252. Thomas Jefferson's Dream: A Shor Cut to China

It was Thomas Jefferson’s dream to open up a shortest trade route between China and the United States. He had tried three times before the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  On April 30 1793, ten years after the independence was recognized in the Treaty of Paris and at the beginning of the second term of the Washington administration, Jefferson wrote the instructions for Michaux.  Jefferson told him that the first purpose was to “find the shortest & most convenient route of communication between the U.S. & the Pacific ocean, within the temperate latitudes.”