rever to the United States.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1805]

By a single stroke, the original territory of the United States was more
than doubled. While the boundaries of the purchase were uncertain, it is
safe to say that the Louisiana territory included what is now Arkansas,
Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large
portions of Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Montana, and
Wyoming. The farm lands that the friends of "a little America" on the
seacoast declared a hopeless wilderness were, within a hundred years,
fully occupied and valued at nearly seven billion dollars--almost five
hundred times the price paid to Napoleon.

=Western Explorations.=--Having taken the fateful step, Jefferson wisely
began to make the most of it. He prepared for the opening of the new
country by sending the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore it,
discover its resources, and lay out an overland route through the
Missouri Valley and across the Great Divide to the Pacific. The story of
this mighty exploit, which began in the spring of 1804 and ended in the
autumn of 1806, was set down with skill and pains in the journal of
Lewis and Clark; when published even in a short form, it invited the
forward-looking men of the East to take thought about the western
empire. At the same time Zebulon Pike, in a series of journeys, explored
the sources of the Mississippi River and penetrated the Spanish
territories of the far Southwest. Thus scouts and pioneers continued the
work of diplomats.

THE REPUBLICAN WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE

=The English and French Blockades.=--In addition to bringing Louisiana
to the United States, the reopening of the European War in 1803, after a
short lull, renewed in an acute form the commercial difficulties that
had plagued the country all during the administrations of Washington and
Adams. The Republicans were now plunged into the hornets' nest. The
party whose ardent spirits had burned Jay in effigy, stoned Hamilton for
defending his treaty, jeered Washington's proclamation of neutrality,
and spoken bitterly of "timid traders," could no longer take refuge in
criticism. It had to act.

Its troubles took a serious turn in 1806. England, in a determined
effort to bring France to her knees by starvation, declared the coast of
Europe blockaded from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe River. Napoleon
retaliated by his Berlin Decree of November, 1806, blockading the
B