John Ledyard was born about 1750, at Groton, Mass., and after having
received a good education, and passed some time among the Indians of
America, for the purpose of studying their manners, went to Europe
about the year 1776, and made the tour of the world with Captain Cook,
as corporal of a troop of marines. On his return to England in 1780,
he formed the design of penetrating from the north-western to the
eastern coast of America; and, after some conversation on the subject
with Sir Joseph Banks, who furnished him with some money, which he
expended in sea stores, with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound,
he altered his mind, and determined on traveling overland to
Kamschatka, from whence the passage is very short to the opposite
shore of America. Accordingly, towards the close of the year 1786, he
started with only ten guineas in his pocket, and on his arrival at
Stockholm, he attempted to traverse the gulf of Bothnia on the ice,
but finding the water unfrozen, when he came to the middle, he
returned to Stockholm, and proceeding northward, walked to the arctic
circle, and passing round the head of the gulf, descended on its
eastern side to St. Petersburgh, where he arrived in March, 1787,
without shoes and stockings, which he was unable to purchase. In this
state, however, he was treated with great attention by the Portuguese
ambassador, who often invited him to dinner, and procured him an
advance of twenty guineas on a bill drawn on Sir Joseph Banks, and
finally obtained him permission to accompany a convoy of provisions to
Yakutz, where he was recognized and kindly received by Captain
Billings, whom he had known in Cook’s vessel, and with whom he
returned to Irkutsk.
From hence he proceeded to Ocsakow, on the coast of the Kamschatkan
Sea, whence, in the spring, he intended to have passed over to that
peninsula, and to have embarked on the eastern side, in one of the
Russian vessels trading to America; but finding the navigation
obstructed he returned to Yakutz, to await the termination of the
winter. His intentions, however, were suddenly frustrated by the
arrival of an order from the empress for his arrest, which took place
in January, 1788, without any reason being assigned for such a
proceeding. He was deprived of his papers, placed in a sledge, and
under the guard of two cossacks, conducted through the desert of
Siberia and Tartary, to the frontiers of Poland, where he was left,
covered with rags and vermin, and prohibited from returning to Russia
on pain of death. In this situation he set out for Kœnigsberg, on
arriving at which town, he obtained five guineas, by drawing a bill in
the same manner as before, with which sum he proceeded to England. On
his arrival, he called on Sir Joseph Banks, who proposed to him to
undertake a voyage to Africa, to discover the source of the river
Niger, at the expense of the society for making discoveries in that
part of the world; an offer he accepted with avidity, and being asked
when he would be ready to set out, he exclaimed, ‘To-morrow morning!’
On the 30th of June, 1788, he embarked for Calais, passed through
France to Marseilles, reached Alexandria on the 5th of August, and on
the 19th arrived at Cairo, where he had almost completed the
preparations for his departure to Senar, when he was seized with a
billious fever, and died in the latter end of the following October.
Mr. Ledyard was a man of extraordinary vigor both of mind and body,
and no record exists of a more bold and perserving adventurer. In
person he was of the middle stature, strong and active; and in
manners, though unpolished, pleasing and urbane. ‘Little attentive,’
says his biographer ‘to deference of rank, he seemed to consider all
men as his equals, and as such he respected them. His genius, though
uncultivated and irregular, was original and comprehensive. Ardent in
his wishes, yet calm in his deliberations; daring in his purposes, but
guarded in his measures; impatient of control, yet capable of strong
endurance; adventurous beyond the conception of ordinary men, yet wary
and considerate, and attentive to all precautions; he seemed to be
formed by nature for achievements of hardihood and peril.’ He appears
to have undergone much sufferings during his Siberian tour, and, like
Mr. Park, more than once owed his life to the kindness of women. ‘In
wandering,’ he says, in his journal, ‘orve the plains of inhospitable
Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish
Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the
wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have
ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue,
these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that
if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught; and if hungry, I ate the
coarsest morsel with a double relish.’
He left some manuscripts behind, which were printed in London a few
years after his death, in a work called Memoirs of the Society
instituted for encouraging Discoveries in the Interior of Africa. A
work, entitled Voyages de MM. Ledyard et Lucas, en Afrique, suivis
d’extraits d’autres voyages, was also printed at Paris in 1804. Mr.
Ledyard, in his journal, evinces great powers of observation, and a
sound judgment and understanding. Some idea of his sufferings may be
formed, in reading the following extract: ‘I have known,’ he writes,
‘both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering.
I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman;
and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries
of that character, to avoid a heavier calamity. My distresses have
been greater than I have ever owned, or ever _will_ own, to any man.
Such evils are terrible to bear; but they never yet had power to turn
me from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its
utmost extent, my engagements to the Society; and if I perish in the
attempt, my honor will still be safe, for death cancels all bonds.’