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LEWIS AND CLARK'S AMERICAN TRAVELS:
THE VIEW FROM BRITAIN
WILLIAM E. FOLEY
Many well-educated Europeans took notice of Lewis and Clark's journey to the Pacific. In Great Britain, government officials, writers, scientists, and intellectuals steeped in the traditions of the Enlightenment pored over published reports of the expedition. Their commentaries provide telling glimpses of British scientific and literary thought and yield amusing tidbits suggestive of how Britons viewed their former colonists.
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WHEN CAPTAINS MERIWETHER LEWIS and William Clark put ashore in St. Louis at the conclusion of their twenty-eight month journey to the Pacific Ocean, an impromptu crowd lining the riverbank shouted its approval. Two days later—25 September 1806—St. Louisans feted the expedition's leaders with a sumptuous dinner and ball at William Christy's Tavern, during which the happy revelers drank no fewer than eighteen toasts. In their final salute, delivered after the guests of honor had retired from the room, the celebrants hailed: "Captains Lewis and Clark—Their perilous services endear them to every American heart."1 The public acclaim, which continued as Lewis and Clark made their way eastward, reached a crescendo during a gala dinner hosted by city officials in Washington, D. C., on 14 January 1807.2 Clark missed that gathering and so did President Thomas Jefferson, but Lewis was there, along with Mayor Robert Brent, several "officers of government," the Mandan Indian chieftain Sheheke, and St. Louis merchant Pierre Chouteau. In what by then had become a familiar ritual, the assembled guests saluted the expedition's accomplishments with raised glasses and words of effusive praise that included a poetic tribute penned by Joel Barlow especially for the occasion.3 |
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The cheering soon subsided, but thirteen years later William Clark's nephew, John O'Fallon, sought to rally Missouri voters behind his uncle's candidacy for governor by reminding them that Lewis and Clark's triumphal return had "diffused the most lively satisfaction throughout the United States," and that "Europe joined in the applause."4 Though it may not have been written for that purpose, O'Fallon's rhetorical flourish touting the expedition's transatlantic acclaim poses some interesting questions. To what extent did Lewis and Clark's American travels capture attention abroad? Did Europeans actually take notice of their discoveries, and if so, what was their reaction? |
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The American West was, as James Ronda aptly put it, "both battleground and prize" in a grand contest for empire.5 Spain, France, Great Britain, and Russia all had a stake in the outcome, and that was incentive enough to interest observers on the other side of the Atlantic in reports about Lewis and Clark's trek across North America's uncharted lands. But as this essay shows, educated Europeans were fascinated with exotic people and places for reasons other than imperial ambition and geopolitics. Scientific exploration was all the rage. Individuals schooled in the traditions of the Enlightenment were drawn to the systematic investigation of a wide array of interesting subjects. British commentaries about Lewis and Clark's American travels offer telling glimpses of European scientific and literary thought and also yield amusing tidbits suggestive of how educated Britons felt about their former American colonists. |
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From the outset, Thomas Jefferson was desirous of obtaining British acquiescence to his plan for sending a government-sponsored expedition in search of the most direct and practicable water route across the North American continent. No nation better appreciated the value of scientific exploration. Under the guiding hand of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, Great Britain's most celebrated explorers, Captains James Cook and George Vancouver, had elevated their voyages of discovery into Enlightenment science of a high order.6 |
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