THE LONDON CHRONICLE, England, Jan. 13, 1784  The back page has a report noting in part: "There is a party now forming of men...for a tour through the whole continent of North America...The scheme is to travel from Quebec...to the Mississippi which never was yet discovered or laid down, further than the Falls of St. Anthony...turn due West till they meet the Pacific Ocean; after that to follow the coast North East in order to try for the North West Passage...return to the Mississippi & go down that river to New Orleans...up the Ohio...enter Georgia by the back frontier & then travel through all the peopled territories of the United States..." with much more.
Eight pages, 8 1/2 by 11 1/2 inches, very nice condition.

Background: Published just months after the September 1783 Treaty of Paris formally ended the American Revolutionary War, this January 13, 1784 issue of The London Chronicle captures a pivotal moment when the Western world’s focus shifted from military conflict to the commercial and imperial conquest of the North American continent. The grand expedition detailed in the text—outlining a daring route from Quebec, past the known limits of the Mississippi River at the Falls of St. Anthony, across uncharted lands to the Pacific, and back through the infant United States—is highly significant because it predates the historic Lewis and Clark expedition by two decades. It vividly illustrates the late 18th-century geopolitical obsession with discovering the mythical Northwest Passage, exposing how little European powers actually knew about the continent’s interior geography and the formidable barrier of the Rocky Mountains. By documenting a transitional era where the newly independent United States, British Canada, and Spanish territories bordered vast, unmapped wilderness, this publication serves as a rare, tangible record of the exact cultural and exploratory ambitions that ultimately sparked the age of Western expansion.