Jefferson was buried at Monticello.  He asked to have these words, with some others, cut on his gravestone:—­

Here Lies Buried
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Author of the Declaration of American Independence.

190.  Summary.—­Thomas Jefferson of Virginia wrote the Declaration of Independence.  After he became President of the United States, he bought Louisiana for us.  The purchase of Louisiana, with New Orleans, gave us the right to send our ships to sea by way of the Mississippi River, which now belonged to us.  Louisiana added so much land that it more than doubled the size of the United States.

Before Whitney invented his cotton-gin how much cotton did we send abroad?  How much do we send from New Orleans now?  Did we own New Orleans or Louisiana when Whitney invented his cotton-gin?  Who bought them for us?  Who was Thomas Jefferson?  What is said about Monticello?  Tell how Jefferson’s slaves welcomed him home.  For what profession was Jefferson educated?  Tell about Patrick Henry.  What did he say?  What did Washington and Jefferson do?  What did Jefferson write?  What was he called?  How was the Declaration sent to all parts of the country?  What was Jefferson chosen to be?  To whom did New Orleans and Louisiana then belong?  How far did the United States then extend towards the west?  What could the French say?  What were we like?  What did Jefferson say?  Did we buy it?  How much did we pay?  How large was Louisiana then?  How much land did we get?  What else did we get?  When did Jefferson die?  What other great man died on the same day?  What words did Jefferson have cut on his gravestone at Monticello?

ROBERT FULTON
(1765-1815).

191.  What Mr. Livingston said about Louisiana; a small family in a big house; settlements in the west; the country beyond the Mississippi River.—­Even before we bought the great Louisiana country, we had more land than we then knew what to do with; after we had purchased it, it seemed to some people as though we should not want to use what we had bought for more than a hundred years.  Such people thought that we were like a man with a small family who lives in a house much too large for him; but who, not contented with that, buys his neighbor’s house, which is bigger still, and adds it to his own.

If a traveller in those days went across the Alleghany Mountains[1] to the west, he found some small settlements in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, but hardly any outside of those.  What are now the great states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were then a wilderness; and this was also true of what are now the states of Alabama and Mississippi.

If the same traveller, pushing forward, on foot or on horseback,—­for there were no steam cars,—­crossed the Mississippi River, he could hardly find a white man outside what was then the little town of St. Louis.  The country stretched away west for more than a thousand miles, with nothing in it but wild beasts and Indians.  In much of it there were no trees, no houses, no human beings.  If you shouted as hard as you could in that solitary land, the only reply you would hear would be the echo of your own voice; it was like shouting in an empty room—­it made it seem lonelier than ever.