Mr.
Monroe immediately sent in my nomination for this old agency to the Senate, by whom it was favorably acted on the 8th of May.

The gentleman (Mr.J.B.Thomas, Senator from Illinois) whose boat I had been instrumental in saving in my descent of the Ohio in the spring of 1818, I believe, moved its confirmation.

It was from him, at any rate, that I the same day obtained the information of the Senate's action.
I had now attained a fixed position; not such as I desired in the outset, and had striven for, but one that offered an interesting class of duties, in the performance of which there was a wide field for honorable exertion, and, if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry and research.

The taste for natural history might certainly be transferred to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the greatest.

At any rate, the trial of a residence on that remote frontier might readily be made, and I may say it was in fact made only as a temporary matter.