added largely to the national treasure. It was a matter of ridicule to all geographers, when they found the instructions for the guidance of the expedition from the Navy Department named but three places on the whole globe, and they as well-known as the ports of New York or Ports- mouth ! The points for general rendezvous were luminously pointed out by the only individual competent to the undertaking, Mr. Reynolds, the originator and founder of the enterprise. This energetic American showed that one of 92 FIRST AMERICAN the most populous group of islands in the Pacific, in the neighborhood of the Feejee and Society Is- lands, rich in all the productions of the tropics, and lying in the very track of our great whaling operations, was, at that time, for all minute and practical knowledge, an unknown land ! When the intelligence of the country was awakened to the extent and variety of trade, and the consequent amount of revenue collected from these regions, it soon saw that it owed fifty times the amount that the expedition would cost, for the revenue that had already accrued, without any expense for protection. And, even if that had not been so, it was due to the unaided enterprise of her citizens, and the future interests which it would so well subserve. SECTION IV. The condition of the finances of our country in 1837, encouraged this cabal in the hope that it might now break up the entire expedition ; and a new commission was instituted, to renew the effort to cut down its force. Commodores Hull, Biddle, and Aulick com- posed its members, and without visiting the EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 93 squadron, or informing themselves of the real objects of the enterprise, they reported favorably for the conspirators, and recommended the sloop- of-war Peacock, instead of the Macedonia, and a reduction of the minor vessels. The purpose to reduce the naval force of the expedition, soon excited the surprise of scientific observers in Europe, as well as this country. For even when France and England were taxed to their utmost capacity, by a long and expensive war, they both sent out splendid expeditions of discovery. But, we Americans were not born to be servile imita- tors of foreign powers ! We, as a people, were the last to enter the Pacific Ocean, but we had moved with matchless celerity, and pushed ahead of every other nation in maritime and commer- cial enterprise on the globe ! At home, we had turned the forest into the abode of civilization, and framed our institutions to meet the wants of our own people. And in steam navigation, ship building, and the use of mechanical agents, we then challenged the whole world to equal us ! By the most irrefragable arguments, Mr. Rey- nolds showed that there was no expedition of a like character ever sent from Europe, whose ex- ample should warrant the reduction of the Ameri- 94 FIRST AMERICAN can flotilla. Commodore Joues, enfeebled in health, and discouraged by the endless impedi- ments and malignant action which thwarted his noble exertions, resigned his command on No- vember 30th, 1838. It was then tendered to Shubrick, President of the late Council of " Fif- teen." The vessels did not please him, and he declined. It was next offered to Captain Kear- ney. In the meanwhile, the misapplication of the funds, the changing of vessels, the effort to create discord, the delay of the reports, the withholding the specific information which was ashed by Congress, the indecision and inconsistency, avoiding the friends, especially, the projector of the expedition, and rewarding those who created difficulties in the way of its progress, compelled the Executive to interfere, and take its final arrangement from the hands of the Secretary of the Navy ! It was then transferred to Hon. Joel R. Poinsett, Secre- tary of War. The friends of the measure were now jubilant with joy, as the era of a new policy in the matter was believed to have been thus inau- gurated ! But alas, what a fatal mistake ! For soon it appeared that Poinsett had all along been the secret coadjutor of the Navy Junta, and EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 95 whatever had been done by them, was with the full approval of that wonderful man, Poinsett ! It then appeared, that he devised or abetted the scheme of appointing captains, all known enemies to the expedition, to withdraw the Macedonia from the squadron, that she might be sent imme- diately as the flag-ship to the West Indies, under command of his particular friend ! We have said that Captain Kearney was invited to the com- mand, but Poinsett interposed, and had that order withdrawn. Not only so, but similar con- duct towards that officer in regard to other ves- sels, both by Poinsett and Dickerson, obliged Kearney reluctantly to retire from the expedition, in which he entered with so much zeal and pro- fessional ability. Captain Gregory was then tendered the com- mand : he stood at the head of master-command- ers and, independent of the expedition, was enti- tled to the promotion to a post-captaincy. Now, instead of extending to this officer the deference due to his position, they refused to send his name to the Senate for his just promotion until after he should accept the command of the expedition. This the Captain refused, very properly, to do, although he was both promoted, and appointed 96 FIRST AMERICAN to the command ! But this manoeuvre was for the settled purpose of defeating him, and so it proved. Poinsett and his coadjutors had, long before, made him a marked man ! Why ? be- cause Gregory had not consented to take the responsibility of objecting to Mr. J. N. Reynolds and others, whom this lilliputian coterie, Poin- sett & Co., had determined to sever from the expedition, but lacked the courage to avow theii base design! Hence it was, that the rules of the service, and the rights of high-toned officers, were trampled down. section v. Captain Kearney had agreed to take the squad- ron substantially as Commodore Jones left it. He refused to object to the scientific corps, and asked no change but the appointment of Lieuten- ant Gedney, as second in command ; and, to it, Mr. Dickerson had consented, and ratified it. While Kearney, with his known promptness, had directed Lieutenant Gedney to prepare letters for Lieutenants Dorwin and Glynn, requesting them, in five days after their receipt, to proceed to Rio, and wait the arrival of Captain Kearney himself. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 97 in the flag-ship ! Next morning, Captain Kear- ney and Lieut Gedney called at the Navy Depart- ment, to dispatch orders, and put the squadron in motion. When lo ! the Macedonia was with- drawn, and the whole arrangement made by the Department the previous day, declared a nullity ! They, then, proposed to substitute a large merchant vessel for the scientific corps, as the flag ship, and offered that command to the Cap- tain, who, being determined not to be driven from the expedition, accepted ; but, finally, dis- gusted and disheartened, as we have stated, he withdrew. It was ascertained, beyond all ques- tion, that Joel R. Poinsett perpetrated all that mischief in twenty-four hours ! After Gregory, Captain Joseph Smith, a gallant and distinguished officer, received as insincere a proffer of the com- mand as that made to his brother officers, by whom he had been preceded in that honor ! Captain Smith asked for Lieutenant Wilkes among the junior officers, to command one of the small vessels ! a station, altogether, as high as his rank, standing, and qualifications, fitted him. And, for this situation (the command of a small vessel in the squadron), he had been named by the Secretary of the Navy to Commodore 5 98 FIRST AMERICAN Jones. So, to reconcile matters, Captain Smith thought fit to name Wilkes, once more, for as high a position as his ardent admirers had then presumed to claim for him! Imagine, there- fore, with what startling effect came the abso- lute refusal of Wilkes to take a subordinate position in that expedition! He declared he would resign his commission in the navy sooner than do so ; and that he would take nothing short of the entire command I And, would you believe it, Americans, that but two days elapsed after this most insubordi- nate and disobedient action, on the part of Wilkes, before he was appointed to the entire command ! Nobody expects one of that cabal to turn state's evidence, and convict the culprits ; but no one doubts the less, that Lieutenant Wilkes declined the station offered him by Captain Smith under the express authority of Joel R. Poinsett ! Who believes, in or out of the ser- vice, that Wilkes would have dared to have com- mitted an act that would have jeopardized his commission under different circumstances. Not one! not one! Hear these men! They told the public that Captain Smith would not go with- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 99 out Wilkes ! and that Commodore Jones would not go with him ? There stood Captains Kear- ney, Smith, Gregory, Kennon, Aulick, and Arm- strong, with a Lieutenant Commodore made over their heads ! A Lieutenant, whom Gedney had taught the first rudiments of hydrography ! Lieutenant Magruder had, also, been attached as first lieutenant of the Macedonia ; and he, very properly, sent a remonstrance to the De- partment, against the injustice of superseding him ; and it lies there yet among its archives. What did he say? Why, that he was of the same date as Wilkes, was examined by the same board, that he passed higher than Wilkes in mathematics and seamanship, ranked, conse- quently, above him, and had seen much more sea service since they had been commissioned lieutenants ! Yet, there he was, supplanted by his inferior ! Reader, mark the parallel between the action of that cabal to break down the Navy in 1838, and that in 1855. In many cases, they, the par- ties, are identical, and in all cases, influenced by the same animus furandi ! Look at Shubrick's action at that day, the same spirit of insubordi- nation, which since has distinguished him. Yet 100 FIRST AMERICAN he found favor with that same cabal, and recently sat in judgment upon his brothers in the service ! Look at Wilkes, elevated there by the same influ- ence that retains him now, while Lieutenant, now Captain Gedney, the accomplished hydro- grapher, is laid on the shelf. But as though it was not enough to elevate Wilkes over his supe- riors, it was alleged that none of them had the re- quisite talents! What rendered this the more insulting, was the fact, that Lieutenant Wilkes had never been recognized by the corps of scien- tific officers, as even being one of their number ! He had aided Gedney and Blake in a survey of Narragansett Bay, some years before, and we believe had surveyed, subsequently, George's Bank ! But he never had been ranked as a hy- drographer with Lieutenants Gedney and Blake. SECTION VI. Captain James Armstrong, whose services were passed over, to give the command to a junior lieutenant, was another case, which called for pub- lic reprehension, similar to the instances in which distinguished seniors were set aside by the late Navy Retiring Board, to make places for aspiring EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 101 juniors. Captain Armstrong was ordered to the command of the Macedonia in 1836 ; from then to 1839, he had been constantly with his vessel, amid delays and discouragements no language can describe. The records of the Department showed, that for thirty years he had borne him- self with honor in the service. He was at New Orleans, on board the bomb-ketch Etna, and afterwards commanded a gun-boat, though a young midshipman ; and engaged in the fight which subdued the Barrataria pirates. He was in the brig Siren, in the sloop-of-war Fralies, in the frigate Congress, in the Washington, the In- dependence, the Columbus, the United States, commanded the Porpoise, and then was appointed to the command of the Macedonia, when she was designated for the expedition. This captain, who had served his country with so much honor under Commodores Chauncey, Bainbridge, and Hull, and who had been for two years attached to the expedition, was, without even the courtesy of explanation, ruthlessly thrust aside by these naval bandits, to make room for an instrument who would enact their behests ! An officer like Captain Armstrong would have given prestige to the enterprise at home and 102 FIRST AMERICAN abroad. He was able, skillful, prudent, with the capacity to manage the fleet, and take care of the crew committed to his charge, and was, in all respects, fitted to conduct the South Sea explora- tion. He was without the weakness or folly of Wilkes, and sought no acknowledgment for sci- entific attainments which he did not possess. But, like Commodores Jones, Kearney, Smith, and Gregory, he scorned the servility essential to propitiate the favor of these designing men ! It now became necessary to put forth some plea of justification for the outrage upon the usage of the service, and the injustice perpetrated on the public good, in the appointment of Lieuten- ant Wilkes to the command of the expedition ! "How can it be done?" became then a para- mount question with the cabal ! But, having accomplished their ends so far as to secure their instrument, there was not much apprehension but that, amidst so much versatility of talent and in- ventive genius, some plea might be made, which would justify the outrage ! So the " Naval Gen- eral Orders," of the 22d of June, 1838, ap- peared in the form of a proclamation, declaring the expedition purely scientific, thereby leaving the President power to depart from the usual cus- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 103 torn of appointing from the senior ranks of the navy, and according to their respective grades ! Lieutenant Charles Wilkes was then annoum-ed as having received the appointment as first officer of the expedition, and Lieutenant William L. Hudson, as second officer, to command the sloop- of-war Peacock ! Hudson, at that moment, stood above Wilkes on the Navy Register, yet the junior was put in the whole command ! Now, be it remembered, that Mr. Poinsett had, just before, deemed it essential to have Captain Gregory pro- moted to the rank of post-captain, before he con- sidered him elegible to the command ! And yet, Gregory was at that time at the very head of the list of master-commanders in the service ! It was also equally well known, that Captain Au- lick had been invited to take the second position in the squadron ; and that Lieutenant Tatnall had been offered, unofficially, the grade of comman- der, which he had in the same way accepted, only a few days before Wilkes' appointment ; and when, as we have reason to believe, they were actually in treaty with Wilkes, as the only proper man for their purposes ! We leave to some future Plutarch, the task of unveiling all the in- consistency the case could unfold ! But the for- 104 FIRST AMERICAN bearance of Congress and the people seemed the more surprising, since this clique dared to assume, that in appointing a lieutenant to com- mand the expedition, they had actually changed the character of the enterprise ! EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 105 CHAPTER Y. In the celebrated report, in answer to a call of Congress, of March 19th, 1837, in reference to the two sloops of war, Pioneer and Consort, intended for the exploration, the same disregard to that supreme legislature was manifested ; when the important official documents were withheld from Congress, and trivial unimportant papers were sent in their places. Why ? Because the documents proved the fitness of the vessels for the service which Poinsett & Co. had concealed. The Macedonian had been withdrawn, covertly, under the pretence that she was needed to pro- tect our commerce in the Gulf of Mexico, while the Mexican ports were blocked by a French fleet, and the Macedonian left at her dock at Norfolk ! Thus they delayed the enterprise ordered by Con- gress for more than three years ! They abstracted two sloops of war, and a gun brig from the pro- tection of commerce, in order to send them on the 5* 106 FIRST AMERICAN expedition, which they pretended was not naval ! And when, for less than half the money it cost to fit these vessels for the survey, others, already, and far more appropriate for the service, were at hand ! In making the naval appropriation for the ser- vice, a discussion arose in the House of Repre- sentatives, the 11th of April, 1838, when the outrage committed upon professional feeling and pride, in the appointment of Wilkes, received its just comment. Hon. Mr. Wise, of the naval committee, now Governor of Virginia, expressed himself in his usual independent and significant manner. He said : "That he had not accused Lieutenant Wilkes of purchasing his command at all ; hut he had been informed that intimations had been given to the officers of a higher grade, that it was expected, if appointed to the command, they would discharge certain indi- viduals ; and one of these men, like a true officer, had replied that if such dismissals were to be made, the Department must take the responsibility of making them. Mr. W. did not believe that it was the painter that was to be discharged, but there was an individual who had done more, in the first instance, to get up the expedition than any other man in the country, and who had expressed himself very freely in the public journals in regard to the Secretary, and xnhom it was the object of the Department to get clear of'* Mr. Wise said, farther, " that, if his information was correct, Lieutenant Wilkes had been selected, not on the ground of his peculiar scien- * Governor Wise had reference, as the reader must know, to the Hon. J. N. Reynolds, of New York. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 107 tific attainments, nor on that of the special character of the service, but for a reason entirely different." Mr. Wise said "he had his information from a lvspectahle source, and such was the belief of some gentlemen in the navy." Mr. Ingham, chairman of the naval committee, attempted the defense of the government officials, and contended under a misrepresentation made to him, and for which he was not responsible, that the force having been curtailed nearly one half, it was necessary that Wilkes should reduce the scientific corps in a corresponding proportion ! Mr. Ingham, therefore, said, it was very singular, indeed, that when the expedition was to contain but one half the vessels, and the whole outfit cut down in the same proportion, that there should be no reduction of expense ! Mr. Wise said that Commodore Jones had told him, only the previous day, that there would not be a dollar's reduction by the present plan ! Here, we discover that, the public as well as members of Congress, were deceived, cheated, by the representations made from the Depart- ment, that the squadron prepared under the guidance of the Lieutenant Commodore, consisted of but half the force organized under Commodore Jones, and, under this deception, these official 108 FIRST AMERICAN managers had, in a great degree, defended and justified their procedure before Congress and the country ! So far did this clique go to fix this impression upon the public sentiment, that Gover- nor Dickerson embraced an opportunity, after he closed his four years 1 service in the Navy Depart- ment, to congratulate the country that the expe~ dition had been reduced one half! Now, Americans, the truth about the matter was, that the naval force, then under the com- mand of Lieutenant Wilkes, was larger than the squadron which lay in the port of New York under Commodore Jones ! Mark it, reader, that, after a three years' war against the magnitude of the expedition, by Joel R. Poinsett & Co., and a long and intensely ac- tive effort to strangle the enterprise, on that very account, they actually gave to their Lieutenant Commodore a larger naval force than that com- manded by Commodore Jones ! Will any dare to deny this? We invite them to the proof! The squadron under Lieutenant Wilkes consisted of— 1. The sloop-of-war, Vincennes, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, Esq., Commander-in-chief, with twenty-two subordinate officers. This is a twenty gun ship ; which cannot, according to law, he com- manded hy an officer under the grade of master-commander. EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 109 2. Sloop-of-war, Peacock, Lieutenant William L. Iludson, com- mander, with nineteen subordinate officers. This vessel, now second in the squadron, had recently been the flag-ship of a com- modore in the East Indies. 3. Ship Relief, Lieutenant A. K. Long, commander, with nine subordinate officers. 4. Brig-of-war Porpoise, Lieutenant Cadwallader Ringgold, com- mander, with twelve subordinate officers. 5. Schooner Flying Fish, Passed Midshipman Samuel R. Knox, commander. 6. Schooner Sea Gull, Passed Midshipman James W. Reid, com- mander. SECTION I. "We perceive, here, that the Macedonian, of thirty -six guns, and three hundred men, was withdrawn, and the Vincennes, Peacock, and Porpoise substituted therefor, consisting of fifty- six guns, and four hundred and sixty men / And we further discover not only that the aggregate tonnage and number of vessels in "Wilkes' squad- ron were greater than that under Commodore Jones, but that the aggregate draught of water was greater ; and that an addition of one schooner was made to the flotilla, which addition had been most pertinaciously refused to Commodore Jones ! This is the manner the first American enterprise of discovery was made "altogether scientific," and its force reduced to "one half" of its origi- 110 FIRST AMERICAN nal proportions ! Another attempt of their mis- erable trickery was, the final sailing of the squad- ron without the full complement of men ! mere illusion to deceive the people ; because, as they knew, their number could be increased in a for- eign port, as they pleased ! Having disposed of the silly plea, that the force of the squadron was reduced under Wilkes' com- mand, and its naval character taken away, we will next see how they entrenched themselves behind reduced expenses. Under Commodore Jones, the squadron con- sisted of the Macedonian, Pioneer, Consort, Relief, and Active, and the expenses did not exceed one farthing that of the new organization under Lieutenant Wilkes ! While, for efficiency in navigating high latitudes, protecting commerce, surveying or scientific research among the islands of the Pacific, the comparison between the good and had plan disgusted and disheartened every practical seaman in the nation ! Was there ever a more flagrant violation of law, a more flagrant violation of the published regulations of the Navy Department, a more flagrant outrage upon the professional service, than was committed by men then invested with temporary authority? But EXPLORING EXPEDITION. Ill the science and intelligence of the country had now passed judgment on them ! and the secret springs of the contemptible action of Poinsett & Co. were manifested by the public records before the country, with which only we have now to do. It was remarkable foreknowledge on the part of a low lieutenant that he should have six months before predicted the possibility of being called to command the expedition ! But such was the fact, that he did. Congress was then in session, and every effort was made to hide their plans and intentions. The friends of the expedition were feared in and out of that body ! Officers of the navy were now obliged to cease their complaining of the wrong done them, for the paramount rights of the commander were then settled, although the details of the arrangement were not to be fixed until after the Senate adjourned ! Thus it was that these heads of Department dared to do what they could not find Congress so corrupt as to sanction. Then it was that the new commander spoke freely of his plans as being endorsed by President Van Buren and Mr. Joel R. Poinsett ! He de- clared his intention " to make the expedition naval in point of fact, but as he could not draught a 112 FIRST AMERICAN scientific corps from the navy, a portion of the present members would be retained, the rest dis- missed." Why? Because the squadron was reduced ! Look at this inconsistency, reader, and repress your deepest indignation, if you can ! That, while in the face of the truth, as furnished from prepared documents, these men had added to the naval force under Wilkes, he had the impu- dence to assert before the country that a reduction of one half had taken place ! And this was all done to make it scientific, says Poinsett & Co. ; but their protege blundered so badly as to make discrepancy in their respective tales, for Wilkes said he meant to make it entirely naval ! What a remarkable instance this of high moral and offi- cial integrity ! And it did not await its reward for post mortem honors ! SECTION II. The ground upon which the learned Mr. Wilkes was thrust into command, was that the enterprise was not to be naval but scientific ! What did the commander then do for science ? He summarily erased from the fist the departments of anatomy and comparative philology ; while entomology and EXPLORING EXPEDITION. H3 crustaceology were pronounced useless, or only deserving the attention they might receive from the zoologists, who already had more than their proper duties assigned them ! Well might it cause grief to every friend of science, to every one interested in the true glory of his country, when an incompetent lieutenant was allowed to lop off from the expedition these members, after they had made every preparation to join the expedition, and under the plighted faith oftlie government, by whom they were commissioned, and were ready to sail with it I Nor was this all ; for the de- partments of natural philosophy and physical science, which a Humboldt or an Arago would have assumed with modest distrust, this little lieutenant-commodore took into his own keeping, in addition to all the other duties which devolved on him ! ! The assistant zoological draughtsmen and landscape and portrait painters, trifles in Wilkes' estimation and those who governed his acts, were also set aside ! As to Palaeontology, which educated people know to be a science that treats of fossil organic remains, vegetable and animal, and that it has done more to unfold and analyze the globe we inhabit than any other science, these men spurned with contempt ! They 114 FIRST AMERICAN declared it all "humbug," and the department as worthless, in connection with the expedition ! How mortifying! how humiliating to national pride ! " The secrets of Nature," says the learned Bucklaml, "that are revealed to us from the history of fosBJl organic remains, form per- haps the most striking results at which we arrive from the study of geology. It must appear almost incredible to those who have not attended to natural phenomena, that the microscopic examina- tion of a mass of rude and lifeless lime-tone should often disclose the curious fact that large portions of its Bubstance have on« formed parts of living bodies. It is surprising to consider that th* walls of our houso are sometimes composed of little else than com- minuted shells, that were once the domieils of other animals at the bottom of anoienl Beas and lakes. "It is marvellous that mankind Bhonld have gone on for so many centuries in ignorance of the fact which is now so fully demonstra- ted, that no small part of the presenj surface pf the earth is derived from the remains of animals that constituted the population of ancient seas. Many extensive plains and massive mountains form, as it were, the great charnel-house of preceding generations, in which the petrified exuviae of extinct races of animals and vegeta- bles are piled into stupendous monuments of the operations of life and death, during almost immeasurable periods of past time." Cuvier said "that the wreck of animal life formed almost the entire soil o?i which we tread" And from a sight so imposing, and so terrible, was our young and intelligent nation to be kept, because a naval cabal did not understand its meaning or its benefit ? Order's great works as a naturalist, arose from his examination of the fossil bones of the environs of Earis. Deshaye's EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 115 fame, came from studying the fossil shells of the same region. Brogniart's celebrity rests on the same science. Desmarest got his honors in the same way. And Agassiz, in whom Americans have pride, owes his reputation for science, to his work on fossil fishes. Buckland wrote a work on the fossil bones in the caves of England and Wales. But, the Bridgewater Treatise, Lyell's, and other like works, were as impenetrable to the intellects of these managers of the expedition, as the component parts of an Egyptian mummy ! Before the vandal act of excluding palaeonto- logy had been committed, it would have been well to have consulted the archives of several of the states where, in connection with geological sur- veys, that department of science had been then created ! It is well to remember, that Wilkes only enact- ed the will of Poinsett & Co. They delayed the expedition, sowed discord among the officers, made jealousy between them and the scientific corps, by throwing out the idea that the latter would cheat them of their glory ; refused to order any one to join the expedition ; released those who did not wish to go ; rewarded those who abused Commodore Jones, and J. N. Reynolds, 116 FIRST AMERICAN its author ; allowed Wilkes to keep the instru- ments in his possession, which he brought from Europe, when it was his duty to have handed them to Johnson, for whose department they were provided ; corresponded secretly with officers under Commodore Jones, and ordered Jones to sail, while they kept out of his power the instru- ments he needed to do so ; refused to allow the scientific corps to draw their pay, after President Jackson forced their appointment ; and finally, did all they possibly could to disgust these gen- tlemen, and drive them to the necessity of resign- ing their commissions in the expedition. SECTION III. All this while, these men made General Jack- son believe they favored the measure, because they were afraid of their places. But after getting their favorite in the command, these men saw they had done all necessary to monopolize the glory, and having raised the cry of economy, they pretended to reduce the naval force, and cut down the scientific to correspond ! Was ever a greater amount of villainy practised than that in connection with this first American enterprise of EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 117 exploration? We believe no records on earth, could show a more diabolical conspiracy ! In retrenching the scientific part of the expe- dition, the deepest malignancy and envy pre- vailed. Hale was retained from sheer timidity : — they feared the savans who pressed his claims. Dr. Reynell Coates was dismissed, because Wilkes thought the purser's steward could answer for the anatomist ! Professor W. R. Johnson was also stricken from the list, because Wilkes professed to understand " Natural Philosophy," as well as he did, and there was no necessity for his services ! It seemed that once this Mr. Johnson served on a committee with Professors Bache and Henry, to test some magnetical experiment of Wilkes, on "Smith's Compass Needle." These gentle- men pronounced Wilkes' deductions utterly ab- surd, and the very reverse of his demonstration ! This was enough to settle the question with John- son, although he had been endorsed for scientific capacity, by such eminent savans of the coun- try, as Professors Farrar, Silliman, Henry, and Mitchell. It was absolutely necessary that the man who obtained the bona fide command of this national enterprise, should bind himself, soul and body, to do anything and everything the conspi- 118 FIRST AMERICAN rators required should be done. They therefore gave to Wilkes more enlarged powers than were ever conceded to Commodore Jones ! For Wilkes had the privilege of choosing his own officers, which was refused Jones. He had increased pay allowed both himself and officers ; this also was refused Jones ! Wilkes was given an additional schooner, which they had denied, likewise, to his superior. In short, these officials, whose whole influence rested upon the appendage of office, made their dictum overrule the authority of Congress, and the will of the American people ! They reduced the scientific corps, and made it more military and naval ; while throwing all possible mystery around their doings, they attempted to cheat the people, with the facts before their eyes ! Honorable Joel R. Poinsett, was the man who laid the last hostile hand upon the enterprise, which was designed to enrich and enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge, and bring upon the country high national renown ! It was Poin- sett, we remember, who took the squadron from the command of Captain Kearney, which would have placed it above the reach of the enemies of the enterprise, as he foresaw, and therefore pre- vented it in a night ! Through him and his con- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 119 federates, Smith, Gregory, Kennon, Aulick, and Tatnall, were all badly treated ! These conspirators degraded American genius by their stupidity, and caused the blush of shame to our learned societies, by. their course towards the various departments of science. Entomology, for example, they utterly rejected, although it equals in extent, all the other sciences of the ani- mal kingdom put together ! The societies of London and Paris devoted to this subject, com- prised hundreds of members, and their transac- tions at that day, were published throughout the civilized world ! Moreover, they had agents and correspondents in our own country, as everywhere else. How must we have appeared to them, when, in the first great scientific voyage of dis- covery, a department of natural history, so essen- tial to the study of geology, was declared nuga- tory ! The French government, at the same time, had engaged twenty naturalists to complete a work of sixty volumes, on that single subject ! Cuvier's work, so classical and philosophical, as to rank him ever as the prince among naturalists, was on the shelves of every well selected library of our country, and had better have been examined by 120 FIRST AMERICAN these wiseacres before they pronounced the sci- ence of entomology useless, and dismissed Mr. Randall thereby, with so much good will ! Just as they did Dr. Reynell Coates, from the depart- ment of comparative anatomy, and Professor Johnson, from that of natural philosophy ! section v. But there was one other gentleman, against whom a greater degree of malevolence was con- centrated, than was exhibited towards all besides. This was Hon. J. N. Reynolds, originator of the expedition ! The fiat had long gone forth, that he must not accompany the enterprise, to share in its future glory. How to get rid of him was the trouble, but it had to be done, at any cost. The distinguished officers appointed to the com- mand, would not, therefore, do ! They knew and acknowledged the services of Mr. Reynolds, and all desired he should accompany the expedi- tion. But Wilkes said he would absolutely refuse to take him, and pretend that he did so for the sake of harmony ; and that he would say further that he knew nothing of the powerful recomnienda- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 121 tions of all the West to the President for Mr. Reynolds' appointment to a position in the expe- dition. That moment the bargain was struck. He sold himself to his confederates, and he fully answered their purpose ! On the 30th of July, 1838, Mr. Reynolds, now a citizen of New York, addressed a letter to PoiDsett, demanding to know why neither he nor his friends had received a reply to the communi- cation of the Western delegation in Congress, addressed to the President two months previous, in reference to his appointment in the South Sea Expedition. He then stated that, "If it was determined he should hold no station, with or without defined duties and a salary attached, he wished to know if he could, as a volunteer, without compensation and without duties defined., accompany said expedition, asking no other protection from the Department or commander than was guaranteed by the rules of the service to a sailor before the mast." The immediate reply of Mr. Poinsett, on the 1st of August, 1838, shows the evident collusion between himself and President Yan Buren and Commander Wilkes. He affirms that he never knew that such a letter existed ! that he had a private one from a gentleman in Ohio, asking that Mr. Reynolds should go out as a commercial agent, and added, 6 122 FIRST AMERICAN "But I knew the President had decided that no snch officer should be appointed, nor could I, with my views of the subject, recommend such a measure to his favorable consideration. "Being about to take my departure from Washington, and expect- ing to be absent some weeks, I addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, in which I expressed my opinion of the composition of the scientific corps, their number and description, but without designating the persons. I think he ought, and presume he will, be governed in his choice by the wishes of the commander of the squadron, for it is essential to the success of the expedition that the utmost harmony should exist between the naval officers and the members of that corps. "Your desire to accompany the expedition is natural, ami. under ordinary circumstances, your having, in some measure, originated the design, would give you a strong claim to he indulged in your wished ; but all subordinate considerations must yield to the paramount one of conducting the expedition to a successful issue. "Your letter has been sent to the Navy Department." Attend particularly to this letter, reader ! He admits ignorance of what lie ought to have known, and then confesses he had conferred with the President on the subject ! Who can explain away the belief, that with a knowledge of Mr. Reynolds' efforts to procure the law authorizing the expedition, and the independent manner in which he had dmounced the official action of the government, that Poinsett and Van Buren had not. when on the subject, made allusion to such a letter from a delegation in Congress? Who believes it? Who? With another remark on this singular Jesuitical letter, we leave you, reader, to EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 123 approve it, if you can ! This innocent secretary thought the wishes of the commander should govern in the selection of individuals for the sake of har- mony, &c. This exactly corresponds with what Wilkes had already agreed to say of Mr. Reynolds, viz., that harmony required he should not be in the expedition ! What martyrs to truth, ye mag- nanimous men! The pretended reference, too, to the Navy Department was to implicate Hon. J. K. Paulding, then Secretary of that Depart- ment. But it was notorious that the whole matter was hurried through ; proclamation of change in the organization made ; Wilkes ap- pointed, and all regulations perfected to prevent Mr. Paulding from having the power to interfere in their action ! They knew he would not stoop to such a course, but would arrest it, and that he had already, in his letter to Mr. Reynolds, shown his views of what was proper to be done for advancing the expedition as originally designed. 124 FIRST AMERICAN SECTION V. We cannot forbear now from giving the official confirmation of our own premises, which so com- pletely identifies Mr. Reynolds with the first work of American exploration. To his Excellency the President of the United States. The undersigned, members of Congress from the State of Ohio, avail themselves of this occasion to express their gratification upon learning that the Exploring Expedition, authorized by a recent act of Congress, is about to be fitted out in a manner worthy of our great republic. They feel it to be a duty which they owe, as well to their con- stituents the people of Ohio as to their common country, to re- mind the administration of the claims of J. N. Reynolds, Esq., to a prominent place in the proposed expedition. His long and ar- dent services in calling public attention to this question, and urging its adoption by Congress; his zeal and untiring industry in collect- ing information in reference to it; his intimate acquaintance with all the interests of the commercial community (between whom and himself there exists a long and intimate intercourse), whose inter- ests are afloat in those seas ; the kind relations subsisting between him and most of the scientific men and societies of our large cities, as well as his personal acquaintance with the South Seas, and his unusual mass of information in regard to their localities, eminently qualify him to be placed at the head of the civil corps which is to accompany the squadron. The services and qualifications of Mr. Reynolds have been ac- knowledged by every committee who have reported upon the sub- ject, and are appreciated by Congress and the whole country. The undersigned believe that they express as well their own sentiments and those of their constituents, as of the friends of the expedition generally, in asking that Mr. Reynolds be placed at the head of the civil and scientific corps, having a general superin- tendence over, and that he be authorized to write the history of EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 125 the expedition, having such rank, powers, and compensation, as the administration may think proper to bestow. Respectfully, your obedient servants, Benjamin Jones, William Patterson, William K. Bond, David Spangler, Thomas Corwin, Elisha Whittlesey, R. Storer, I. Sloane, Josh. II. Crane, William Hermon, Samuel F. Vinton, J. M'Lene, S. Mason, John Thomson, T. L. Hamer, Taylor Webster, Elias Howell, Daniel Kilgore. John Chaney, July Id, 1836. To his Excellency Andreio Jackson. Sir : — In the Exploring Expedition which has been ordered out under the direction of the general government, we would respect- fully recommend J. N. Reynolds, Esq., as the chief of the civil ap- pointments. The unremitting zeal of this gentleman in the cause of his coun- try and of science, his former experience as a navigator, his scien- tific acquirements and capacity, would seem to us to point him out as the person most deserving the appointment. J. Fry, Jun., J. B. Anthony, Edward B. Hull, J. R. Ingersoll, A. Beaumont, George Chambers, E. Darlington, David Potts, Jun., J. B. Sutherland, Isaac M'Kim, John M'Keon, G. W. Owens, Ely Moore, Samuel Barton, R. II. Gillet, J. Y. Mason, James Harper, John Reed, Benjamim C. Howard, A. Ward, Jos. Henderson, J. Miller, Henry A. Muhlenburg, H. L. PlNCKNEY, John Reynolds, R. Johnson, A. Huntsman, Francis Thomas, Dutee J. Pearce, William Sprague, A. Vanderpool, William L. May, Z. Carey, George L. Kinnard, A. Lane, John Cramer, C. C. Cambreleng, J. Toucey, R. Boon. 126 FIRST AMERICAN To the President of the United States. House of Representatives, Id July, 1886. Sir : — I have learned with pleasure that the Expedition to the South Seas will be dispatched in due time, and that you have directed it to be fitted out as becomes the interest and character of the country over which you preside. Yes, I rejoice that you have done so, for I sincerely believe that no act of Congress for years has been so honorable to our national character, none that will reflect more credit on your administration ; as the undertaking will attract the eyes of the whole civilized world, and its results become matters of interest and of record in eveiy part of Christendom. To be appointed at once, with a liberal allowance, to the first place in the civil department of this expedition, I beg leave strongly to recommend my friend J. N. Eeynolds, Esq. In reference to this gentleman I must be permitted to speak with freedom, for I have known him long and intimately. Ilis labors in this cause, so perseveringly continued, are well known to the whole country; in an especial manner are they known and appreciated by the whole of that portion of our fellow-citizens interested in the commerce of the Pacific, and who have expressed so much interest in having this expedition fitted out. I was in Providence in October, 1834, when Mr. Reynolds made an address before that body, for the purpose of getting an expression of the Legislature of my State in its favor; which was readily given, as the people of Rhode Island take a lively interest in the undertaking. From that period to the present session and final action of Con- gress on this subject, I have held with Mr. Reynolds a constant correspondence, and Mr. R. has at all times consulted with me as to the steps necessary to be taken to effect the object for which he has labored so long. At the last session I made a report in favor of the expedition from the committee on commerce, which was not acted on by tho House for want of time. At the present session Mr. Reynolds again conferred with me, procured a recommendation from the Legislature of New Jersey, and, when he arrived in this city, I agreed with him that it was the best plan to commence in the Senate, which was accordingly done. The result, since that time, is known to you. The measure passed EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 127 by an overwhelming vote of both houses, and has heeix much approved in, all sections of the country. These are some of the circumstances which enable me to speak so strongly in favor of Mr. Reynolds,whose labors and sacrifices in this cause have made him tcell known to the members of this House. I do not hesitate to say that to his efforts, more than any man living, is the country indebted for the successful prosecution of the measure before Congress. These facts made known to you, it will, I am sure, no longer be a question as to the part which shall be assigned to him. The organ- ization of the scientific corps could not be committed to better hands ; and especially do I wish that to him may be assigned the duty of writing the official account of the cruise. With great consideration and respect, I am your friend, Dutee J. Peaeoe. To the President of the United States. House of Representatives, Id July, 1S36. g IR; — I beg leave respectfully to recommend J. N. Reynolds, Esq., for the chief of the civil appointments connected with the Ex- ploring Expedition to be sent out to the South Seas. In this I am governed by a desire to see merit adequately rewarded in the appointment of a gentleman whose past services and scientific nauti- cal researches appear to point Mm out as one who has earned the place and is eminently qualified to fill it. The friends of Mr. Reynolds, particularly in the western country where he was raised, have long admired the ability and utility which have attended his devotion ; and, I may add, they would be much gratified if this meritorious son of the West could be placed in a situation where he might earn still higher distinction for himself, and, at the same time, confer greater advantages upon his country. With sentiments of the highest esteem, Your friend and most obedient servant, George L. Kinetard. 128 FIRST AMERICAN To the President. Senate Chamber, Washington, 2d July, 1836. Snt : — I would inform the President that many of my constitu- ents feel a deep interest in the Exploring Expedition authorized during the present session, and which I understood the executive has decided to fit out the present season; and that, having a high opinion of the character and qualifications of J. N. Reynolds, Esq., and of his capabilities to be useful in said expedition, I respectfully recommend him to the President for the highest civil appointment connected with the expedition; and will add, that his appoint- ment will afford me personally much gratification. I have the honor to be, Respectfully, your obedient servant, John M. Niles. Washington, 5lh July, 1836. Deae Sie : — I enclose you several papers in relation to the ap- pointment of J. N. Reynolds, Esq., as chief of the civil and scientific corps which goes out with the exploring squadron to the South Seas. No. 1 is the -unanimous recommendation of the representatives from Ohio (without distinction of party) that he be thus appointed. No. 2 is the recommendation of some forty or fifty Members of Congress from other States, asking for him the same station. This paper was got up without the knowledge of Mr. Reynolds or any of the Ohio delegation, and / have no doubt a hundred additional names could have been obtained, if any one had taken the trouble to circulate it through the House. It was not deemed necessary, and was not therefore done. It contains the names of a majority of representatives from In- diana, of Illinois, and Rhode Island; of a great portion of Pennsyl- vania ; and of gentlemen of distinction from a majority of the other States of the Union. No. 3 consists of letters from gentlemen of respectability and science, from various quarters of the country, to the same effect. They all speak the same language and breathe the same spirit. These documents, taken together, leave no doubt of the state of EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 129 public opinion upon this question. All who have reflected much upon the subject feel the necessity of an efficient organization, with a responsible chief, to produce unity and harmony of action. All who are aware of the large space which Mr. Reynolds fills in the public eye, in connection with the great enterprise, at once point to him as the most suitable person to Jill this station ; that he ought to obtain it (in the character of commercial agent, or such other as may be thought advisable), and be allowed to write the history of the expediton, I have never doubted for a moment. Few persons seem to be aware of the immense importance of this expedition to our national character. It will rivet the attention of every intelligent man in Christendom for years to come, and it will be looked upon hereafter as an epoch in our history. It will surprise the elder nations of Europe to see that a new people like us have undertaken this voyage. But how much will their wonder be increased to perceive that we have organized it upon a plan which, for enlargement of conception, liberality of sentiment, and efficiency of action, renders it decidedly superior to anything of the kind which they have attempted. That this great undertaking may redound to the honor of your administration, and to the glory, happiness, and prosperity of our beloved country, is the ardent prayer of Your excellency's obliged friend And obedient servant, T. L. Hameb. To his Excellency Andrew Jackson. To his Excellency, Martin Van Buren, President of the United States. The undersigned, members of Congress from the West, beg leave, once more, very respectfully, though earnestly, to call the attention of the administration to the claims of J. N. Reynolds, Esq., to a prominent place in the Exploring Expedition. This measure was early and warmly supported by the West. It was originated and a* 130 FIRST AMERICAN first called to the attention of Congress by one of her sons. She btill continues to feel an interest, and still indulges the hope that it may be so equipped as not to disappoint the just expectations of the country ; she still hopes to see it depart in skillful and experi- enced hands, unshorn of its naval or scientific strength. Congress has made repeated appropriations, which leave no doubt of the hold of the expedition upon science, the intelligence, and pride of the nation. The whole Ohio delegation, as well as many other members of the House, immediately after the passage of the law authorizing the measure, addressed communications to the late executive. After congratulating hiin on account of the interest lie took in directing the expedition to be fitted out in a manner worthy "our great republic," they proceeded to call his attention to the claims of one who had done so much in calling public attention to the importance of the enterprise, and in urging its adoption by Congress. The friends of the measure knew the important part Mr. Reynolds had acted, and they were intluenced not more by a sense of justice than a desire for the success of the enterprise, in asking for Mr. Reynolds a prominent portion in it. The commercial interests of the United States in the seas to be visited are well-known to the executive; they are immense, and still susceptible of great extension. In ask- ing that Mr. Reynolds be placed at the head of the civil department attached to the expedition, was only asking, in other words, that he should receive the appointment of commercial agent. Until recently, many of us supposed that station had been assigned to him ; that he ought to have it, and be authorized to write the offi- cial account of the expedition, we have never doubted. That he is eminently qualified to perform these duties, under the sanction and regulations of the department, cannot be doubted; that he has abundantly earned the distinction which they would confer upon him will admit of as little question. Mr. Reynolds has uttered no complaints to his friends, and it has not been until since the passage of the last bill of appropriation that they became aware of the actual position the Secretary of the Navy had assigned him ; and not even then, till the discussions in the House seemed to leave some doubt whether he was to accompany the ex- pedition, in any capacity, had led to direct inquiries upon the sub- ject. Any officer, conversant with the history of this expedition, EXPLORING EXPEDITION 131 and knowing the relation Mr. Reynolds has maintained to it, hoth in and out of Congress, and should object to his participating largely in its labors, -would, from that fact, in the opinion of the under- signed, be him self unfit to command; and the interests of the expe- dition, and the honor of the country would, in all probability, be best consulted by his dismissal, and the supplying of his place by one of more just, liberal, and enlarged views. The undersigned have learned, with deep regret, that to Mr. Rey- nolds, the originator, the indomitable advocate, who has, for so long a time, persevered against every discouragement, whose knowledge upon the subject has been so fully appreciated by committees and members of Congress, and has enlisted so large a share of public feeling throughout the country, has received from the Department the meagre, unmeaning appointment of '"'■corresponding secretary to the commander,''' 1 to perform such duty on the expedition as the jus- tice or caprice of a commander might direct; while the names and duties of all others composing the scientific corps, as well as juniors in command, were conspicuously named in the general instructions for the guidance of the expedition, were thus recognized by tho Department in a document to be preserved in all coming time; but in that list, and in that document, the name of J. N. Reynolds, we learn, is nowhere to be found; that no duties were assigned him by the Secretary; in a word, that the action of the Department, whether intended or not, would go to show that Mr. Reynolds was not recognized by government, or known in the enterprise, except only so far as he had an order in the form of an appointment from the Secretary, directing him to report to the commander for duty. The undersigned forbear further comment on this subject, and content themselves with protesting, in the name of their constitu- ents, the people of the West, as well as in their own names, against the continuance of such obvious injustice to their fellow-citizen, who has, in their opinion, earned far different treatment at the hands of gov- ernment. TJiey are aware that many difficulties have thus far at- tended the fitting out of the expedition: upon these difficulties they feel no disposition to dicell. It is enough for them to call the attention of the President to the subject, in a spirit of frank- ness and kindness, feeling assured that their communication will be received in the same spirit, and that the President will, at 132 FIRST AMERICAN once, give such directions as will be satisfactory to all the parties concerned. Very respectfully, &c, Thomas Corwin, Ohio. Thomas L. Hamee, Ohio. James Alexaner, Jr., Ohio. J. Ridgeway, Ohio. Alexander IIarper, Ohio. Wm. Key Bond, Ohio. Daniel Kilgore, Ohio. Calvary Morris, Ohio. J. W. Allen, Ohio. D. P. Leadbetter, Ohio. Wm. H. Hotter, Ohio. P. G. Goode, Ohio. Chs. D. CoiFix, Ohio. S. Mason, Ohio. A. W. Snyder, Illinois. Thomas Morris, Ohio. William Allen, Ohio. O. H. Smith, Indiana. John Tipton, Indiana. Lucius Lyon, Michigan. James Rariden, Indiana. William Herod, Indiana. William Graham, Indiana. R. Boon, Indiana. George II. Dunn, Indiana. Albert S. White, Indiana. William L. May, Illinois. Zadok Casey, Illinois. John Chaney, Ohio. J. Webster, Ohio. E. Whittlesey, Ohio. Wa3hinotok, May 1st, 1838. To J. If. Reynolds, Esq. New York, Nov. \Uh, 183T. Dear Sir: — The members of the scientific corps, attached to the Southern Exploring Expedition, have, with deep regret, understood that you entertain some idea of resigning the commission by which you are, at present, associated with us. Without pausing to inquire whether the position in which you are placed by that document, is such a one as, in justice to your unwearied exertions for the success of this great national enterprise, should have been assigned to you, we would earnestly request you to reflect farther upon the subject before making a final decision. That you would, of necessity, occupy a prominent station in the expedition, has so long been considered by us, in common with the whole country, as a point beyond all question, the present contin- gency takes us wholly by surprise ; and we have heard, with not less astonishment than grief, that, in the official list of the civilians connected with this undertaking, the name of J. If. Reynolds is no- where to he found. Upon the manifest injustice of this omission no comments are requisite. We believe that, through the length and breadth of our land, wherever the name of the Exploring Expedition has been mentioned, every voice will be lifted up against it. Neither is it required that we should enter into a detail of the many reasons EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 133 for which we consider your accompanying it to be of the utmost importance to the harmony and eventual success of the expedition. Permit us, however, to assure you that such is our conviction, and to express our sincere hope that the knowledge of this fact may induce you to sacrifice your present views and feelings in this mat- ter to the wishes of the corps, and to consent to retain a position which, however it may fall short of what in justice should be yours, will secure to us your co-operation in carrying out, successfully, the great objects of the voyage. Our country, never forgetful of the claims of her children, will, we cannot doubt, in the end, award you all that is so justly your due, however it may he attempted to deprive you of it at present. Trusting that our appeal, therefore, may pro- duce the desired effect, we remain, dear sir, with the highest respect and esteem, Tour sincere friends, Alfred T. Agate, James Eights, Joseph P. Couthouy, Horatio Hale, Ketnell Coates, Eaphael Hotle, James D. Dana, W. R. Johnson, Asa Gray, Charles Pickering, J. W. Randall, J. Drayton. The Cincinnati Republican at that day, made these just re6ections on the outrage : This appeal or remonstrance, for it is a little of both, was sent to the President early in May last ; but its publication has been withheld until the present moment, in the hope that justice would have been done Mr. Reynolds. But we learn that it is determined that Mr. Reynolds shall not accompany the expedition, and the communication, though signed by a majority of the delegates in Congress from the West, who are friendly to the administration, has not received the courtesy of a notice from the President. When we take into consideration the uniform support the expe- dition has always received from the West, and especially from the Ohio delegation, who took an interest in the enterprise from the fact that it had been originated and successfully prosecuted by a native of Ohio, the conduct of the executive seems almost unac- countable. Here are the wishes of the almost entire delegation of the northwestern states strongly and manfully expressed. On what ground of petty jealousy are the demands of this letter denied ? 134 FIRST AMERICAN Was it to gratify a secretary notoriously opposed to the expedition from the moment it was projected, and whose ground of hostility to Mr. Reynolds was mainly owing to the fact that he had again and again defeated him before Congress? We assign no other reason tor the conduct of the President in this case. Of the arrangements which have given dissatisfaction, the ap- pointment of Lieutenant Wilkes to the command, over the heads of his seniors and superiors in every respect, is not the least reprehen- sible. Why was he selected? Was it because he was ready to do the bidding of an incompetent secretary ? This is no party meas- ure. Strong men on both sides hate been and are its supporters. The country at large bears the expense, and has a right to ask why matters have been thus managed. The people of Ohio have a voice in the matter, and a right to inquire if injustice has been done to one of her citizens — the author of the measure — who has, by his researches and publications, fixed milestones and guide- boards for those to carry on the expedition icho have now got pos- session of it, without the magnanimity to do justice to its projector. The conduct of the managers of this affair towards Mr. Reynolds will find no response from honorable men. They may do him wrong, but cannot put him down; for^ going or staying, ins triumph has been complete. The spirit which his labors has awakened will not sleep ; for, whatever is done in this expedition, or by others which may and no doubt will folloio, for the extension and security of commerce and the acquisition of scientific knowledge, the country will not forget to whom it has been mainly owing. Was it wonderful that this bigoted ignorance should manifest its persecuting spirit towards the individual whom it could not equal in intellect, in philanthropy, or moral courage ? Was it singular that the true significance of liberty was unknown to them ? Was it strange, that an in- telligence so far in advance of them should have been misunderstood, and misrepresented ? He who is the mouthpiece of the time, generally ob- EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 135 tains greater concessions from the obtuse and narrow-minded ; because they honor that heroism which compliments themselves ! Mr. Reynolds was the great oracle of the future ! And it needed moral heroism to place himself in the advance guard of a great national enterprise, in accordance with his convictions of patriotism and duty ! Every great event is the beginning of a new epoch in the history of hu- manity, and he, who by his devotion to justice and truth, makes his country wiser, happier, or better, places that country under a debt of grati- tude to him ! We say, therefore, that were the magnitude of that effort on the part of this American, fully weighed in all its intellectual, moral, social, and political bearings, on the future of this nation, the name and praise of its author would echo not only from every city, but from every hill and through every plain in our coun- try ! For what but this feeling warms our hearts towards the heroes of our liberties, who sacrificed their reputations, their treasure, and their blood, to serve the cause which so preeminently blesses us ? And what nobler deed can man perform for his country and his race, than to inspire a more exalted intelligence, and develop a nobler pro- gressive thought? 136 FIRST AMERICAN The author, as we have seen, was not permitted to accompany his own expedition, but his triumph was not the less complete ! Because he shed an unfailing lustre on his country, and became thereby, the beacon light which has illumined the dark and intricate pathways of science ever since, and elevated our state of national progress and intelligence ! All subsequent expeditions and voyages of dis- covery in this country owe their origin to him who made their "milestones and guide-boards!" To the men of science who accompanied that great enterprise, honor and praise are both due ; and despite the difficulties and embarrassing sur- roundings, they made an imperishable record of their fidelity to their high trusts ! Lynch's exploration of the Dead Sea, testifies the value of the First American Exploring Ex- pedition ! Fremont's courage and noble daring in California, testify it ; the Arctic Expedition of Doctor Kane, testifies it ; and the American people, by one consent, ratify and endorse its utility and greatness to our common country ; while the limit of its results no human wisdom or foresight can compute ! c^£^. Qt&^Tz^ THE PACIFIC KAILKOAD. CHAPTER I. The invention of printing, in 1436, prepared the way for the discovery of America in the same age, and made it a necessity. Why ? Because it civ- ilized and enlightened men ; and when this was done they wanted more room ; their commerce wanted more field ; their kingdoms wanted more latitude ; their navigation more scope ; in fine, every faculty of man expanded, and with a double energy the great work of revolution had begun. To obtain control over the commerce of the East has been the prize for which the ambition of na- tions had contended for ages ; and to find an easier and more direct route to India was the cause which moved Columbus to set out on the discovery of a western continent. The commerce of the East 138 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. controlled the world. Its riches, transported o/er deserts by the Arab, furnished London, Lisbon, Amsterdam, &c, with their opulence and grandeur. When the Turks held power on the Bosphorus, this wealth went to Europe and Asia through the Black Sea. When the Venetians wrested that power from the Turks, the Mediterranean became the channel of this Eastern commerce. The attractions of the gold mines of Peru and Mexico, the wars of the Dutch, French, and Danes, did not divert public desire for a direct route from Europe to Asia, until England conquered and established her empire in India over one hundred and fifty millions of people. The French explorers sought this line in vain ; and Lewis and Clark, under President Jefferson, of our own country, met with no better success. At last, however, the difficulty is solved ! A railroad through this continent is the power which is to control the commerce of the world ; and the United States alone affords such a route. The Pacific Ocean is then to be the centre of com- merce for the world, and our country thus becomes the centre of civilization. The moment this road is built, Asia, with its five hundred millions; Europe, with its two hun- THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 139 dred and fifty millions ; Africa, and all the islands of the ocean on either side, will seek this transit for their commerce. To go to India now, from the United States, is an undertaking which involves the risk of health and life, a voyage of five months, and of twice crossing the equator. With the railroad, twenty days would be the maximum time for penetrating the heart of India from the city of New York. There, we then shall ex- change our products and spend our surplus in the riches of the East. The trade of the East with Europe now is an- nually near four hundred millions, requiring three thousand vessels. With oar railroad, the cost and time would be so reduced that it is fair to believe this commerce would be increased to seven or eight hundred millions. American vessels and American seamen will then go into the ports of Japan, now opened to us, and return freighted with the products of China and India. With Asia on one side and Europe on the othe and our steam and sailing vessels at command, there can never be any competition while the na- tion endures. The energy of the Anglo-Saxon has already 140 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. demonstrated a power which challenges the admi- ration of mankind. It has been by the Anglo- American that the oceanic currents have been defined, and the Gulf-Stream pointed out to navi- gators all over the world. It was by the Anglo- American that the Dead Sea was explored. The Anglo-American opened by treaty the ports of Japan, after being so long closed to all but the Dutch and Chinese. Americans have proved the existence of an open Polar Sea, and braved the perils of the Arctic Ocean for Sir John Franklin. What have they done within their own borders? They have taken the Mississippi valley, a wilder- ness thirty-five years ago, and settled it with up- wards of twelve millions of souls. Twenty years ago, where not seven thousand people dwelt, north and north-west of Chicago, they have put upwards of a million The queen city of the West, Cin- cinnati, which contains one hundred and sixty thou- sand people, only dug its cellars a few years ago. In 1820, the first line of packet-ships sailed from the United States to Liverpool, and prudent men predicted them a failure. In 1835, the learned Dr. Lardner declared the navigation of the ocean by steam to to be impracticable. Three THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 141 years after which, the Great Western and Sirius steamers came into the port of New York. The first proposal for a railroad from Boston to Hudson was made thirty years ago, and pronounced an absurdity. Now we have, at least, twenty thou- sand miles of railway constructed in the United States, involving a capital of more than five hun- dred millions of dollars. In 1808, the general government refused assistance to the Hudson and Erie Canal, after New York had appropriated six hundred dollars for a survey. Mr. Jefferson, then president, said, it " might be feasible one hundred years to come ' ' ! The first American who is known to have con- ceived the idea of railroads by steam was Oliver Evans, of Pennsylvania, who made known his plan in 1781 and 1789, after the adoption of the con- stitution. Joel Barlow, in his "Visions of Columbus," in 1787, predicted the Erie Canal in New York, thirty years before it was begun, under De Witt Clinton, in 1817. At that time, political parties took ground against it ; but the energies of Gov. Clinton prosecuted it to success. In ten years it had paid the cost of completion, while its present 142 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. annual receipts are half its original cost. Towns and villages immediately rose up by the Wabash and Erie Canal in like manner, and as railroads got on the line the banks of every navigable stream were covered by a population devoted to commer- cial enterprise. The inhabitants of Portland, Maine, have em- barked in the enterprise of building a railroad from there to Nova Scotia, which is now completed, and reduces the voyage of Europe to America two thousand miles. It is three thousand from New York to Liverpool. This effort found favor with European as well as American capitalists, and will tend rapidly to commercial prosperity When we consider that England, to save a dis- tance of only twelve miles between London and Dublin, built a bridge across the Straits of Menai at a cost of twelve millions of money, we can better understand the economy of expending money to shorten our route eleven thousand miles to Europe. Everything, therefore, demands, on the same principle, that the Pacific Railroad should be made to shorten and cheapen the transit route for the commerce of Europe and Asia, which we shall THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 143 certainly command. Consider, Americans, how in a few years we have spread from a fragment to a continent ! We have only one sixth less of terri- tory than the fifty-nine states of Europe put together. We are ten times larger than Great Britain and France. We are one and a half times larger than Russia in Europe. And, when the Atlantic and Pacific states shall be united by the railroad, it is impossible to realize how vast and how grand the results will be to us. In a philanthropic view, it is incomparable with any war, or revolution, or discovery, save that of our beloved country, and the national freedom se- cured by our Republican institutions. The railroad will at once become the strongest fortification for the country, and moving batteries of men would be its defence in time of war. The passive intellects of the East will soon feel the attrition of Ameri- can energy and enterprise ; the population that flows in from the Old World will thus be Ameri- canized ; and Protestant education, which is as the brain to the body of our institutions, will build up the American systems of free schools, which are the essential element of our liberties. Liberty has expanded our resources on the 144 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. Atlantic, and will, in the same way, advance them on the Pacific, until the islands of the ocean, and the shores of Asia, shall feel the benign influence of American commerce and American laws. The West, then, demands the Pacific Railroad, to add to the prosperity of the country, to open new outlets for the distribution of commerce, and new sources for our national wealth and enterprise. Americans, it is the navigable rivers on the Atlantic which have populated your states. This made it easy to receive and send off the products of the land, and sent settlers first upon the water- courses. As these became populous, the settlers on them drove back into the interior the succeeding emigrants. The valley of the Mississippi was thus peopled. So the borders of the Hudson, Connecticut, and Penobscot Rivers, and Narragansett Bay. At the beginning there were no interior communications to protect the settlements on the rivers, and hence they were not populated so rapidly as the Mississippi valley. Steamers were coeval with that settlement, and this has caused its rapid increase of population. During the early peopling of the country, and before the introduction of steam navigation, pack- horses were used to carry goods ; but the danger and THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 14") expense rendered this mode of trade exceedingly limited. The usual time, then, was six months to make a journey from New Orleans to St. Louis by water, which is now performed in eight or twelve days. It was the steamboat, and that alone, which opened the commerce of the Mississippi valley. Corn, wheat, iron, hemp, coal, would all have been comparatively useless without this mode of trans- portation. You see now, Americans, how and why the valleys and rivers of the Mississippi were penetrated. On the coast of the Pacific the case is altogether different. The states and territories we own there never can be settled as the Atlantic states have been. Why? Because neither steamers nor sail-boats can penetrate them. A land route is the only way this ever can be accomplished. But will an ordi- nary road do it? No, it could never be made to pay expenses of transportation. People would therefore refuse to dwell there, while they could seek the water-courses of the Atlantic and Pacific for settlement. The cause why individual enter- prise entered into our favorite valleys, and occupied them, and grew wealthy,was owing to their access to 7 146 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. the sea, and other navigable waters, which pene- trated the interior country. Now, what has been done for the Atlantic states by steamboats must be done for the Pacific states by railroad. And let us be assured of one thing, that, with a railroad across the continent, the value of the whole country would be increased incalculably beyond what all our rivers have done, or possibly can do. No other inducement ever will carry set- tlers to the interior countries of the Pacific states. But, with a railroad, they would soon convert that whole country to a flower-garden. The entire year, at all seasons, would be open to the markets. The energy and enterprise of the settlers would increase with the means of transit at hand. The ice in the Atlantic states, in the cold season, has always been a bar to industry ; but this would no longer inter- fere with progress. The Pacific Railroad will, of necessity, do all the business of the waters in those territories ; the Hudson, the Ohio, and Mississippi, would pour their commerce into that railroad passage. Thus this thoroughfare will extend our commerce and spread our popiilation on the Pacific, as the steamboat THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 11 7 navigation has spread the plains of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Look at California and Oregon, how within three years and a half they have gathered a population of at least a half a million ! What has done this ? The gold mines alone. If, then, with a land journey of three or four months, and a costly sea voyage of thirty or forty days, population has thus accumu- lated, what may be expected when the railroad shall have reduced the distance from San Francisco to Washington city to seven clays, and the telegraph has brought us into communication in one single day ? For such will actually be the case. CHAPTER II. Americans, what has been the consequence of legislating for the states of the Pacific already, which cannot be reached under a six weeks' travel ? Let the Indian massacres, and those of Panama, the dangers and sufferings of immigrants, the black catalogue of crime which has made almost a Sodom of California, the utter perversion of the rights of suffrage by the ballot-box, answer. The disorders which have been created there, the villanous prac- tices of stuffing the ballot-box, the elevation of the scum of society and traitors to office, — all these, and other shocking spectacles, which, as a necessity, caused the Vigilance Committee to be appointed by the people for their own protection and safety against these ruffians and murderers, are greatly owing to their isolated condition. For these causes, a separate republic on the Pacific must ever suffer the most serious dangers, and especially if there should be cause for for- eign invasion. Nothing will remedy these evils in THE PACIFIC ItAttROAD. \ [[) due season but the establishment of a railroad to the Pacific. This would at once rectify all the present difficulties, and regenerate the condition of the people. The idea of a Southern republic may at first seem absurd. But would the united interest of Lower California, the western coast of Mexico, a part of the British possessions opposite Vancouver's and Charlotte's Island, and removed from the evils of a French population, be of no account, joined to California ? Would not the commerce and the gold, and its free soil, interfere with the harmony of the Southern States of this Union ? Most un- doubtedly. Why not, then, settle the question, not for a time, but forever, by putting a railway, that shall bind with a cord of iron the states of the Pacific and Atlantic ? Independent of the trade of the United States and Canada, this road would be the great forwarder of the staples of China and the East Indies. The reason is, that it would be the shortest, quickest, and least expensive route. The passage by this land route can be effected from three to five miles per hour quicker than by any sea or water route that could possibly be devised. 150 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. No one can compute the extent of trade from a railroad across the continent, connecting the Colum- bia and San Francisco Rivers with New York, China, Japan, Oregon, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, California, the seaports of Europe, United States, and Canada. Americans, these would all commercially centre on this road. The distance from New York to California is thirty-two hundred miles. Allowing the usual rates of railroad travel, with time to eat and to rest on the journey, it will require seven days. If in an emergency, and the usual delays were abandoned, the travel could be made with ease in four and a half days, at thirty miles an hour ! Until gold settled California, the merchants of our country had but a limited knowledge of the trade on the western coast of the Pacific, to China, Japan, and India. Consequently, it was the local traffic of California, Oregon, and Australia, that opened to view the fact that the commercial capa- bilities of the Pacific are really greater than the Atlantic. The tea trade and sperm whale are confined to the Pacific ; while the great staples, sugar, tobacco, wheat, and corn, grow as well on the Pacific as on the Atlantic. THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 151 The Sandwich, Society, New Hebrides, Friendly, New Britain, Philippine, and Ladrone Islands, are all accessible, by steamboats, from California ; and all their products, therefore, would be turned to use, if the railroad were there. China will unlock her doors as never before when this temptation to extend her commerce is presented. Australia will reap the benefit ; while California, the great out- post of the Pacific, will not pause in the opportu- nity to show the world, and especially this beloved people, what industry will accomplish, in connection with gold, in which resource she is now only second to Great Britain. How has England obtained ascendency over the commerce of the world ? By making it free. England, Holland, and the United States, which compose three fourths of the foreign commerce, acknowledge entire freedom in every commercial pursuit ; and, now that we have entered the Pacific by right and title, with our steamships and our experience, what shall prevent us from acquiring a commercial ascendency over England, Holland, and the world / We ask you, Americans, if anything shall do it ? You say, No. Then get about your railroad, and you may say this in earnest. 152 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. By the improvement in steam and ship-building, our mariners perform the same voyage to-day in half the time they did fifty years ago. We have already made railroads on the two continents, and we are altogether a changed people since 1800. For twenty-five years after that, our commerce had no facility from steamboats or railways ; and it has been but twenty years since we began to realize their full value. All the sources of commerce then were those tributary to the seaboard, while the wealth of the country was kept, from want of com- munication, beyond their reach. We had not then, either, the men of method and mind equal to the emergencies of trade, as we have now. We had not a monied capital then, as now, opened to all. When we compare ourselves with the past, and see what new facilities of greatness the nation has found out, we should be grateful, elated with our destiny, and ready for action. And if, with our small means, we have attained such development on our Atlantic borders, what, with our ships, our steamboats, our capital, our experience, and our railroad, are we not destined to accomplish on the Pacific shores ? The railroad will open new strength, and new channels of THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 153 thought, as well as action. It will make our coun- try the agent and carrier of the commerce of the world ; and it becomes all classes of our country — all who regard its prosperity, all who regard the benefit to their children and their children's chil- dren — to rally to the railroad as the great highway of our national prosperity and greatness. While men are quibbling and blundering about the best route, Nicaragua might make a canal or railroad, and establish trading settlements, which would materially interfere with our prospects. Every day gives greater importance to the political, commercial, geographical, moral, and social reasons which show that we are risking much, losing much, by the delay. The Atlantic was always more formidable to ex- plorers than the Pacific ; consequently the East, in the early ages, was more rapidly populated than the West. The oceans, we must remember, were as much ours by right, before we had a sail or harbor on our coast, as now. The Pacific territory was acquired by us through the Mexican war. It was purchased then by the sweat and blood of American men. It has been the means of increasing our com- mercial wealth and greatness. To occupy and enjoy 7* 154 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. this, the railroad has been projected by the wisdom of men who, from the beginning, have seen that this territory, obtained at so dear a cost to the United States, must either be made subservient to the interests of the whole country, or be wrested from us for a new republic. It cost just twenty thousand dollars to discover America ; and for this small sum the Queen of Spain had to pledge her jewels, so great were the financial embarrassments of the government from the Moorish wars. It is true, Columbus never saw the United States in its present limits ; but he was at Cuba, five degrees from Florida. Henry of England took six years to determine the proposal which Columbus made him for aid in this same discovery. How incapable was the human mind at that period to comprehend the advantage of spending twenty thousand dollars, to see if there was any such place at all as this New World of ours ! Just as incredu- lous are many to the prospective results of the Pacific Railroad. Yes, with all the light and knowl- edge, and the mathematical demonstrations of its effects upon our national destiny, the timid and circumscribed intellect is as hard to convince as the child is that there is not a man in the moon. THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 1 .V, When America was discovered, England had not a greater population than we had when we declined independence. Printing had been but twenty-one years in use ; the English language had not been spoken a century ; there were but four merchant ships belonging to London, and the people were op- posed to trade. Two centuries elapsed, after that, before England had dug a canal. Manufactures were almost unknown ; and it was upwards of a century after the discovery of America before Eng- land built her first stage-coach. And now, with a railroad access to the entire con- tinent, the blessing of our unequalled government and wise and wholesome laws will make us felt and propitiated by the entire world. What makes Eng- land the first commercial power in the world, but the control she has over the markets of Asia and the continent of Europe ? The possession of California has now added to the national wealth of America, by opening to us the same commerce of Asia. Central as the United States are between the two continents of Europe and Asia, and producing the two great staples of tobacco and cotton, we need but a highway of steam from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and mail steamers from California to China, to over- 156 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. step England, and claim supremacy in commerce to her. Why has England, thus far, made us depend- ent upon her for commercial news ? Because she has an overland route, which secures her mail facili- ties. The mails are taken from London to Canton, and vice versa, in sixty-five days ; to us, in seventy- seven days. If we construct a railroad, now, to the Pacific, and connect California with China by mail steamers, the whole distance from New York to China will be accomplished in the incredibly short time of twenty-four days. England then would be- come dependent upon the United States, not only for mail facilities, but for the products of Asia, which would be made available through us. England, by her Cape of Good Hope and overland routes, has obtained a monopoly over the East India trade and that of China. The government of the East Indies forces opium to be introduced, which is the important drug for the Chinese markets. The sale of opium amounts to thirty millions annually. Besides, the cotton and other fabrics which England sends to China bring back to Great Britain annu- ally twenty millions of dollars. Nothing but the American trade has saved China from being ex- hausted in money. We deal with China to about THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 157 half the amount of England ; for which we send specie, or bills drawn to our account, payable in London. Now, it needs but for us to establish more rapid communications, to enjoy all the advantages England now possesses. Our central position gives this natural facility. We have but to use the appli- ances of science and art which God has given us the intelligence to appreciate, to take the commercial balance into our own hands. It is now reduced to a moral certainty that cotton cannot be grown to any extent in any soil yet found out but that of the United States. It is, therefore, the first staple of our trade. Tobacco is next in im- portance, as such. Its use is now becoming general throughout Europe and in some parts of Asia. It is only kept from China by England, who forces opium upon her people, and makes the difficulty of obtaining tobacco from us. We alone might substi- tute tobacco for opium, and thus rescue a people perishing so rapidly from the use of that poisonous drug ; the Chinese greatly preferring tobacco, but the English, jealous of our staple, take care to throw every obstacle in the way of its introduction, well knowing that it would entirely supersede the use of the deadly narcotic in which they are so 158 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. deeply interested. We might receive, in return for our tobacco and cotton, the amount in tea and silk, for which we now pay twenty-five millions annually. Look at the true state of the case. England has to buy of us the raw material, out of which she fabricates the basis of her foreign trade. She gets our wool and cotton, and makes muslins, cottons, calicoes, handkerchiefs, and cotton yarn, of our cot- ton, and broadcloth, cassimeres, blankets, camlets, of our wool. We also make the same articles. Both export to China ; yet we find, by a compari- son of one year, that ours reach scarcely one twen- tieth part of England's, for the reason given, — that she commands the market by her mail facilities of communication. Take the trade in tea, and compare our commerce and England's with China, in the sixty years from the time we began to trade with China in that arti- cle, and look at it. The first voyage of commerce from the United States to China was in 1785 ; but the trade was not really opened until 1792. It has so increased that now our importation of tea amounts to sixteen millions of dollars annually. From the beginning of our trade with China, we have im- ported from that country to the value of upwards THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. L59 of two hundred and fifty-eight millions of dollars, while our exports have amounted to only a little over eighty-six millions. Thus we have paid China in precious metals upwards of one hundred and seventy-two millions of dollars ! From 1792, when our trade began with China, to 1827, silver to the amount of eighty-eight mil- lions and upwards had been shipped direct from the United States to China. In 1827, China, owing to the opium trade, had become indebted to England very largely, and American bills, payable in England, began to be used in lieu of coin ; and from 1834, these American bills on Chinese accounts amounted to about sixteen and a half millions, while the specie in that time sent from England was only between seven and eight millions ! So, since 1834, England has been steadily drain- ing our coin to the amount of seventy-five millions seven hundred and fifty-seven thousand seven hun- dred and ninety-seven dollars, and settling with China by bills of credit, for which we have to pay specie to her. CHAPTER III. Now > this drain of England upon us is prepos- terous. Our own products are sufficient to pay for all we get from China ; and it is our products which pay a premium to the labor of England, and cause a loss to our manufacturers and mechanics. It is the increase of our products by the art and value of British labor which actually pays for nearly the whole of the teas and raw silk England imports from China. There are other advantages connected with the steamers to transpose the mart from China to the Pacific, meeting the railroad at that terminus. These steamers can be so constructed as to supersede the govermnent force needed there, and save the treasury annually one million and a quarter of dollars. The extensive and unprotected coasts of California and Oregon render them liable to foreign aggression, and demand, in this point of view, the serious consideration of the people. Before the THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 161 acquisition of California we had two hundred ves- sels employed in trade in the Pacific. Since then, there are, at least, six hundred and fifty American trading vessels. The amount of our property ex- posed there on the coast is nearly seventy millions. The whaling business alone is valued at thirty millions, with an employed force of eighteen thou- sand men in the North Pacific ; and our annual revenue is estimated at ten millions. Our acquisition on the Pacific at once inaugu- rated a new era in the industry, energy, and enter- prise, of the American people. It was their volun- tary labor which levelled mountains, felled forests, and swept the plains with a torrent of emigration, in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the basin of our lakes. And when the facilities of moving whole bodies of men are given to the people by the railroad, and time and space at once annihilated, the pulpit, the press, and institutions for education, will multiply, and thus expand and strengthen the bonds of our liberties. The geographical, physical, and moral power of the United States constitute the basis of their greatness. Great Britain has thirty-four thousand square miles ; Austria, Hungary, and Italy, three 162 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. hundred thousand ; France, less than two hundred thousand ; we, Americans, over three and a half millions ! Geographically, Russia compares as one to one hundred and twenty ; Austria, as one to nine ; France, as one to five and a half ; United States, as one to ninety-six ! While we have there- fore a field to display our enterprise, all we want is avenues to exert it in its full vigor. This railway will save ten or twelve days over the Panama route. It will transfer the capital of Europe to us, which is now used in monopolizing the trade of Asia. It will give to Americans the key of the West, and fix forever the channel of Asiatic commerce (which for centuries has been oscillating) upon the best, safest, and quickest route of transit through the heart of this nation. Safety, security, protection, advancement, all require the construction of this Pacific Railroad. The gold of California has now become the essential stimu- lant to all the industrial pursuits of the country. The destruction of the monthly shipment to New York would send a shiver through all the commerce, finance, and industry, of this country, that would be incredibly severe, in a single week. Now, consider how easy foreign cruisers and THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 1G3 privateers could cut us off from this receipt of the essential element of our national vitality ! The gold now comes to us over foreign seas, through foreign territory, and over a circuit of six thousand miles. In the event of war, whole fleets would interpose to take from us this arm of our strength. Ships, and troops, and missions, are now necessary to protect our national interest, and protect our commerce on the Pacific ; the railway would then protect us, and save all our commerce and territory from foreign aggression. Throughout the world's history, nations have been elevated or depressed as they advanced or lost commerce ; and the changes for three thou- sand years in Asiatic commerce have settled the question, that the ocean is the obstacle to foreign trade. Land now has been found the facility, and the steam-car the only sure means to keep up dis- tant communications. The United States have consequently the advantage over Europe. We have half the road to India on our own land, the rest on a peaceable sea which washes our shores, and with an impenetrable bar to Europe of the whole diameter of the earth. This railroad, then, will exalt us to be mistress 164 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. of the commerce of the wide world. It will be at the same time the impregnable fortification to save us from the assault of vast armies, or from fierce and bloody battles within our own borders. Who would stop to count the cost of the mere construc- tion, when every interest dear to the hope of citizen and Christian is staked upon the result? Aside from the commercial and political necessity, the economy and convenience of the nation, the interests of all the people, demand this road now. Americans, take the whole history of the roads in this country in the past twenty-five years, and you will find every dollar invested in them has been worth ten to you. The vast increase of the West in population and lands is only to be ascribed to its roads. In five years Illinois has doubled her population, and in- creased her lands five-fold. In these five years ten or twelve hundred miles of railway have been built. In a moral and educational view, this road must have an immense value. The tendency of popula- tion is all west ; the field for the growth and prosperity of the people is there. In a few years it will decide all our national measures in Congress; TIIE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 1G5 it will control our national revenues ; and, as the agent for transportation of newspapers, cheap books, and all those methods which tend to enlighten and strengthen the Protestant power of our country, the value of the road cannot be computed. The loss to the country by omitting to build this road has been more already than would have supported the entire annual expenses of the government. The American people now almost unanimously demand this railroad as the great necessity of our times, and they require it to be built in whatever latitude the great mass of the population mostly move ; — on whatever line is shortest, most expedi- tious in travel, and most convenient to the thirty millions of people who inhabit our thirty-one states and territories. Three routes out of the eight surveyed at gov- ernment expense have been pronounced feasible by the Secretary of War in his report to Congress. These are the northern, the central, and the south- ern lines. By all of them the harbor of San Fran- cisco is acknowledged to be the essential tenninus of the road on the west, as it is now the centre of all our commerce on the Pacific coast. The ques- tion, then, is, what point on the east as a terminus 166 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. will correspond with San Francisco, as the centre of the greatest amount of population and commer- cial enterprise on the west? The distance on the southern line from San Fran- cisco to New York is three thousand six hundred and forty-seven miles ; on the northern line, includ- ing distance yet unsurveyed, three thousand six hundred and thirty-four ; on the central line, three thousand two hundred and forty miles. This would give a distance of four hundred miles shorter to the central route. Texas has granted to any company that constructs the railroad on the southern route ten thousand two hundred and forty acres of land for every mile of road built. Now, these lands of Texas are the only unimproved lands on this continent where cotton can be cultivated. Cotton is the staple of our commerce ; the rest of the world is depending on us for its growth, and we do not own now a single acre of government land favorable to its production. In this point of view, the grants of land Texas offers become incalculably valuable to our whole country. The charge for transporting goods across the Panama Railroad is a tenth less than before its con- struction. Four or five hours now serve to carry THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 1 (j < passengers and freight across the isthmus, which formerly occupied three days of dangerous travel. Freight is now reduced to one hundred and twenty- five dollars the ton. But a railroad from the coast of Texas would not only save time, but reduce the tonnage to one half the amount it now costs from New York to California. The saving of freight, the saving of time, would at once induce every pru- dent and sagacious merchant to adopt the railroad across the continent, and thus gain thirty or forty days. The central route starts from New York to the Pacific, and has already been completed to Iowa City. From New York city it followes the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, the great lakes, from Buffalo to Chicago, to Rock Island. The easy passage for a bridge which is placed across the Mississippi at Rock Island seems to have been marked out by Providence as the means to facilitate commerce across the river, and renders the route to San Francisco the most direct and advantageous in the judgment of many eminent men. Next year the route will have reached Council Bluff. All this by individual enterprise, without government aid ; and which 1GS THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. will make the next census count in Iowa over a million of inhabitants. All that this route needs from the government to complete the road to San Francisco from Iowa City or Council Bluff is a grant of land, taking nothing from the treasury, but augmenting its revenues by bringing the lands into the market. This route is in the centre of about one half of the population of the whole country ; and it is fair to presume, from what has been achieved by the industry and enter- prise of the West, that the road will be built on this route, whether favored by the general govern- ment or not. It was the Erie Canal of New York that made the first great revolution in the trade of the coun- try, and exalted that state in wealth and grandeur. Ohio succeeded with her canals between the lakes and the valley, and western trade at once went into New York. The canals of Maryland and Pennsylvania had no water communications from the Atlantic to the Ohio, and failed for that reason ; while New York had a monopoly for thirty years, or until the rail- road penetrated the entire West to the banks of the Mississippi. Steam conquers all other motors. The THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. Kl'J incredible revenues from the central road of Pennsyl- vania, and the Baltimore and Ohio road, for the present year, show this result. It is steam which has given England her power over the continent, by facilitating the transportation of her coal, iron, salt, and other bulky articles. Why do the inhabitants of cities and towns enjoy greater advantages than those who are settled over a sparse country ? Because there is an ampler field for purchase, a greater variety of employments for industry to suit the ability and capacity of the laborer, and greater quickness in finishing work. Where population is collected the competition is greater. Now, the Pacific Railroad will do for the people of our vast country just what the city or town now does. It will concentrate numbers from small and distant places in an incredibly short time. This will at once lead to prosperity. Greece arose to commercial greatness in this way. Towns in Hol- land, Zealand, and Flanders, for centuries prospered by these means. Switzerland thus holds intercourse by the Rhine with Holland. While those countries without roads, or canals, or other water facilities, have never risen intellectually or commercially. 8 170 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. We have already witnessed the effect of the rail- road upon our vast West, which has conduced to individual comfort and prosperity wherever it has penetrated. There is yet another advantage to be attained by the road across the continent, not to be overlooked by Americans, and that is, its effect upon the diffusion of Protestant principles over our land. CHAPTER IV. The endless holidays of the Catholic church have always checked industry ; and it is a fact to be remembered, that, although the nominal Roman Catholics (but greater proportion infidels) are more numerous than Protestants in Europe, a much larger share of Europe's exports comes from the skill and ingenuity of Protestants than Catholics. In Ireland, linen- weaving, the only great branch of manufacture, is almost wholly in the hands of Protestants. In the vast margin of the West yet to be filled, it becomes a question of the first moment to the nation that it be occupied by Prot- estants, whose education tends to strengthen our liberties, while that of Romanism is designed to subvert them. The West will soon hold the bal- ance in our national exchequer, and elect our chief ruler ; and it is impossible to be too vigilant in promoting and spreading Protestant education over all that portion of our people. The railroad, more 172 THE PACIFIC RAILROAI than soil, more than mines, will tend to this result, by bringing all sections of the Union together, and advancing knowledge to the remotest limits. The revenue of our country arises chiefly by consumption ; and the wealth and power of our whole country would be increased and secured by the increase of a Protestant American population. The individual income of such a people would also be increased. Why ? Because the reward of labor in all the manufacturing and mechanic arts would induce the individual to adopt a uniform pursuit ; while the father of a family would not be compelled, as now, often to sacrifice education and personal comfort for the mere sake of living. Thus, Americans, as the commerce of the country expanded, so would all the arts and pursuits of industry expand, as it grew great and powerful. The Pacific Railroad must increase the medium which circulates and regulates commerce ; it must enlighten and expand the energies of men ; it must spread the influence of American institu- tions over mankind, and dissipate that very dark- ness, under which men have been deluded, and their means squandered, to grow rich without labor, or wise without learning. Foreign force and do THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 17.) mestio treachery have struck at the foundation of our political edifice. We need at once to balance the public mind by free Protestant culture, so that our people shall reason before they act. Before the discovery of the mines of California and Australia, the coin came from Mexico and South America. Since the discovery of these, a new era has been inaugurated in our commerce with the world. In 1849 and '50, the first flood of gold came into the country ; and in the three following years, '51, '52, and '53, the enormous sum of one hundred and sixty-six millions had been added to the circulation, including about thirty millions in the hands of individuals. This caused a change in the condition of the people, who, see- ing the steady increase in three years, predicted a rise which would, at last, amount to one hundred millions annually. Then everything in specula- tion, expense, and importation, increased. Banks sprang up, and paper was used as gold ; wages and work increased ; railroad bonds were issued by the million ; life and fire insurance companies multiplied. But on what was all this based ? Was it upon the gold and silver in the bank vaults of the country? Not at all ; but upon the fiction 174 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. which men without reasoning adopted, and the delusion under which they acted. By the returns of the first six years subsequent to the discovery of gold in California, two hundred millions of that metal had been added to the cir- culation of the world. Australia, though not so long known, brought fifty millions more ; making two hundred and fifty millions more money in use than before the discovery of these mines. By the official banking returns of the United States and Europe for that period, we find that there was no more money on hand then than before the discovery. Where, then, did this metallic cur- rency go ? Why, it went directly into the hand3 of the people. It, therefore, was not the instru- ment of the credit structure, which is the proper and only means for making paper the representa- tive of gold and silver ; so that, while this in- crease of gold gave fancied security to the credit it induced, it had not really anything to do with it. The mining districts, including all the valuable metals found on the Pacific, will, in themselves, make the railroad eminently desirable for the trans- portation of these metals. Consider, Americans, that, after eiglit years of constant mining, and four TriE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 175 hundred millions of dollars obtained, they arc still as luxurious as ever. Gold is seen embedded in every stream, mountain, and vale. The copper mines of Lake Superior and Eastern Tennessee have not made even the demand for this metal less profitable. Now, that obtained from the new copper mines of Ajo is wagoned all the way to San Diego, and thence to San Francisco ; and still, with all that cost, a large profit is left to the transporter. The richest silver mines ever dis- covered are in Sonora, in Mexico, which now belong to us. Silver, perfectly pure, has been clipped by the sword of an officer, as a specimen. The Indians have deterred explorers, hitherto, from penetrating these mines ; but, now that they have become American property, we shall find American enterprise entering them. Americans, you perceive these rich mines of gold, iron, silver, and copper, will at once be made accessible by the railroad. Thus it will add to the capital of our country vastly more than it can possibly cost. This Pacific railway will be the harbinger of the future glory and aggrandize- ment of American institutions. In twenty days we shall be in the most populous cities of Europe i 17 G THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. and Asia We have already consummated treaties which secure commerce and trade to Americans, and protect their lives, property, and religious liberty, in Siam and Japan, so long closed against the trade of the world ; and then we will com- mand the accumulated wealth of seven hundred millions of people, and which has enriched every nation that has had any kind of control over it. England, to maintain her ascendency over this trade, has already three over-land mail routes, and is now engaged in devising three more, to carry this Eastern commerce to the British empire. But a railroad, to do this for England, would have to extend six thousand five hundred miles, and would take fourteen years to build it. Now, by the com- promise of 1850, which Millard Fillmore signed, as President of the United States, we secured the ten leagues of country on the Pacific coast, which included California, and planted our flag there. And, by this means, — made our blessing, under God, — we can make our national road, which will convey us across the continent to the Bay of San Francisco in seven days ; and ten or twelve clays from there, by steam, will land Americans in the populous countries of Eastern and Western Asia THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 177 and Western Europe. It will give them a hold on the wealth of China, which has been increasing for six thousand years, and bring them in contact with her seven hundred millions of inhabitants in twenty days from the day they leave New York. This railroad, then, will put sectional agitation among our people at rest, and set them about these new channels of trade and commerce. We have now control of the cotton market of the world, and the certain prospect of having the same power over wool. Iron, also, in every state but one, is abun- dant enough to supply the whole American conti- nent ; and, in a few years, we shall likewise con- trol the market of this great item in trade. Gold, too, will then be more rapidly diffused over the civilized world, and this will facilitate the activity of our commerce. A greater amount of labor will then be made available, to work the mines of Cali- fornia and Australia, than ever before. The effect of the discovery of the precious metals in California has been to stimulate the latent energies of men to an extent never wit- nessed before, and has been the means of forcing the necessity of a railway upon the common sense of the American people. The poor man will be 8* 178 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. more benefited than the rich by this road ; and the labor employed in the development of our new territory, and the exploration of its mines, will prevent any superabundance of laborers in the most thickly-settled parts of the country, and stop the poor man from working for the pittance he now does. The manufacturer, also, by the increased free- dom to commerce which the constant and rapid transportation of gold from California and Austra- lia will then command, will find himself better able to cope with the manufacturers of Europe. According to Professor Blake, the great gold field in California, notwithstanding the large in- crease to the circulation of the precious metals, has not yet been fully explored. There is a field seven hundred miles in length, and about fifty in breadth, containing thirty-five thousand square miles, eleven thousand of which are rich in gold, sometimes extending to the depth of six feet in the sands of the coast. This is repeatedly washed out of the black sand by the tides. The number of square miles worked, but imperfectly, we are assured by Dr. Trask, in his work on geology, never exceeds four hundred at a time ; and fewer persons were TEE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 17'.) engaged in mining in 1854 than in 1852, although the product of gold was in '52 forty-five millions of dollars, and in '54 sixty-one millions. This was owing to the increased advantages of working the mines by proper machinery. Now, by the highest authorities we find that the amount of gold in the whole world, in 1848, was two billions nine hundred millions of dollars, or six hundred millions of pounds ; while, by the increase from the mines of California and Australia since that time, at least four billions of dollars have been added to that amount, which would make now, in the whole world, six billions nine hundred millions of dollars of gold, beside what is worked into jewelry and plate. And, Americans, does it not cause a thrill of triumph in your hearts to know that, of this increase to the precious metals, your own State of California has contributed three hundred and thirteen millions two hundred and eighty-five thou- sand five hundred and two dollars and seventy- seven cents ; and other parts of America, seventeen million seven hundred and sixty-six thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents ? CHAPTER V. M. Tegoborski, Counsel of the Empire of Russia, in writing of the influence of the gold fields of California and Australia, estimates that by them the amount of gold and silver in use in Europe will be doubled in thirteen years, and throughout the whole world in twenty-four years. Beside, what is the effect of the discovery of the mines of California in Europe ? Why, it has raised real estate four per cent, per annum, and advanced all kinds of produce in like manner. It has also advanced the wages of labor in like ratio. How ? Because the poor working-man, before dependent on the employer for the mere sustenance of life, is now driven to another field of operation, and incited by the desire to accumulate, and thus changing often the state of things by making the rich man dependent on the laborer. So those who remained as well as those who went to California were benefited. If that was so THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. lb L in Europe, let us turn to our own country, — we, the possessors of California. We see how our commerce is extended ; we see, day by day, how eagerly the accumulations of gold and silver in our bank-vaults are taken and transported into other countries, to bring back their merchandise to us. Why ? Because its shipment to England, France, and Germany, equalizes the value of gold, and prevents the dangers to trade which result from keeping it under bars and bolts. The railroad to the Pacific has now become a necessity to the American people, that they may enjoy the free heritage God has given them, opening all the ave- nues to wealth and industry, and making their voice heard on the hills, in the valleys, the cities, and the plains, of the whole earth. This, Ameri- cans, will be the great triumph of the American States over commerce, mechanics, and manufac- tures, which nothing can impede beneath the stars. The railway and the canal will be the true con- querors of the world. Around them will centre the industry and energy of the Anglo-Saxon race There the Protestant emigrant will seek his new home. They will become the majority of the 182 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. population, and the consequent possessors of most of the property of the country. The telegraph will then become the electric medium of exchange, which, without a visible chain, will link the American Union to the world. " Lo, what hath God wrought ! " were the memo- rable words which passed over the wires of the first telegraph ever made in the United States, a few years since, between Baltimore and Washing- ton, a distance of but forty miles. Now, Ameri- cans, we not only find it in the full exercise of its magic power in all the states of this mighty Union, but actually preparing to bring us in speaking dis- tance of the other continent. You all know that the Island of St. John's, Newfoundland, is the most eastern point of North America, and Valencia is the most western harbor of the British Isles. The waters of the St. Law- rence have long since cut Newfoundland from the continent. Now a submarine telegraph has been laid, which brings Newfoundland and the main land again in contact ; and the distance from St. John's to New York, of one thousand seven hundred and eighty miles, can be reached by direct communi- cation. But still the ocean was to be crossed to THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 183 reach Europe, and the question arose how this could best be done. Some proposed extending the line to Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands ; but to this there were insurmountable objections, and, after the investigation of scien- tific men, it was decided that the line must also start from Newfoundland to Europe, a distance of nineteen hundred miles, on account of the depth of the water, essential to the success of the enterprise. The plan devised, and about to be executed, is this : A line of wire three thousand miles long will be placed on two war-ships in mid-ocean, one belonging to the United States, the other to Eng- land. These will each take half the wire. The wire will be covered with gotta percha coatings, and will be made of the best conducting material, accompanied by a machine, invented for the express purpose, by Dr. Whitehouse, of England, in order to ascertain when the wire is broken or damaged, and the exact point of interruption. Thus, Americans, by your inventive genius, you are with one grapple about to join Europe to tin-; country by a telegraph, which will start at New- foundland, ami end at Valencia, in Ireland, with one thousand nine hundred miles of cable resting 184 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. in the Atlantic Ocean ! This is not an ideal sketch, but a living reality, that in 1857, next year, the British Isles and the United States, though divided by a stormy ocean of three thousand miles, will by science and machinery hold conversa- tional intercourse with each other ; and, at the same time, the distance by railway between Nova Scotia and Portland, Maine, will have diminished our travelling distance from Europe eleven hundred miles! These mighty works show the mutual benefit England and the United States are each to the other, while they continue as they are. While the energy of this great American people, too rapid for carrier pigeons, and even steam, and eager to extend and profit by every advantage in commerce, inven- tion, finance, science, and arts, and to move in the rapid march of civilization over the whole globe, has already forged the chain which is to bind us to the three ancient continents of the Eastern world. Well might Mr. Dallas, the American minister, declare that the great telegraph, now making, would afford Americans the opportunity soon to respond to the toast given to Americans in London THIS PACIFIC RAILROAD. 185 bufuro the dinner ended. " When famine distressed Other hinds, in the land of Egypt there was bread." So with our beloved country : from the diversity <>f its soil and climate, its power in raising subsidence will so increase as the humbler condition of society advances by intelligence, that it would be physi- cally impossible to arrest the march of the American people in commerce, wealth, or mental activity. Now we come to the great question, who is to make the road to the Pacific, — Congress, that is, the general government, or the people ? We say it cannot be built without* the coopera- tion of the government, because there are fifteen hundred miles between Missouri and California, over which Congress alone has power to legislate. The constitution, which gives Congress the right to regulate commerce, allows the genera] government to build the road to California from New York, for a mail route, if it so decided. Congress can give or sell the public lands, as it pleases. Congress can appropriate money, if it pleases, to build a road or roads through the landed estate of the government for mail transportation, or military purpose 3. We do not advocate the especial claims of either of the three routes surveyed. Each has its advantages; 1SG THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. and all may be laterally connected, or ultimately and separately constructed. But, we say, had the present administration done its duty, and favored the building of the road to the Pacific three years ago, — instead of burning Greytown, making Ostend conferences to seize Cuba by " divine " right, and repealing the Missouri Compromise, which has brought upon us intestine war, — our country, instead of being divided, distracted, and agitated, would have been running a new race in dignity, and political and commercial greatness. The administration, on the contrary, early receded from this national measure. The leading presses, which sustained it, followed in elaborate articles against the road. Senators of the same political school declared the measure would be worse than the alien and sedition laws of John Adams. They saw no power in the constitution, while grant after grant, in the last seven years, has been made by Congress to the Southern and Western States. The people saw nothing to prevent it, and with more energy than ever before renewed that demand. - / 1 — 6* THE LOSS OF TIIE SLOOP -OF -WAR "ALBANY," COMMANDER GERRY, OFFICERS, AND CREW. CHAPTER I. The Author in a previous work, "The Ameri- can Battle," was induced, by the misrepresentations of officers, to make some statements which she afterwards learned, from an examination of the documents, to have been untrue, and which she therefore corrected in the previous editions of the present volume. The statements were then made, as she was assured, upon the most reliable authority, the verity of which she believed there- fore rested upon the most credible testimony, rather than upon the zealous enthusiasm of the informers. As she cannot, and will not, to support any cause, or subserve any party or creed, allow a statement to bear the sanction of her name that 13T 188 LOSS OF THE SLOOP-OF-WAR ALBANY. is not supported by evidence of its authenticity, she has requested her publishers to withdraw that chapter from the future editions of " The Ameri- can Battle" solely because it contains certain errors, caused by misrepresentations made to her. It was from a knowledge of this fact, brought to her notice by the examination of the official docu- ments, and the pain she experienced in having innocently, but most unjustly, committed, through others, a wrong upon the gallant dead, and by her own high sense of right, that she was at once prompted to make a public exposition of the character and services of Commander Gerry, who must be regarded, by all who are correctly in- formed of his private and public history, as one of the brightest ornaments of the Navy, and possessed of every virtue that gives claim to the confidence and respect of his country and of humanity The misrepresentation in the case of the late distinguished Commander Gerry, of the United States Navy, is first in importance, as it reflected upon one who is not here to vindicate his own claim to justice. But data, which none can deny, are at hand, as effectually to refute the charge as though lie were personally present, The offi- LOSS OF THE SLOOP-OF-WAR ALBANY. 189 cial documents, which the author has read, make no mention of auy application from a subordinate to place a Bible and religious library in the cabin of the Albany, under command of Captain Gerry. There is not one word to be read in connection with this mutter, from beginning to end, in these documents. The history of no misfortune that nas ever befallen the Navy caused deeper affliction or more lasting sorrow than that of the loss of the sloop-of-war Albany. Captain Gerry was her noble commander, ai