The of the United States WILLIAM A. MOWRY, A.M., PH.D. MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC- SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO Thi s One PREFACE IT is now many years since the substance of the following pages was first written. The manuscript was laid aside and the author began a more thorough study of the subject. That study has been continued to the present time, and the author has availed himself of all the authorities within his reach. During the last two years he has been largely engaged in rewriting and preparing the matter for the press. From the first, the history here embodied has appeared to him to be of great value to the American citizen, and to deserve a wider knowledge and more careful attention from all our people. The facts here presented in consecutive order have not heretofore been so fully given. It was, therefore, necessary to go back to original sources of information and to cull from many works of diverse character. Some of the chapters have a brief treatment because others seem to demand fuller and more minute consideration. The history of the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of the Oregon country are considered more at length because of the exceptional value of that history and because correct information upon these subjects has not been generally obtainable. It is difficult to appreciate fully the importance of the service done to this country by Dr. Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams, in the delicate task of negotiating the treaty of peace with Great Britain; and by Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe in accomplishing the purchase of the Louisiana province from the first Napoleon. The special favor of Divine Providence toward this country appears again and again in the course of our history, particularly in the results of the old French and Indian War, the purchase of Louisiana, the acquisition of New Mexico and California, and the saving of Oregon from the grasp of England. The map, showing our several territorial accessions, which forms the frontispiece to this book, was in the main copied from a cloth map twelve by seven and a half feet in size, which was made before Mr. Stocking's map appeared in the volume on Population, in the census report of 1870. The author is indebted to Theodore Lyman's United States Diplomacy, in two volumes, published in Boston in 1828; to Marbois's History of Louisiana, Philadelphia, 1830; to Greenhow's History of Oregon and California, Little & Brown, 1844; and to Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, 8 volumes, Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Boston, 1889. Special mention ought to be made of the valuable article on the Peace Negotiations of 1182-1783 by the Hon. John Jay, published in the seventh volume of Winsor's history, above mentioned, pp. 89-165. Thanks are due to Hon. William R. Merriam, Superintendent of the Twelfth United States Census, for his courtesy in furnishing advance bulletins of the census, showing population, etc. William A. Mowry. Hyde Park, Massachusetts, |