January 1-11, 1803

At the end of 1802 President Jefferson met with Carlos Martínez, Marqués de Casa Yrujo, the Spanish minister (ambassador) to the United States. His purpose was to sound out the Spanish government’s reaction to a party of travelers exploring the course of the Missouri.

The following extracts from Yrujo’s letter to Pedro Cevallos, Spanish Foreign Minister, give some indication of the course of the discussion. Jefferson began by asking if such an expedition would be unwelcome to the Spanish court. The minister replied that such an expedition would be certain to give offence. He then spoke at some length about earlier failed attempts to explore the West, with hopes that his descriptions would discourage Jefferson from his plan, though he ended by noting that no decision had yet been made.

A postscript to the letter expressed the Spanish King Carlos IV’s satisfaction that the project had been abandoned. This was of course a miscalculation, by a weak and ineffectual ruler who had given up Louisiana to the French a couple of years earlier.

It is interesting, with the advantage of hindsight, to see how these experienced diplomats navigated through discussions that would have large territorial significance.

Portrait of President Jefferson painted by Rembrandt Peale, 1805. Image from Jefferson: A Revealing Biography by Page Smith; original artwork at New York Historical Society.

Family of Charles IV, King of Spain by Francisco Goya, 1800. Image from Goya bu Pierre Descargues; original artwork at Prado, Madrid.

Extracts from Yrujo’s letter:

Carlos Martínez de Yrujo to Pedro Cevallos, Washington, December 2, 1802.

“Notice of a project communicated by the President to send travelers to explore the course of the Missouri River, and for them to penetrate as far as the Southern [Pacific] Ocean.”

Most Excellent Señor

My Dear Sir: The President asked me the other day in a frank and confident tone, if our Court would take it badly, that the Congress decree the formation of a group of travelers, who would form a caravan and go and explore the course of the Missouri River. . . . He said they would give it the denomination of mercantile, inasmuch as only in this way would the Congress have the power of voting the necessary funds. . . . I replied to him that making use of the same frankness with which he honored me, I would take the liberty of telling him, that I persuaded myself that an expedition of this nature could not fail to give umbrage to our Government.

Then he replied to me that he did not see the motive why they [our government] should have the least fear, inasmuch as its object would not be other than to observe the territories which are found between 40â and 60â [north latitude] from the mouth of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, and unite the discoveries that these men would make with those which the celebrated Mackensi [Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the first explorer to cross North America] made in 1793, and be sure if it were possible in that district to establish a continual communication, or little interrupted, by water as far as the South Sea.

I told him then that this was already a determined point, as much by the fruitless attempts made with this one objective by the Jesuits in Northern California, as by the particular surveys later made by the Captains Cook, Maurelle, Martinez, Vancouver, Cuadra. . . . . Finally that Mackinsee’s second trip, in which he penetrated in 1793 up to the Pacific Ocean, shows that there does not exist such a communication by water. . . . This account of useless and fruitless attempts it seems to me calmed his spirit with which he began to talk to me on the subject.

The President has been all his life a man of letters, very speculative and a lover of glory, and it would be possible he might attempt to perpetuate the fame of his administration not only by the measures of frugality and economy which characterize him, but also by discovering or attempting at least to discover the way by which the Americans may some day extend their population and their influence up to the coasts of the South Sea.

I do not know what might be his final decision concerning this point, but I shall be on the lookout to see if it is attempted to realize or not this idea by the Congress. . . .

[Decree] “That His Majesty has seen with satisfaction that by their erudite reflections the President’s project has been abandoned. February 19, 1803.”

Sources: Translated from Spanish and published in A. P. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark II, 712-4, and reprinted in Donald Jackson, Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, item 4.