Jeannette Expedition New York early in 1874; the newspaperman was impressed by De Long, and assured him that his Arctic ambitions would have the enthusiastic support of the "Herald". In the meantime De Long had applied to the Navy Department for an Arctic command, a request that he was informed would "receive due attention". James Gordon Bennett Jr., had succeeded his father as proprietor of the "New York Herald" in 1866. He had won renown in 1872, when his reporter Henry Morton Stanley, sent by Bennett to Africa in search of the British missionary-explorer David Livingstone, cabled that Livingstone had been found.
Henry Morton Stanley Dr. David Livingstone, of whom little had been heard since his departure for Africa in 1866 to search for the source of the Nile. Stanley travelled to Zanzibar in March 1871, later claiming that he outfitted an expedition with 192 porters. In his first dispatch to the "New York Herald", however, he stated that his expedition numbered only 111. This was in line with figures in his diaries. Bennett, publisher of the "New York Herald" and funder of the expedition, had delayed sending to Stanley the money he had promised, so Stanley borrowed money from the United States Consul. During