Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

Detroit, Oct. 12.

Agreeably to notice published last week by the Saginaw Company, the Exploring Committee departed on Tuesday last for the purpose of examining a great portion of the country lying within the Peninsula of Michigan. The gentlemen who compose the party, it is believed, are competent to the arduous task they have undertaken, and much valuable information in relation to the country, will doubtless be collected.

It is peculiarly favorable to the interests of the territory, that a measure like that entered upon by the Saginaw Company, should be taken at this time—for, so far from our citizens having hitherto been able to spread a knowledge of the advantages of this territory to any considerable extent among the people of the eastern and northern states, it may be said with truth, that a general ignorance prevails relative to them. Indeed, the traveller from Michigan is frequently asked, (by persons whose standing in society would seem to imply at least a knowledge of the geography of their own country,) 'if Detroit belongs to the British, or the United States.'

In addition to this want of information among the people of the eastern and northern states, in relation to the vast advantages of this territory, its interests suffer not a little by the falsehoods which are circulated by individuals who are interested in the settlement of the vast tracts of wild country that border Lake Erie below the Miami. It is not seldom even at this day, that the traveller hears the territory of Michigan described by these interested gentry, as a cold and dreary country, and unfit for the habitation of man. But it is consoling to reflect, that many men of intelligence have visited the territory, and can refute these slanders by opposing remarks drawn from personal observation—and that we have already received a considerable of population from the most fertile and beautiful part of the state of New York—that among the families that have recently emigrated to the territory, by far the greatest proportion of them possess a competency, and have purchased considerable tracts of land—and, (what is of consequence to be known abroad) that in almost every instance, before a family emigrated, the head, or some trusty agent visited the country to spy out the land, and returned well pleased.

It is also a great consolation to know that the spirit of inquiry has gone forth, and that much solicitude is manifested by enterprising persons to obtain correct information on all topics which most immediately concern the emigrant. From the number and the intelligence of gentlemen who have visited our territory from the western part of the state of New York, its interests have been benefited, and the inhabitants in that part of the state have received much valuable and correct information respecting the advantages of the country.