He served as the group's botanist and ethnographer). Captain Richard Sparks was chosen to lead the military troops. As the departure date of the expedition grew closer, more soldiers were recruited until the group numbered twenty-four in all. President Jefferson persuaded Congress to fund the effort. He worked with foreign diplomats in Washington to convince them that the exploration was for scientific purposes and would not threaten their interests. Both Britain and France accepted the proposal, but Spain objected, as it also still claimed the lands to be explored which it had just been forced to turn the Louisiana territories over briefly to the French Emperor Napoleon I who had suddenly unexpectedly turned and sold the vast interior continental lands to the Americans the year before. It did not want an armed military expedition within or near its remaining territory. On April 19, 1806 the now 24-member party (Freeman and his two assistants; Sparks, who commanded the military party, with two officers, seventeen privates, and a servant) pushed off in two flat-bottomed barges and a pirogue from Fort Adams near Natchez, Mississippi, and turned into the Red River to go upstream to the west. The group gradually took on soldiers along the route, in response to rumors of a possible attack by Spanish troops, and soon numbered forty-five. By July 28, the party was 615 miles upriver, near what is now New Boston, Texas, when they heard gunfire in the distance indicating the presence of Spanish troops. "Hoping to provoke an international confrontation for personal gain," the US General James Wilkinson of the Louisiana Territory had secretly notified Spain of the Freeman expedition (he had had separate dealings with them earlier), and they sent two teams of soldiers to intercept the party. The Freeman party was stopped at what has since been called "Spanish Bluff" on the river. The Spanish commander and Freeman undertook a parlay. The Spanish said they were ordered to fire on any foreign armed troops passing through Spanish territory. In response, Freeman demanded the Spanish provide their objections to the team's passage in writing and name the authority under which they were taking action. The Spanish commander asked when they were going to start on their return journey. Freeman's crew was highly outnumbered, and the president had ordered the expedition to avoid any conflict with the Spanish. The expedition turned back on the next day, and returned downriver to its starting point. The abrupt end of the expedition, and the political embarrassment it caused the Jefferson administration, overshadowed its findings. Over time, it proved to be a success in some aspects.