_John Ledyard._--JUVENILE MISCELLANY.
1. Few men have done so much, in a short life, as John Ledyard. When he
was a mere boy, he built a canoe with his own hands, and descended
Connecticut river alone and unassisted.
2. He enlisted as a soldier, at Gibraltar; and afterwards, in the humble
character of corporal of the marines, he sailed round the world with the
celebrated Captain Cook.
3. After his return to England, he formed the bold design of traversing
the northern parts of Europe and Asia, crossing Behring's Straits, and
examining the whole of North America, from east to west.
4. Sir Joseph Banks, famous for his generosity to men of enterprise,
furnished him with money for the undertaking. He expended nearly all of
it in purchasing sea stores; and these, most unluckily, were all seized
by a custom-house officer, on account of some articles which the English
law forbade to be exported.
5. Poor Ledyard was now left in utter poverty; but he was a resolute
man, and he would not be discouraged. With only ten guineas in his
purse, he attempted to _walk_ over the greater part of three continents.
6. He walked through Denmark and Sweden, and attempted to cross the
great Gulf of Bothnia, on his way to Siberia; but when he reached the
middle of that inland sea, he found the water was not frozen, and he was
obliged to foot it back to Stockholm.
7. He then traveled round the head of the gulf, and descended to St.
Petersburg. Here he was soon discovered to be a man of talents and
activity; and though he was without money, and absolutely destitute of
stockings and shoes, he was treated with great attention.
8. The Portuguese ambassador invited him to dine, and was so much
pleased with him, that he used his influence to obtain for him a free
passage in the government wagons, then going to Irkutsk, in Siberia, at
the command of the Empress Katharine.
9. He went from this place to Yakutz, and there awaited the opening of
the spring, full of the animating hope of soon completing his wearisome
journey. But misfortune seemed to follow him wherever he went.
10. The empress could not believe that any man in his senses was
traveling through the ice and snows of uncivilized Siberia, merely for
the sake of seeing the country and the people.
11. She imagined that he was an English spy, sent there merely for the
purpose of prying into the state of her empire and her government. She
therefore employed two Russian soldiers to seize him, and convey him out
of her dominions.
12. Taken, he knew not why, and obliged to go off without his clothes,
his money, or his papers, he was seated in one of the strange-looking
sledges used in those northern deserts, and carried through Tartary and
White Russia, to the frontiers of Poland.
13. Covered with dirty rags, worn out with hardships, sick almost unto
death, without friends and without money, he begged his way to
Konigsberg, in Prussia.