in the vicinity of Santa Fe. On the 20th they reached and crossed a deep and rapid river, losing in the operation seven horses laden with merchandise. This stream they say was the Kansas. Again they entered upon the prairies bare of trees, dependent upon buffalo chips for their fuel, encamping nearly every night by a water course, until on the 30th of June they pitched their tents upon the banks of the Arkansas river, where for the first time they came upon traces of Spanish occupancy. It is hardly necessary to follow their exact course from this point, or to speak of their encounter with an Indian tribe called Lalitanes, their success in procuring a guide or their first view of the Spanish mountains. On the 14th they reached the pueblo and mission of Pecos, so well known to all travelers on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway. Here they were treated with kindness and consideration, and from here passing through Taos, they reached Santa Fe on the 22d of July. From hints in their journal and its accompanying documents, it is quite evident that while hospitably received they were sedulously guarded and watched. Communication with the City of Mexico could be had but once a year, and so after making known their wishes to establish commerce between the Spanish and French, they were obliged to submit to a delay of nine months before an answer could be returned. Probably this detention was not entirely irksome to them, as it enabled them to make sundry valuable observations for the governor of Louisiana. Their report contains suspicious sentences like the following: "Santa Fe is a city built of wood and without fortifications of any kind." "There are only eighty soldiers in the garrison-an ill conditioned body of men, poorly equipped." "There are valuable * * * * * * mines in the province, worked for the king of Spain, the silver from which is transmitted annually by caravan to Old Mexico.' The few presents distributed among the Lalitanes have had an excellent effect, and the tribe will be entirely on our side if we have an establishment in the country." It is doubtful if our adventurers were much annoyed or disappointed by the response of the viceroy which consisted of an offer to engage them to discover a rich region three months' journey to the westward, where it was said there were populous cities whose dwellers were clothed in silks and lived in luxury. They preferred, with a single exception, to return to their own country. One of them, Louis Moreau, had, during the visit succumbed to the charms of Mexican beauty and decided to tempt the desert no farther. Of the remaining seven, three returned to the land of the Pawnees on the Loup, and eventually reached the French settlement on the Illinois. The remaining four descended the Arkansas, not without hardships, risk, and suffering, finally abandoning their horses and constructing two bark canoes, in which frail vessels they floated down the last named river to its mouth, and the Mississippi to New Orleans, where, after one abortive attempt to retrace their steps, they pass from our sight. It may not be uninteresting in conclusion to present a translation of a certificate of good conduct given at Santa Fe to the seven who returned. I reproduce as well as I can the modest and unassuming tone of the original document: "Certificate given at Santa Fe to seven Frenchmen, by Jean Paez Hurtado, alcade, major and captain of war of this capital city of Santa Fe and its jurisdiction, lieutenant-governor and captain general of the realm of New Mexico and the provinces. "I certify so far as it is within my ability, to the captain, Dom Louis de Saint Denis, who commands the fort which is at the entrance of the Red river, to all other governors and captains, judges and justices of the most Christian king of France, and to all officers, military or civil, to whom these presents shall come, that on the 24th day of July, of the past year 1739, there came to this city of Santa Fe, eight Frenchmen named Peter and Paul Mallet, brothers, Philip Robitaille, Louis Morin, Michael Beslot, Joseph Bellecourt, and Manuel Gallien, creoles of Canada, in new France, and Jean David, of Europe, who were received in my presence by the Seigneur Dominique de Mendoza, lieutenant-colonel, governor and lieutenant-general of this realm, at the entrance of the palace, where the said Paul Mallet, having entered with the said Seigneur and Dom Saint Iago de Reibaldo, vicar of the realm, the said lord governor demanded of him whence they came and to what end. To which the said Paul answered that they were from New France, and that they had come for the purpose of establishing commerce with the Spaniards of this realm, by reason of the close alliance existing between the crowns of France and Spain. Upon which the said lord governors sent their muskets to the body guard, and seeking where to lodge them, there being no room in the palace, I took them to my house, where I entertained them. A few days afterwards I sent to seek for their arms, ammunition, and luggage which they had saved when wrecked in crossing a river, where they lost nine horses laden with merchandise and clothing. So that according to their account they had had the intrepidity, though almost naked, to discover this realm and give to it communication with the colonies of New Orleans and Canada. And spurning all dangers and risks from hostile savages they have come to see the Spaniards, by whom they have been well received, having been invited by them to eat and lodge in their houses while awaiting the answer of Monseigneur, the archbishop viceroy of Mexico, Dom Jean Antoine Bizarou, a period of nine months during which time the brothers Mallet, who have been domiciled with me and eating at my table, have maintained a very correct and christianlike demeanor, and being about to return I have advised them, that in case they obtain a royal license for commerce with this kingdom, they bring on their return a certificate and passport from the governor, in default of which, their goods would be liable to confiscation as contraband: "In testimony whereof, etc. April, 1740. Given at Santa Fe this 30th day of Such is the unsatisfactory and imperfect memorial of an expedition which at that period called for and displayed as much sagacity, heroic endurance and bravery as any more recent discoveries in the Arctic regions or the wilds of Africa. The names of its heroes, except for the accident of being pigeon-holed a century and a half ago, would have been in our day utterly forgotten. The Mallet brothers, the leaders of this little band, have descendants still living in this country. Would it be out of place to suggest to the authorities of the Union Pacific, Burlington & Missouri, Northwestern, or other railways, and to others engaged in western enterprises who find it no easy task to select distinctive or appropriate appellations for the rapidly increasing towns of the western frontier, that those who gave its enduring name to our erratic river are entitled to have their own perpetuated in some flourishing station or village? DEVELOPMENT OF THE FREE SOIL IDEA IN THE UNITED STATES. BY W. H. ELLER. [Read before a meeting of the Society, January 14, 1890.] The causes leading to the organization of Nebraska territory, date back of the adoption of the American constitution, and form a part of the history of that freedom which now distinguishes the people of the United States from all other governments. The federal union is, within itself, a compact of free and independent states, formed from those physical parts, and bounded by those natural and artificial lines which peculiarly fit each separate dominion to become a part of the whole, all within the belt of the temperate zone of the western hemisphere. The development of the free soil doctrine, which made it Nebraska, really began before it had a settler and before the American revolution had accomplished its great results, to understand which it is necessary to state a few facts in the history of African slavery. The African slave trade first introduced slavery into the province of Virginia in the year 1619, and by the year 1670 it is estimated that there were at least 2,000 slaves in that dominion. The first English slave ship fitted out in the colonies, sailed from Boston in 1646. The French admitted slavery to be established in their colonies in 1624. The whole "civilized" world engaged in the traffic for profit for more than a century afterward, and it became common in all American colonies. About the year 1775, with the development of the doctrines of popular liberty, the evil began gradually to contract in the dominion of Canada and the Northern American colonies, owing to the unprofitable condition of slave labor upon the one hand, and the development and the assertion of equal and universal rights upon the other, so that in 1784, Rhode Island had led the way in the interdiction of importing slaves into her territory, and in the year following enacted a law for their gradual emancipation. When the census of 1840 was taken, she had but five slaves left within her borders. Massachusetts, by her bill of rights, abolished slavery in 1780, and the act went into full effect by the decision of her courts in 1783, and no slaves are shown by the census of 1790. In the same year Pennsylvania barred the further introduction of slaves, and also enacted a law for their gradual emancipation, and the census taken in 1840, found but sixty-four in servitude within her boundaries. In 1784, Connecticut followed her example, and in 1840 she had only 17 persons in involuntary servitude. Virginia prohibited the introduction of slaves from abroad in 1778, and North Carolina in 1786, Maryland in 1783, New Hampshire abolished slavery in 1793, and but few remained in the year 1800. In 1799 New York adopted gradual emancipation and had but few slaves left in the year 1840. New Jersey followed in the year 1820, but did not fairly rid herself of the evil prior to the first election of Abraham Lincoln. She had twenty slaves in the summer of 1860. Our country was, therefore, called upon to wrestle with popular slavery as a domestic institution during those years, and under those limitations and obstructions in her way when asserting her own independence and legislating for the establishment of her own popular liberty. The importation of slaves into her borders was not, therefore, forbidden by her general government until the year 1808. The census of 1790 kindly gives us 59,456 free colored persons in the United States, the great majority of whom were of pure African descent. The second census gives us 108,395, the third makes the figures to 186,466 the fourth raises the figures to 233,524, the fifth increases them to 319,599, in 1840 the whole number was 386,303, and in 1850 the census brought in 434,495, which was increased to about 500,000 in the year 1860. The slave population in 1790, was about 700,000, which increased to nearly 4,000,000 by the year 1860. The states were at this time half slave and half free, and slavery had so far receded that the territories north of 36 30 min. were free soil, and but five slave states remained north of that line, which were afterwards designated border states. The growth and development of the free soil doctrine, therefore, had for its counterpart the history of that legislation, those common debates and discussions which had restricted and confined the American system of African slavery to |