“I know your modesty as well as your courage, Captain Lewis,” smiled Mr. Jefferson. “You may be seated, sir, since now we all know you.
“Let me say to you others that I have had opportunity of knowing my captain of this magnificent adventure. In years he is not yet thirty, but he is and always was a leader, mature, wise, calm, and resolved. Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities can divert from its direction; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, and yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; guarded by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country against duplication of objects already possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal; of sound understanding, and of a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he shall report will be as certain as if seen by ourselves—with all these qualifications, I say, as if selected and implanted by nature in one body, for one purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding this enterprise—the most cherished enterprise of my administration—to him whom now you have seen here before you.”
The President bowed deeply to the young man, who had modestly resumed his place. Then, for just a moment, Mr. Jefferson stood silent, absorbed, rapt, carried away by his own vision.
“And now for my news,” he said at length. “Here you have it!”
He waved once more the little scrap of paper.
“I had this news from New York this morning. It was despatched yesterday evening. Tomorrow it will reach all the world. The mails will bring it to you; but news like this could not wait for the mails. No horse could bring it fast enough. It was brought by a dove—the dove of peace, I trust. Let me explain briefly; what my news concerns.
“As you know, that new country yonder belonged at first to any one who might find it—to England, if she could penetrate it first; to Spain, if she were first to put her flag upon it; to Russia, if first she conquered it from the far Northwest. But none of these three ever completed acquisition by those means under which nations take title to the new territories of the world. Louisiana, as we term it, has been unclaimed, unknown, unowned—indeed, virgin territory so far as definite title was concerned.
“In the north, such title as might be was conveyed to Great Britain by France after the latter power was conquered at Quebec. The lower regions France—supposing that she owned them—conveyed, through her monarch, the fifteenth Louis, to Spain. Again, in the policy of nations, Spain sold them to France once more, in a time of need. France owned the territory then, or had the title, though Spain still was in possession. It lay still unoccupied, still contested—until but now.
“My friends, I give you news! On the 2d of May last, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, sold to this republic, the United States of America, all of Louisiana, whatever it may be, from the Mississippi to the Pacific! Here are seven words which carry an empire with them—the empire of humanity—a land in which democracy, humanity, shall expand and grow forever! This is my news:
“General Bonaparte signed May 2—Fifteen millions—Rejoice!”