In conversation with President Davis, I learned that this was the highest salary paid in the State, he himself receiving eleven hundred, and the Governor of the State but eight hundred.
The extensive and interesting journeys connected with the manufacturing impulse of these engagements, reaching over a varied surface of several hundred miles, opened up scenes of life and adventure which gave me a foretaste of, and preparedness for, the deeper experiences of the western wilderness; and the war with England was no sooner closed than I made ready to share in the exploration of the FAR WEST.

The wonderful accounts brought from the Mississippi valley--its fertility, extent, and resources--inspired a wish to see it for myself, and to this end I made some preliminary explorations in Western New York, in 1816 and 1817.

I reached Olean, on the source of the Alleghany River, early in 1818, while the snow was yet upon the ground, and had to wait several weeks for the opening of that stream.

I was surprised to see the crowd of persons, from various quarters, who had pressed to this point, waiting the opening of the navigation.
It was a period of general migration from the East to the West.

Commerce had been checked for several years by the war with Great Britain.
Agriculture had been hindered by the raising of armies, and a harassing warfare both on the seaboard and the frontiers; and manufactures had been stimulated to an unnatural growth, only to be crushed by the peace.
Speculation had also been rife in some places, and hurried many gentlemen of property into ruin.