“ livered that country to Spain, & that Spain on the contrary had never made a single settlement on the river, are circumstances so well known, & so susceptible of proof, that it was not supposed that Spain would seriously contest the facts, or the right established by them. hence our government took measures for exploring that river as it did that of the Missouri, by sending m ( ^~ r) Freeman to proceed from the mouth upwards, & Lieutenant Pike from the source downwards, merely to acquire it’s geography, and so far enlarge the boundaries of science. for the day must be very distant when it will be either the interest or the wish of the US. to extend settlements into the interior of that country. L ^t. Pike’s orders were accordingly strictly confined to the waters of the Red river, & from his known observance of orders, I am persuaded that it must have been, as he himself declares, by missing his way that he got on the waters of the Rio Norte, instead of those of the Red river. that Your Excellency should excuse this involuntary error & indeed misfortune, was expected from the liberality of your character, & the kindnesses you have shewn him are an honorable example of those offices of good neighborhood on your part, which it will be so agreeable to us to cultivate. accept my thanks for them, & be assured they shall on all occasions meet a like return. to the same liberal sentiments L ^t. Pike must appeal for the restoration of his papers. you must have seen in them no trace of unfriendly views towards your nation, no symptoms of any other design than of extending geographical knolege: and it is not in the 19 ^th. century, nor through the agency of Your Excellency that science expects to encounter obstacles. the field of knolege is the common property of all mankind, and any discoveries we can make in it, will be for the benefit of yours and of every other nation as well as our own. ”

On August 30 in the same year, 1807, Jefferson wrote from Monticello to James Madison, the Secretary of State: “ There can be no doubt that Foronda’s claim for the money advanced to L ^t. Pike should be repaid, & while his application to yourself is the proper one, we must attend to the money, being drawn from the proper fund which is that of the war department. I presume therefore it will be necessary for you to apply to Gen ^l. Dearborne to furnish the money. will it not be proper to rebut Foronda’s charge of this government sending a spy to Santa fé by saying that this government has never employed a spy in any case & that Pike’s mission was to ascend the Arkansa & descend the Red river for the purpose of ascertaining their geography; that as far as we are yet informed he entered the waters of the North river, believing them to be those of the Red river: and that, however certain we are of a right extending to the North river, and participating of it’s navigation with Spain, yet Pike’s voyage was not intended as an exercise of that right, which we notice here merely because he has chosen to deny it, a question to be settled in another way . . . ”

And on the following day he wrote on the same subject to Henry Dearborn: “ M ^r. Madison will have written to you on the subject of a demand of 1000. D. furnished to Lieut ^t Pike to be repaid to Foronda, which of course must come out of the military fund . . . ”

In a letter to Madison dated from Monticello on May 24, in the following year, 1808, Jefferson mentioned: “ . . . I think too that the truth as to Pike’s mission might be so simply stated as to need no argument to shew that (even during the suspension of our claims to the Eastern border of the rio Norte) his getting on it was mere error, which ought to have called for the setting him right, instead of forcing him through the interior country . . . ”

In a letter to Jefferson dated from Paris December 20[,] 1811, Baron Von Humboldt mentioned: .“ . . Mr. Arrowsmith à Londres m’a volé ma grande Carte du Mexique: Mr. Pike a profité d’une maniere peu genereuse de la communication qui lui à eté faite sans doute à Washington de la copie de ma Carte: d’ailleurs il a extriqué tous les noms. Je suis affligé d’avoir a me plaindre d’un citoyen des Etats Unis qui d’ailleurs adeployé un si beau courage. Mon nom ne se trouve pas dans son livre et un leger coup d’oeil sur la Carte de Mr Pike . . .”

Jefferson referred to this in a letter to Von Humboldt dated from Monticello, December 6, 1813: “ . . . That their Arrowsmith should have stolen your ”