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lican party was growing stronger and stronger, and in 1801 elected Thomas Jefferson as its third president, and Aaron Burr of New York as vice-president.

CHAPTER IV.

JEFFERSON'S PRESIDENCY.

The Purchase of Louisiana. -The First Journey from Ocean to Ocean. - Lewis and Clarke's Expedition. The Sources of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers. -The Great Pacific Ocean.. Return of Lewis and Clarke.

THE country had been growing richer and more prosperous every year since the war ended. Every year saw an increase in the tide of people going west to settle in the new lands beyond the Ohio River. A rich farming country was opening up, under the plows of the thrifty settlers, all the way from Ohio to Mississippi Territory. In the very first year of Jefferson's rule, the Territory of Ohio came to urge her claim to be made a State. Congress voted in her favor,

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and a new star, to represent the State of Ohio, was put in the flag of the Union.

There was always some anxiety about the Mississippi valley. You know the Spanish still

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owned Louisiana, and that territory extended up the river from New Orleans, as far as the Falls of St. Anthony, where Hennepin had explored.

New Orleans was now a large town, well protected by forts guarding the mouth of the Mississippi. St. Louis was a snug settlement of

log cabins where dwelt a company of French fur traders with their Indian wives, whose children, speaking a mixture of the French and Indian tongues, could be seen playing beside the waters of the muddy Missouri.

Spain had recently ceded Louisiana to France, and France needed money to carry on her wars. So when President Jefferson, who was on very good terms with France, offered fifteen millions of dollars for her possession in North America, Napoleon accepted the offer, and the bargain was ratified at once. Jefferson believed in a good large country with no troublesome neighbors at the back door, such as we might have had if the Spaniards or the French had kept the Mississippi River. Thus by peaceful purchase we got the great territory of Louisiana and the towns of New Orleans, St. Louis, and all the trading posts and forts situated on the great river. The Spaniards still kept the peninsula of Florida, the land they had first settled in North America.

Jefferson offered the governorship of Louisiana to Lafayette, who was then living on his estate in France, but Lafayette refused, because he was unwilling to abandon his own country. Therefore, General Wilkinson, a soldier who had served with Gates in his campaign against Burgoyne, was made governor of the new Territory.

As soon as his purchase was complete, Jefferson was eager to explore the new country we had gained. At this time nobody knew anything about a route across the continent. There was a romantic account by a man named Jonathan Carver, who had journeyed across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But with the excep

tion of this solitary traveler, it was not known that any one had ever explored the country from one ocean to another. Jefferson planned such a journey, and began to look about for men to undertake it.

He had a private secretary, named Captain Merriweather Lewis, a very quiet man, but a man of undaunted resolve and great enthusiasm for science. To him and to Captain Clarke, who had been a soldier in several Indian campaigns, the president finally intrusted his project. These two leaders went to St. Louis, in the winter of 1803-4, and there collected a party of forty or fifty men, and all necessaries for their journey, the first journey across the American

continent.

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They started up the muddy waters of the Missouri in little boats. Part of the boats worked by sails, part of them by oars. When the

current was too powerful to be stemmed by oars, they tied their boats by ropes to the trees, and worked them up by the capstan. They made their way slowly, and only reached the territory of the Mandan Indians, somewhere in Northern Dakota, when cold weather set in, and they found themselves winter bound among the savages. For six months they stayed there, living in rude huts which they had built, passing the time in hunting and fishing, or studying the habits of their Indian neighbors.

In spring, when the ice broke up, the canoes were put in order, and they set out once more. Hitherto they had once in a while. met French traders from Canada, or British traders from Hudson's Bay, seeking furs of the Indians, but now they began to enter a wilderness where no foot of white man had ever trodden.

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Their plan was to follow the Missouri to its source, and from thence to strike the source of the Columbia River, which the Indians had told Lewis was only separated by a low ridge of the Rocky Mountains from the head waters of the Missouri. Had they taken any of the branches of the Missouri, they might have spent months of fruitless search, and perhaps given up their journey. But Lewis had the scent of a sleuth hound for the right track, and led them on with unerring sagacity.

On they went, around the great falls, through the bold rock cailed "Gate of the Mountains," up the Jefferson Fork, till the river,

growing narrower and narrower, would no longer float even their light canoes. Then they took the boats on their backs, and walked beside the stream. One day one of the men put one foot on each side the narrow rippling waters, and thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri River. When, a little later, they reached the chaste, clear fount from which bubbled the first drops of the mighty stream, every one drank in silent thankfulness for their success so far. Only a little mountain ridge divided the waters of the great river of the east from the river of the west. They could stand upon the crest and toss a pebble one way into waters that flowed to the Atlantic, and the other into waters flowing to the Pacific. When they reached the Columbia, drinking from its fountain, they cried aloud that they quaffed the waters of the Pacific Ocean.

As soon as they reached a point where they could embark their canoes on the Columbia, they proceeded with breathless rapidity over its dangerous rapids to the ocean. But their enthusiasm was damped by the greeting the Pacific coast gave them. It was in the rainy season, and the ocean of their hopes was covered with impenetrable fogs. For days and weeks the rain fell in steady torrents till the leather of their waterproof tents rotted to the consistency of brown paper. Their clothes were never dry. They suffered from wet, cold, and want of proper food, but in spite of all kept their health and spirits. On their return, they wore Indian hunting shirts, deer-skin leggings, and moccasins instead of shoes. They were bronzed almost as dark as Indians. When Lewis wished to prove that he was a white man, he had to strip up his sleeve to show the original color of his skin. In this guise they landed at St. Louis in July, 1806.

"Never did any similar event," writes President Jefferson, "excite more joy in the United States." Every citizen of the nation. felt a glow of pride in his newly enlarged country, so rich, boundless, and romantic. It was the first journey across that continent where now the Pacific Railway winds across the two great mountain ranges to the western ocean.

CHAPTER V.

WAR WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.

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Pirates of the Mediterranean Sea. - Demands of these Sea Robbers on United States.
eral Eaton's Interview with the Bey of Tunis. - Royal Beggars. - War declared. - Daring
Feat of Decatur. - The Philadelphia burned in the Harbor of Tripoli. The Bashaw
Hamet. End of War.

WHILE we were thus broadening our territories at home, we were having trouble abroad with no less formidable enemies than Algerine pirates who infested the Mediterranean Sea, and all the coasts of southern Europe. The Barbary States, you know, comprise the countries of Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli, and are formed of a narrow strip of land in northeastern Africa. They are inhabited by Moors, Turks, Arabs, and a sprinkling of Jews. The principal religion is that of Mohammed, and they were sworn enemies to all Christian nations. For years the pirates of the Barbary States, or, as they were generally called, "Algerine pirates," had been a terror to every merchant vessel who came to trade with the countries near the Mediterranean. Any unlucky, ship, which found itself near the Atlantic coast of Africa, might see at any moment an odd-looking boat with long lateen sails, swooping down upon her from some sheltered inlet or harbor, where she had lain at watch for her prey. In a twinkling she would sail alongside the merchantman, grapple her, drop her long sails over the vessel's side, and a host of swarthy, turbaned Moors, with bare, sharp sabres held between their teeth, belts stuck thick with knives and pistols, would come swarming over from sails and rigging, boarding their prize from all sides at once. The merchantman, with a crew untrained to fighting, would surrender. Every man on board would be made prisoner, and carried to Algiers or Tripoli to be held for the payment of a large ransom. If this sum were not paid they were sold as slaves in the public marketplaces.

It is wonderful, when we read of this thing, to see the terror in which these miserable, half clad pirates held half a dozen European nations. Italy feared them as a mouse fears a cat; Holland and Sweden trembled at the name of Algiers; Denmark paid them yearly a large tribute; the only nation of whom they stood in awe was England. For her, they had some respect, as one of their proverbs," as hard-headed as an Englishman," testifies.

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