For a while this treaty was really kept secret; but in April, 1802, news that Louisiana had been given to France and that Napoleon was going to send out troops to hold it, reached this country and produced two consequences.  In the first place, it led the Spanish intendant (as the man who had charge of all commercial matters was called) to withdraw the “right of deposit” at New Orleans, and so prevent citizens of the United States sending their produce out of the Mississippi River.  In the second place, this act of the intendant excited the rage of all the settlers in the valley from Pittsburg to Natchez, and made them demand the instant seizure of New Orleans by American troops.  To prevent this, Jefferson obtained the consent of Congress to make an effort to buy New Orleans and West Florida, and sent Monroe to aid our minister in France in making the purchase.

When the offer was made, Napoleon was about going to war with England, and, wanting money very much, he in turn offered to sell the whole province to the United States—­an offer that was gladly accepted.  The price paid was $15,000,000, and in December, 1803, Louisiana was formally delivered to us.

%245.  Louisiana.%—­Concerning this splendid domain hardly anything was known.  No boundaries were given to it either on the north, or on the west, or on the south.  What the country was like nobody could tell.[1] Where the source of the Mississippi was no white man knew.  In the time of La Salle a priest named Hennepin had gone up to the spot where Minneapolis now stands, and had seen the Falls of St. Anthony (p. 63).  But the country above the falls was still unknown.

[Footnote 1:  In a description of it which Jefferson sent to Congress in 1804, he actually stated that “there exists about one thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt mountain.  This mountain is said to be one hundred and eighty miles long and forty-five in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it.”]

%246.  Explorations of Lewis and Clark.%—­That this great region ought to be explored had been a favorite idea of Jefferson for twenty years past, and he had tried to persuade learned men and learned societies to organize an expedition to cross the continent.  Failing in this, he turned to Congress, which in 1803 (before the purchase of Louisiana) voted a sum of money for sending an exploring party from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific.  The party was in charge of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  Early in May, 1804, they left St. Louis, then a frontier town of log cabins, and worked their way up the Missouri River to a spot not far from the present city of Bismarck, North Dakota, where they passed the winter with the Indians.  Resuming their journey in the spring of 1805, they followed the Missouri to its source in the mountains, after crossing which they came to the Clear Water River; and down this they went to the Columbia, which carried them to a spot where, late in November, 1805, they “saw the waves like small mountains rolling out in the sea.”  They were on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.  After spending the winter at the mouth of the Columbia, the party made its way back to St. Louis in 1806.