The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 · Thomas Jefferson
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MERIWETHER LEWIS.[79]
"Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this 20th day of June, 1803. "THOMAS JEFFERSON, President of the U. States of America." * * * * * While these things were going on here, the country of Louisiana, lately ceded by Spain to France, had been the subject of negotiation between us and this last power; and had actually been transferred to us by treaties executed at Paris on the 30th of April. This information, received about the 1st day of July, increased infinitely the interest we felt in the expedition, and lessened the apprehensions of interruption from other powers. Everything in this quarter being now prepared, Captain Lewis left Washington on the 5th of July, 1803, and proceeded to Pittsburg, where other articles had been ordered to be provided for him. The men, too, were to be selected from the military stations on the Ohio. Delays of preparation, difficulties of navigation down the Ohio, and other untoward obstructions, retarded his arrival at Cahokia until the season was so far advanced as to render it prudent to suspend his entering the Missouri before the ice should break up in the succeeding spring. From this time his journal, now published, will give the history of his journey to and from the Pacific ocean, until his return to St. Louis on the 23d of September, 1806. Never did a similar event excite more joy through the United States.
The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience for the information it would furnish. Their anxieties, too, for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement by lugubrious rumors, circulated from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted by letters or other direct information from the time they had left the Mandan towns on their ascent up the river in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual return to St. Louis. It was the middle of Feb. 1807, before Capt. Lewis with his companion Clarke reached the city of Washington, where Congress was then in session. That body granted to the two chiefs and their followers, the donation of lands which they had been encouraged to expect in reward of their toils and dangers. Capt. Lewis was soon after appointed Governor of Louisiana, and Capt. Clarke a General of its militia, and agent of the United States for Indian affairs in that department. A considerable time intervened before the Governor's arrival at St. Louis. He found the territory distracted by feuds and contentions among the officers of the government, and the people themselves divided by these into factions and parties. He determined at once to take no sides with either, but to use every endeavor to conciliate and harmonize them. The even-handed justice he administered to all soon established a respect for his person and authority, and perseverance and time wore down animosities, and reunited the citizens again into one family.
Governor Lewis had from early life been subject to hypochondriac affections. It was a constitutional disposition in all the nearer branches of the family of his name, and was more immediately inherited by him from his father. They had not, however, been so strong as to give uneasiness to his family. While he lived with me in Washington, I observed at times sensible depressions of mind, but knowing their constitutional source, I estimated their course by what I had seen in the family. During his western expedition, the constant exertion which that required of all the faculties of body and mind, suspended these distressing affections; but after his establishment at St. Louis in sedentary occupations, they returned upon him with redoubled vigor, and began seriously to alarm his friends. He was in a paroxysm of one of these when his affairs rendered it necessary for him to go to Washington. He proceeded to the Chickasaw bluffs, where he arrived on the 15th of September, 1809, with a view of continuing his journey thence by water. Mr. Neely, agent of the United States with the Chickasaw Indians, arriving there two days after, found him extremely indisposed, and betraying at times some symptoms of a derangement of mind.
The rumors of a war with England, and apprehensions that he might lose the papers he was bringing on, among which were the vouchers of his public accounts, and the journals and papers of his western expedition, induced him here to change his mind, and to take his course by land through the Chickasaw country. Although he appeared somewhat relieved, Mr. Neely kindly determined to accompany and watch over him. Unfortunately, at their encampment, after having passed the Tennessee one day's journey, they lost two horses, which obliging Mr. Neely to halt for their recovery, the Governor proceeded under a promise to wait for him at the house of the first white inhabitant on his road. He stopped at the house of a Mr. Grinder, who, not being at home, his wife, alarmed at the symptoms of derangement she discovered, gave him up the house, and retired to rest herself in an out-house; the Governor's and Neely's servants lodging in another. About 3 o'clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens, whose valor and intelligence would have been now employed in avenging the wrongs of his country, and in emulating by land the splendid deeds which have honored her arms on the ocean.
It lost, too, to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative now offered them of his sufferings and successes in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom and happiness. To this melancholy close of the life of one whom posterity will declare not to have lived in vain, I have only to add that all the facts I have stated, are either known to myself, or communicated by his family or others, for whose truth I have no hesitation to make myself responsible; and I conclude with tendering you the assurances of my respect and consideration.
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