ART. IV-Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard, from his Journals and Correspondence. By Jared Sparks. London.

1828.

THE traveller, of whose life and adventures Mr. Jared Sparks*

has published these very interesting Memoirs, may, with great truth, be called an extraordinary man. John Ledyard, by birth an American, was, in all respects, from the habits of his life, a citizen of the world. He was born at a small village called Groton, in Connecticut, on the banks of the Thames: his father was a captain in the West Indian trade, but died young, leaving a widow and four children, of whom John was the eldest; his mother is described as a lady of many excellencies of mind and character, beautiful in person, well informed, resolute, generous, amiable, kind, and, above all, eminent for piety and the religious virtues.' Her little property, it seems, was lost through fraud or neglect, and the widowed mother, with her four infant children, thrown destitute upon the world. In a few years, however, she was again married to Dr. Moor, and John was removed to the house of his grandfather, at Hartford, where, at a very early age, it is said, he showed many peculiarities in his manners and habits, indicating an eccentric, an unsettled, and romantic turn of mind, Having gone through the grammar-school, he was placed with a relative of the name of Seymour, to study the profession of the law; but this dry kind of study was soon found to have no attractions for one of his volatile turn of mind. Something, however, was to be done to rescue from sheer idleness a youth of nineteen, with very narrow means, few friends, and no definite prospects; and, by the kindness of Dr. Wheelock, the pious founder of Dartmouth College, who had been the intimate friend of his grandfather, he was enabled to take up his residence at this new seat of learning, with the ostensible object of qualifying himself to become a missionary among the Indians.

The whole period of his studies at Dartmouth did not exceed one year, of which he was absent nearly a third part, rambling among the Indians, in order to acquire, it was supposed, some practical knowledge of their habits and mode of life; at the same time, no doubt, to indulge the bent of his genius, and to escape from the studies and the discipline of the college. It ap

Mr. Sparks is an American of some literary reputation, who has come to this country, principally, as we hear, for the purpose of examining the public offices for documents connected with the history of Washington. He has been engaged for some time in arranging the private and public papers left by the General at Mount Vernon, and announces a selection from them in from eight to twelve volumes octavo. We doubt if Mr. Sparks will find much encouragement, in England at least, unless he considerably reduces the scale of his intended publication, which, therefore, we hope he will do.

pears,

pears, to us, indeed, obviously enough, that the scholastic life was as little suited to his disposition as had been the study of the law; he was impatient under discipline; he felt it irksome to tread the dull round, from day to day, of the chapel, the recitation-room, the commons'-hall, and the study. To vary this routine, Ledyard introduced the acting of plays, of the success of which we are told nothing, except that he performed Syphax in a long grey beard. Impatient of restraint, and indignant at remonstrance and admonition, he soon abandoned the missionary scheme that appeared to require such severe initiation, and resolved to make his escape from the college. The mode adopted to carry this project into execution was strongly marked with that spirit of enterprise by which, in after-life, he was so highly distinguished:

'On the margin of the Connecticut river, which runs near the college, stood many majestic forest trees, nourished by a rich soil. One of these Ledyard contrived to cut down. He then set himself at work to fashion its trunk into a canoe, and in this labour he was assisted by some of his fellow-students. As the canoe was fifty feet long and three wide, and was to be dug out and constructed by these unskilful workmen, the task was not a trifling one, nor such as could be speedily executed. Operations were carried on with spirit, however, till Ledyard wounded himself with an axe, and was disabled for several days. When recovered, he applied himself anew to his work; the canoe was finished, launched into the stream, and, by the further aid of his companions, equipped and prepared for a voyage. His wishes were now at their consummation, and, bidding adieu to these haunts of the Muses, where he had gained a dubious fame, he set off alone, with a light heart, to explore a river, with the navigation of which he had not the slightest acquaintance. The distance to Hartford was not less than one hundred and forty miles, much of the way was through a wilderness, and in several places there were dangerous falls and rapids.'p. 21, 22.

With a bear-skin covering, and a good supply of provisions, he launched into the current and floated leisurely down, seldom using the paddle, till, while engaged in reading, the canoe approached Below's Falls, the noise of which, rushing among the rocks, suddenly aroused him; the danger was imminent; had the canoe got into the narrow passage it must instantly have been dashed in pieces, and himself inevitably have perished. By great exertion, however, he escaped the catastrophe and reached the shore; and by the kind assistance of some people in the neighbourhood, had his canoe dragged by oxen around the falls, and again committed to the water. On a bright spring morning,' says his biographer, 'just as the sun was rising, some of Mr. Seymour's family were standing near his house, on the high bank of the small river that runs through the city of Hartford and empties itself into the Connecticut

necticut, when they espied, at some distance, an object of unusual appearance moving slowly up the stream.' On a nearer approach it was discovered to be a canoe, in the stern of which something was observed to be heaped up, but apparently without life or motion. At length it struck the shore, and out leapt John Ledyard from under his bear-skin, to the great astonishment of his relatives at this sudden apparition, who had no other idea than that of his being diligently engaged in his studies at Dartmouth, and fitting himself for the pious office of a missionary among the Indians.

By the advice of his friends and two clergymen, he was prevailed upon to apply himself immediately to a preparation for discharging the sacred functions of a divine, and turn the ruffled tenor of his life into the quiet and grateful occupation of a parish minister.' It was soon found, however, that his qualifications were not exactly such as were suited for the priesthood, and the discouragement, if not the rejection, he met with from the clergy, appears to have very much mortified and wounded him; he talks about inquiries made after the strange man in Hartford;' and of his being the mock of impertinent curiosity.' In short, it was deemed expedient, both by his friends and by himself, that all further thoughts of his becoming a divine should be abandoned; and in the course of a few weeks we find him a common sailor, on board a vessel bound for Gibraltar. While at this place Ledyard was all at once missing: he had enlisted into the army. The master, being the friend of his late father, went and remonstrated with him for this strange freak, and urged him to return-to which Ledyard assented, provided he could procure his release; though he said he liked the service, and thought the profession of a soldier well suited to a man of honour and enterprise. The commanding officer assented to his release, and he returned to the ship.

The voyage being finished, the only profit yielded by it to Ledyard was a little experience in the hardships of a sailor's life, as his scanty funds were soon exhausted and poverty stared him in the face. At the age of twenty-two he found himself a solitary wanderer, dependent on the bounty of his friends, without employment or prospects, having tried various pursuits, and failed of success in all. But poverty and privation were trifles of little weight with Ledyard: his pride was aroused, and he determined to do something that should exonerate him from all dependence on his American friends; but it never once entered his brain to accomplish this by walking in the same path that all the world were walking in, or of attaining common ends by common means. He generally acted on the spur of the moment, and the first idea that crossed his brain and suggested some pursuit he immediately took

up

up and followed it to its, generally, speedy conclusion. He had often heard his grandfather descant on his English ancestors, and his wealthy connexions in the old country; it struck him, therefore, while thus hanging loosely on society, that it might be no unwise thing to visit these relatives, and claim alliance with them. With this view he proceeded to New York, and made his terms with the master of a vessel bound for Plymouth. Here he was set down, without money, without friends, or even a single acquaintance. How to get to London, where he made himself sure of a hearty welcome and a home among those connexions, whose wealth and virtues he had heard so often extolled by his grandfather, was a matter not easily settled. As good fortune would have it, he fell in with an Irishman as thoughtless as himself, and whose plight so exactly resembled his own, that, such is the sympathetic power of misfortune, they formed a mutual attachment almost as soon as they came in contact. Both were pedestrians bound to London, and both were equally destitute of money or friends; and one honest mode only remained for them to pursue, which was, to address themselves to the charitable and humane.' This point being settled, it was agreed to take their turn in begging along the road; and in this manner they reached London, without having any reason to complain of neglect, or that there was any lack of generous and disinterested feeling in the human species. Ledyard's first object, after arriving in the metropolis, was to find out his rich relations, in which he was so far successful as to discover the residence of a wealthy merchant of the same name, to whose house he hastened. The gentleman was from home; but the son listened to his story, and plainly told him he could put no faith in his representations, as he had never heard of any relations in America. He pressed him, however, to remain till his father's return, but the suspicion of his being an impostor roused his indignation to such a pitch that he abruptly left the house and resolved never to go near it again. It is said that this merchant, on further inquiry, was satisfied of the truth of the connexion, and sent for Ledyard, who declined the invitation in no very gracious manner; that, notwithstanding all this, the merchant afterwards, on hearing of his distressed situation, sent him money; and that the money was also rejected with disdain by the American, who desired the bearer to carry it back, and tell his master that he belonged not to the race of the Ledyards. This story is not very credible; and if true betrays a degree of pride and obstinacy utterly inconsistent with the situation of a man who had been subsisting on charity during his journey to town, and who, while there, does not appear to have had any ostensible mode of gaining a subsistence; but Ledyard was no common mortal.

The

The next capacity in which we find Ledyard is that of a corporal of marines, on board the ship of Captain Cook, then preparing for his third and last voyage round the world. Of this voyage Ledyard is said to have kept a minute journal, which, as in all cases of voyages of discovery, went among the rest to the Admiralty, and was never restored. Two years afterwards, Ledyard, with the assistance of a brief outline of the voyage published in London, and from his own recollection, brought out, in a small duodecimo, his narrative of the principal transactions of the voyage, in which, we hear, (for we have never seen it,) he blames the officers, and Captain Cook in particular, for several instances of precipitate and incautious conduct, not to say severity, towards the various natives with whom they were brought in contact. It was to this want of caution, and a due consideration for the habits and feelings of the Sandwich Islanders, that he imputed the death of this celebrated navigator. The late Admiral Burney, who served as a lieutenant on the voyage, says that,' with an ardent disposition, Ledyard had a passion for lofty sentiment and description.' He adds that, after Cook's death, Ledyard proffered his services to Captain Clarke, to undertake the office of historiographer of the expedition, and presented a specimen descriptive of the manners of the Society Islanders; but, says this author, his ideas were thought too sentimental, and his language too florid.'

Ledyard was one of the marines who were present at Cook's death, of which he gives an account (as appears from extracts of his journal above-mentioned, inserted by his biographer) somewhat different from that in the authentic narrative of the voyageand different, also, we must add, from his own private journal, which, at least the portion of it relating to that event, is still in the Admiralty. It must be mentioned in favour of Ledyard's sagacity, that the visit to Nootka Sound suggested to him the commercial advantages to be derived from a trade between the north-west coast of America and China; and the views which he took of this subject very much influenced the succeeding events of his life.

Towards the end of December, 1782, we find Ledyard serving on board a king's ship in Long Island Sound, from which he obtained leave of absence to visit his mother; but, either from a sense of duty and honour, which obliged him not to act with the enemies of his country, or from a dislike of the service, he never returned. He had conceived, and now began to endeavour to execute, the grand project of a trading voyage to Nootka; for this purpose he went to New York and Philadelphia, and, after addressing himself to various individuals, he prevailed at last on

the