The Camden Journal

New York, June 11.

RETURN OF THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION.

The United States ship Vincennes, reached this port last evening. The following account of the labors of the Expedition, has been furnished to the public prints by some of the officers engaged in it.

The Exploring Squadron sailed from the United States on the 18th of August 1838, and has been absent nearly four years; during which time we learn that the different vessels have sailed about four hundred thousand miles. The Expedition has thoroughly executed every part of the duties confined to it by the government.

The positions assigned on the charts to several vigias, reefs, shoals, and islands, have been carefully looked for, run over, and found to have no existence in or near the places assigned them.

Several of the principal groups and islands in the Pacific Ocean have been visited, examined and surveyed; a friendly intercourse, and protective commercial regulations, established with the chiefs and natives; aggressions on our citizens and commerce redressed, and a justly merited punishment meted out in some flagrant cases of unprovoked and cold blooded murder.

The discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean, (Antarctic continent-observations for fixing the Southern Magnetic pole, &c.) preceded those of the French and English expeditions.

The report which has been in circulation, of Captain Ross having run over some portion of the land discovered by this Expedition, is unfounded. No land to the eastward of 160 degrees of east longitude, was discovered, seen or claimed by the Expedition, as appears by Captain Wilkes report to the Navy Department, published in 1840, after the return of the Squadron to New Zealand. If the statement originated with Captain Ross, based upon the particular chart of the Antarctic ice, and discoveries of land, with the full explanatory letter which was furnished him by Captain Wilkes (previous to Captain Ross's antarctic cruise,) he (Captain Ross) must have taken that portion of land reported to have been seen by Bellamy in 1839, which was represented on it, as being in 163 or 165 degrees east longitude, or thereabouts, and which the American Expedition had never seen or heard of until its return to Sydney, N. S. W. after their discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean.

Captain Ross, according to his report, has never passed over, or gone so far west, as 160 degrees east, in latitude 67 degrees south; consequently he could not have seen the land discovered and claimed by the American Expedition, but seems to have run over the position where land is reported to have been seen by his own countryman-Bellamy.

The Expedition, during its absence, have also examined and surveyed a large portion of the Oregon Territory, a part of Upper California, including the Columbia and Sacramento Rivers, with their various tributaries. Several exploring parties from the Squadron have explored, examined, and fixed those portions of the Oregon Territory least known. A map of the Territory, embracing its Rivers, Sounds, Harbors, Coasts, Forts, &c. has been prepared, which will furnish the government with a mass of valuable information relative to its possessions on the Northwest Coast, and the whole of Oregon.

Experiments were made with the pendulum, on "Mouna Loa" on the Island of Hawaii, one of the Sandwich Islands, at a height of fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. Topographical surveys and views were made of some of its active and most extensive craters.

Experiments have been made with the pendulum magnetic apparatus, and various other instruments, on all occasions-the temperature of the ocean, at various depths, ascertained in the different seas traversed, and full meteorological and other observations kept up during the cruise.

Charts of all the surveys have been made, with views and sketches of headlands, towns or villages, &c., with descriptions of all that appertains to the localities, productions, language, customs and manners.

At some of the Islands, this duty has been attended with much labor, exposure and risk of life; the treacherous character of the natives rendering it absolutely necessary that the officers and men should be armed while on duty, and at all times prepared against their murderous attacks. On several occasions, boats have been absent from the different vessels of the squadron, on surveying duty, (the greater portion of which has been performed in boats,) among islands, reefs, &c. for a period of ten, twenty, and thirty days at one time; on one of these occasions, two of the officers were killed at the Fiji group, while defending their boat's crew from an attack by the natives.

The scientific gentlemen have been actively engaged in their various departments, and subject to all the exposures incident to researches among dangerous and hostile savages. Mr. Hale the Philologist of the expedition, was left at the Columbia river, for the purpose of prosecuting his labors among the different tribes of the Oregon territory, and may be expected home overland, early in August.

Several islands not laid down in the charts have been discovered, on one of which the natives offered worship, evidently believing that their visitors had come from the sun.

The Sooloo sea has been examined, several islands found to have been erroneously laid down upon the charts, and others not laid down at all.

Protective commercial regulations established with the Sultan of Sooloo, and a correct chart made of a feasible and short route for passing through those seas towards China, against the N. E. monsoon.

The tender Flying Fish, which had accompanied the squadron during the whole cruise, until reaching Singapore, was so much used up by hard service, that it was deemed imprudent to hazard the lives of men and officers in her, or a passage around the Cape at that season, without considerable delay for thorough and extensive repairs. She was, therefore, disposed of at that port, under the direction of the American Consul.

About eighty distressed American seamen have been received and shipped on board the vessels of the Squadron, at the different ports and Islands of the Pacific Ocean. Several of them brought to the United States in the Vincennes; the remainder are on board the brigs Porpoise and Oregon, now on their way home, and may be expected early in July. These two vessels left St. Helena a week before the Vincennes; called there for Rio Janeiro and home—all well.

Six of the crew of the brig Uxor, of Mystic, Ct. wrecked at Prince Edward's Island, are also on board the Vincennes.

Although the officers and crew of the Expedition have been exposed to every variety of the climate, the general health of the Squadron has been without a precedent. But one officer (Mr. Vanderford master's mate, who died on the passage home) and only eight of the men have died of disease.

The officers, scientific gentlemen and men, have been employed, as will appear by the labor performed, and the results of the cruise.

In addition to the large collections already received from the Expedition, the Vincennes has now on board a large and valuable collection, including several boxes of live plants, bulbs, &c. collected in the Pacific, Sooloo, Philippines, Singapore, Cape of Good Hope, and St. Helena.

Vindova, one of the principal Chiefs of the Fiji Islands, who directed and assisted at the massacre of ten of the crew of the brig Charles Doggett, of Salem, and assisted in eating their bodies is now on board the Vincennes as a prisoner.