Note 9 — PREFACE TO VOLUMES XIV-XVII

The expedition was the most extensive which had been sent out by the government, up to that time; and, as the North American Review remarked, was "in many respects much better qualified and fitted out than Lewis and Clark." Nevertheless, in commenting on the sentence in the Preliminary Notice, in which James explains the scarcity of means for the expedition as due to the state of the national finances, the same journal exclaims: "Detestable parsimony! The only country but one in the world, that has not been reduced to an avowed or virtual bankruptcy; the country, which has grown and is growing in wealth and prosperity beyond any other and beyond all other nations, too poor to pay a few gentlemen and soldiers for exploring its mighty rivers, and taking possession of the empires, which Providence has called it to govern!"