University of Virginia Library

XXIX. XXIX

LEWIS'S REPLY TO CLARK'S ACCEPTANCE

XXIX. [From original MS. in possession of Mrs. Julia Clark Voorhis and Miss Eleanor Glasgow Voorhis.]

Dear Clark: Yours of the 19th & 24th U1t.. have been duly received,
and be assured I feel myself much gratifyed with your decision;
for I could neither hope, wish, or expect from a union with any man on
earth, more perfect support or further aid in the discharge of the several
duties of my mission, than that, which I am confident I shall derive
from being associated with yourself.

The articles of every description forming my outfit for this expedition
have arrived in good order; my boat only detains me, she is not
yet compleated tho' the workman who contracted to build her promises
that she shall be in readiness by the last of the next week. The water
is low, this may retard, but shall not totally obstruct my progress being
determined to proceed tho' I should not be able to make greater speed
than a boat's length pr day.

I am pleased to heare that you have engaged some men for this service,
your contract with them had better be with the condition of my
approval, as by the time I shall arrive more will have offered themselves
and a better scelection may of course be made; from the nature of this
enterprise much must depend on a judicious scelection of our men; their
qualifycations should be such as perfectly fit them for the service outherwise
they will reather clog than further the objects in view; on this
principle I am well pleased that you have not admitted or encouraged
the young gentlemen you mention, we must set our faces against all
such applications and get rid of them on the best terms we can, they
will not answer our purposes: if a good hunter or two could be conditionally
engaged I would think them an acquisition, they must however
understand that they will not be employed for the purposes of
hunting exclusively but must bear a portion of the labour in common
with the party.

Sometime in the month of February last a young man by the name of

John Conner residing among the Delleware Indians on White River
offered himself, by letter, to accompany me in the capacity of Interpreter;
I wrote him in answer accepting his services and giving him some
instructions relative to the points at which I wished him to join me as
also to engage one or two Indian hunters for the service—of this letter
I forwarded triplicates by different routs but have never received an
answer: I am personally acquainted with this man and think that we
could not get a person better qualifyed in every respect than he is, and
that it will be advisable to spare no pains to get him. If you cannot
learn that Conner has gone on to Massac Kaskaskia or Illinois,
(which are the places I appointed for his joining me) I think it will be
best for you to hire a man to go to the Delleware Town and enquire
after him, you may offer him 300 dollars a year and find him provisions
and clothing—should he be at the Deleware town and be willing to
engage on these terms he had better come on immediately and join us
at Louisville. He is a trader among the Indians and I think he told
me he lived on White River at the nearest Dellaware town to Fort
Hamilton and distant from that place about 24 miles.

The session of Louisiana is now no [word illegible] on the 14th of
July the President received the treaty from Paris, by which France has
ceded to the U. States, Louisiana according to the bounds to which she
had a wright, price 11 ¼ Millions of dollars, besides paying certain debts
of France to our citizens which will be from one to four millions; the
Western people may now estimate the value of their possessions.

I have been detained much longer than I expected but shall be with
you by the last of this month.