While they camped at Clatsop in those December days of 1805, and while Baranof prayed for ships in his lonely Sitkan outpost, across seas "the sun of Austerlitz" had risen. Against Russian and Austrian, Napoleon had closed a war with a clap of thunder.
Every breeze bore news that overawed the world.
"Napoleon has taken Italy."
"Napoleon has conquered Austria."
"Napoleon has defeated Russia."
"Napoleon has ruined Prussia."
"Napoleon has taken Spain."
While Lewis and Clark were at Washington came the battles of Eylau and Dantzic. In December Napoleon annexed Portugal, and the Court of Lisbon fled to Brazil, to escape his arms and to rear anew the House of Braganza.
How much more remained to conquer? How soon might the theatre of action come over the sea? Still there was England.
For a time the Napoleonic wars had thrown the carrying trade of the ocean into American hands. American farmers could not reach the coast fast enough with their fleets of grain, the food for armies. Cotton went up to a fabulous price. Enterprise fired the young republic. Ships were building two thousand miles inland to carry her products to the ocean. She grew, she throve, and an ever-increasing inland fleet carried to and fro the red life of a growing nation.