time, forty-three 34 years later, it served a valiant purpose in thwarting English ambition and serving America's highest interests.
Estimated from the standpoint of money and material values, it was a great transaction, especially notable in view of existing conditions, but from the standpoint of State and National grandeur, carrying with it peace and hope and happiness to millions, and continuous rule of the Republic from ocean to ocean, it assumes a greatness never surpassed in a single transaction, and not easily over-estimated, and never in the history of the English people did a single transaction, with dates so widely separated, arise, and so effectually check their imperious demands.
The American Republic may well remember with deep gratitude President Jefferson, and the far-seeing statesmen who rallied to his call and consummated the grand work. They can at the same time see the foresight and wisdom of Jefferson in, at once, the very next year, sending the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the headwaters of the Columbia River, and causing a complete survey to be made to its mouth. It was a complete refutation of the claim of the English Commissioners, in 1837, that while "Captain Gray only discovered the mouth of the river, Captain Vancouver made a complete survey." The American mistake was, not in the purchase and active work 35 then done, but the lassitude and inexcusable
