the Honourable Robert Morris to promise him a ship. Thus,' says he, I take the lead of the greatest commercial enterprise that has ever been embarked on in this country.' And he adds, in writing to his friend, 'Send me some money, for heaven's sake, lest the laurel, now suspended over the brows of your friend, should fall irrecoverably into the dust.' The projected voyage, however, was ultimately abandoned; but he persevered in his project, rejected by some and meeting with encouragement from others. Finding, however, that they all failed him, and heartily sick of the want of enterprise among his own countrymen, he resolved to try his fortune in Europe. He visited Cadiz, from thence took a passage to Brest, and from Brest to L'Orient, where he was successful in prevailing on some merchants to fit out a ship for his north-west adventure. But the season being far advanced, it was deemed expedient to put off the equipment till the following summer, when it was intended to apply for a commission from the king to unite with the trading part of the voyage that of a voyage of discovery; but, as this project failed, the other part of the voyage was also abandoned, and Ledyard became once more the sport of accident.

He now proceeded to Paris, where he was received with great kindness by Mr. Jefferson, the American minister, who so highly approved of his favourite scheme of an expedition to the northwest coast, that, we are told by his biographer, the journey of Lewis and Clarke, twenty years afterwards, had its origin in the views which Jefferson received from Ledyard. Here, also, he met with the notorious Paul Jones, who was looking after the proceeds of the prizes which he had taken and carried into the ports of France. This adventurer entered warmly into his views, and undertook to fit out two vessels for the expedition. It was settled that Jones was to command the vessels, and carry the furs to the China market, while Ledyard was to remain behind and collect a fresh cargo ready for their return, after which he meant to perambulate the continent of America, and show his countrymen the path to unbounded wealth. Jones, it seems, was so much taken with the plausibility of a scheme, which presented at once the prospect of adventure, fame, and profit, that he advanced money to Ledyard to purchase a part of the cargo for the outfit; but, being suddenly called away to L'Orient, to look after his prize concerns, his zeal for this grand scheme began to cool, and, in a few months, the whole fabric fell to the ground.

Ledyard now felt himself a sort of wandering vagabond, without employment, motive, or means of support; the supplies he had received from Jones had ceased, and he was compelled to become a pensioner on the bounty of the American minister and

a few

a few friends. While thus suffering under the pressure of want, it may readily be supposed he was not insensible to the humiliating state of dependence in which he was placed. It would appear, however, from some lively letters written by him at Paris, that his flow of spirits did not forsake him.

The two Fitzhughs,' he says, dine with me to-day in my chamber, together with our worthy Consul, Barclay, and that lump of universality, Colonel Franks. But such a set of moneyless rascals have never appeared, since the epoch of the happy villain Falstaff. I have but five French crowns in the world; Franks has not a sol: and the Fitzhughs cannot get their tobacco money.' 'Every day of my life,' he continues, is a day of expectation, and, consequently, a day of disappointment; whether I shall have a morsel of bread to eat at the end of two months, is as much an uncertainty as it was fourteen months ago, and not more so.'

While in this state of penury he received a visit, the object of which was so creditable to a gentleman still living, and not unknown in the annals of science, that it gives us pleasure to print the story in Ledyard's own words :

Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir James Hall,* an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my robe de chambre, I met him at the door of the ante-chamber. I was glad to see him, but surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion of me, with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark, that his opinion surprised me at least, and the conversation took another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a half stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly on other accounts. "If fifteen guineas," said he, interrupting the answer he had demanded, "will be of any service to you, there they are," and he put them on the table. "I am a traveller myself, and though I have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as to want money, which you ought not to do. You have my address in London." He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris.'-pp. 223, 224.

Ledyard observes, that he had no more idea of receiving money from this gentleman than from Tippoo Saib. However,' he says, I took it without any hesitation, and told him, I would be as

Sir James Hall of Dunglass, Bart., the father of Captain Basil Hall, R. N., and, till lately, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

complaisant

complaisant to him if ever occasion offered.' Among other peculiarities of our traveller, was that of disregarding the value of money, though, it might be supposed, that its scarcity with him, and his numerous wants, would have taught him to husband his slender resources; but so far was this from being the case, that he was always ready to part with the last sou, for the purpose of relieving distress. With all his eccentricities and apparent roughness of manner, and, sometimes, rudeness of speech, it is, indeed, quite obvious that he possessed an affectionate and feeling heart. We extract the following as characteristic of the man.

I have once visited the Foundling Hospital, and the Hospital de Dieu in Paris; twice I never shall. Not all the morality, from Confucius to Addison, could give me such feelings. Eighteen foundlings were brought the day of my visit. One was brought in while I was there. Dear little innocents! But you are, happily, insensible of your situations. Where are your unfortunate mothers? Perhaps in the adjoining hospital; they have to feel for you and themselves too. But where is the wretch, the villain, the monster ? I was not six minutes in the house. It is customary to leave a few pence; I flung down six livres, and retired. Determined to persevere, I continued my visit over the way to the Hospital de Dieu. I entered first the apartments of the women. Why will you, my dear sisters, I was going to say, as I passed along between the beds in ranks, why will you be -; but I was interrupted by a melancholy figure, that appeared at its last gasp, or already dead. "She's dead," said I, to a German gentleman, who was with me, "and nobody knows or cares anything about it." We approached the bed-side. I observed a slight undulatory motion in one of the jugular arteries. "She's not dead," said I, and seized her hand to search for her pulse. I hoped to find life, but it was gone. The word dead being again pronounced, brought the nuns to the bed. My God!" exclaimed the head "she's dead; nun, "Jesu Maria," exclaimed the other nuns, in their defence," she's dead!" The head nun scolded the others for their mal-attendance. "My God!" continued she," she is dead without the form." "Dieu!' said the others, "she died so silently." " Silence," said the elder, "perhaps she is not dead; say the form." The form was said, and the sheet thrown over her face.'—pp. 224—226.

His schemes for a north-west voyage, either for trade or discovery, being now wholly abandoned, he set about planning, as the only remaining expedient, a journey by land through the northern regions of Europe and Asia, then to cross Behring's Straits to the continent of America, to proceed down the coast to a more southern latitude, and to cross the whole of that continent from the western to the eastern shore. The Empress of Russia was applied to for her permission and protection, but while waiting for her answer, Ledyard received an invitation to London from

his eccentric friend, Sir James Hall. He found, on his arrival there, that an English ship was in complete readiness to sail for the Pacific Ocean, in which Sir James had procured him a free passage, and to be put on shore at any spot he might choose on the north-west coast. The amiable baronet, moreover, presented him with twenty guineas, as Ledyard says, pro bono publico, and with which he tells us, he bought two great dogs, an Indian pipe, and a hatchet.' In a few days the vessel went down the Thames from Deptford, and Ledyard thought it the happiest moment of his life; but such is the uncertainty of human expectations, while he was indulging in day-dreams of the fame and honour which awaited him, he was once more doomed to suffer the agonies of a disappointment to his hopes, the more severe, as being so near their consummation-the vessel was seized by a custom-house officer, brought back, and exchequered.

This was undoubtedly the most severe blow he had yet received; but Ledyard never desponded-no sooner was one of his castles demolished, than he set about building another. I shall make the tour of the globe,' says he, from London eastward, on foot.' To aid him in this object, a subscription was raised by Sir Joseph Banks, Sir James Hall, and some others. By this means he arrived at Hamburgh; whence he writes to Colonel Smith:

'Here I am with ten guineas exactly, and in perfect health. One of my dogs is no more: I lost him in my passage up the river Elbe, in a snow storm: I was out in it forty hours in an open boat.'

6

At the tavern he went to, he learnt that a Major Langhorn, an American officer, a very good kind of a man,' as his host described him, and an odd kind of a man, one who had travelled much, and fond of travelling in his own way,' had left his baggage behind, which was sent after him to Copenhagen, but that, by some accident, it had never reached him. He had left Hamburgh, the host told him, with one spare shirt, and very few other articles of clothing, and added, that he must necessarily be in distress. This man, thought Ledyard to himself, is just suited to be the companion of my travels. The sympathy was irresistible; besides, he might be in want of money: this was an appeal to his generosity, which was equally irresistible to one who, like Ledyard, had ten guineas in his pocket. I will fly to him and lay my little all at his feet: he is my countryman, a gentleman, and a traveller, and Copenhagen is not much out of my way to Petersburgh; and, accordingly, in the month of January, 1787, after a long and tedious journey, in the middle of winter, through Sweden and Finland, we find him in Copenhagen, having discovered Langhorn shut up in his room, without being able to

stir abroad for want of money and decent clothing. "Imagination only,' says his biographer, can paint the joy that glowed in our traveller's countenance, when he saw the remains of his ten guineas slip from his fingers to relieve the distresses of his new-found friend.' After remaining a fortnight, he made a proposal to the Major to accompany him to St. Petersburgh. No: I esteem you, but no man on earth shall travel with me the way I do,' was the abrupt refusal to the man who had gone out of the way several hundred miles to relieve his wants, and given him his last shilling.

The visit being ended, and the amicable partnership dissolved, it became necessary for our traveller to think of raising the supplies for a journey round the Gulf of Bothnia, which was now rendered impassable, the distance being not less than twelve hundred miles, chiefly over trackless snows, in regions thinly peopled, the nights long, and the cold intense; and, after all, gaining only, in the direct route, about fifty miles. A Mr. Thompson accepted his bill on Colonel Smith, for a sum which, he says, has saved me from perdition, and will enable me to reach Petersburgh.' This journey he accomplished within seven weeks; but he writes to Mr. Jefferson, I cannot tell you by what means I came, and hardly know by what means I shall quit it.' Through the influence of Professor Pallas, but more especially by the assistance of a Russian officer, he obtained the passport of the Empress, then on her route to the Crimea, in fifteen days. His long and dreary journey having exhausted his money, and worn out his clothes, he drew on Sir Joseph Banks for twenty guineas, which that munificent patron of science and enterprise did not hesitate to pay.

Fortunately, a Scotch physician, of the name of Brown, was proceeding in the service of the Empress as far as the province of Kolyvan, who offered him a seat in his kabitka, and thus assisted him on his journey for more than three thousand miles. Having reached Irkutsk, he remained there about ten days, and left it, in company with Lieutenant Laxman, a Swedish officer, to embark on the Lena, at a point one hundred and fifty miles distant from Irkutsk, with the intention of floating down its current to Yakutsk. On his arrival at this place, he waited on the commandant, told him he wished to press forward, with all expedition, to Okotsk before the winter should shut in, that he might secure an early passage in the spring to the American continent. The commandant assured him that such a journey was already impossible; that the Governor-General, from whom he had brought letters, ordered him to show all possible kindness and service, and the first and best service,' said he, is to beseech you not to attempt to reach Okotsk this winter.' Ledyard still persisting to proceed,

a trader