First Across the Continent
The Story of
The Exploring Expedition of Lewis
and Clark in 1804-5-6
By Noah Brooks
First Across the Continent
Chapter I
A Great Transaction in Land
The people of the young Republic of the United States were greatly
astonished, in the summer of 1803, to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte,
then First Consul of France, had sold to us the vast tract
of land known as the country of Louisiana. The details of this
purchase were arranged in Paris (on the part of the United States)
by Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe. The French government
was represented by Barbe-Marbois, Minister of the Public Treasury.
The price to be paid for this vast domain was fifteen million dollars.
The area of the country ceded was reckoned to be more than one million
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