Nearly four months elapsed before he returned to his college; and, in the course of a few more, conceiving himself ill treated, in consequence of some reproof for breach of discipline, he resolved to escape altogether. The mode of his flight was equally curious and characteristic. With the aid of some of his fellow-students, he felled, on the margin of the Connecticut river, a majestic forest tree, and fashioned its trunk into a canoe, fifty fect long and three wide.

The cance 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 140 miles, much of the way was through a wilderness, and in several places there were dangerous falls and rapids. After pursuing a perilous navigation for several days, and being on one occasion nearly precipitated over a fall in the river, he was fortunate in reaching his home, greatly to the surprise of his relatives.

The

Ledyard next appears in the character of an enthusiastic student of divinity. For some time, he sought the station of a parish minister; until wearied with unexpected obstacles in the pursuit, and unable to obtain a licence to preach, he abandoned his theological researches and pious designs in despair and mortification. transition is startling-from the character of a candidate for the pulpit, to that of a common sailor, in which capacity we quickly find him on board of a vessel bound to Gibraltar, under the command of one of his father's old friends, by whom he was treated rather as a friend and associate, than a member of the crew. At Gibraltar, struck with a military parade, he enlisted, thinking the profession of a soldier well suited to a man of honour and enterprise.' Urged by the captain of the vessel, the British commanding-officer released his new recruit, who,

however, would have been content to remain, to follow out his adventure.

At the expiration of a twelvemonth, when he was brought back to New London, he had gained only a knowledge of the duties and sufferings of a sailor. Poverty stared him in the face; dependence upon the bounty of his friends was intolerable to his lofty spirit; yet no sedentary or common-place occupations comported with the temper and ambition of a genuine rover. He remembered to have heard from his father that he had wealthy relatives in England. For that country he suddenly resolved to embark, with the vision before his fancy of kind patronage, by means of which he might attain competency and distinction, in some yet undetermined sphere of life. After working his passage as a sailor to Plymouth, in England, he remained destitute of means to reach London. Fortune threw him into the company of an honest Irishman, whose plight exactly resembled his own; and the two friends agreed to set out together on foot for the capital. Begging, by turns, on the road, they succeeded fully in their objects. The first business of our adventurer in London, was to discover his opulent relations. A glimpse of the family name on a carriage heightened his ardour; but when he presented himself at the house of a Ledyard, with all simplicity, as an American cousin, he was so coolly received that his dreams vanished, and his pride prevented him ever renewing the attempt to be recognised. It was just at this period that Captain Cook was preparing for his third and last voyage round the world. The idea of accompanying him struck Ledyard with so much force, that he at once enlisted in the British marine service, and soon contrived to gain an introduction to Captain Cook, who, struck by his appearance and character, immediately took him into his service, and promoted him to be a corporal of marines.

At the age of twenty-five, Ledyard found himself embarked in an expedition such as his heart yearned for ; and he performed the voyage in a manner which called

forth the approbation of his superiors. At an island called Onaloska, on the north-west coast of America, he was selected by Captain Cook to proceed alone on an expedition into the interior, in search of a settlement of Europeans, which was believed to exist there. This hazardous commission he executed with ability and success, having, after a journey of some days, reached a small colony of Russians, three of whom he brought back with him to the ship. Ledyard afterwards headed the party of marines who attended Captain Cook when he was killed by the natives at Owyhee, an account of which he subsequently published in the narrative of his voyage.

For two years after the return of the expedition to England, Ledyard remained in the British navy. The war, however, now commencing betwixt Britain and the American provinces, he refused to be attached to any of the squadrons sent with hostile intentions against his country; and in 1782 made the best of his way home, where he was welcomed by his mother, after an absence of eight years. A few months of retirement among his relations more than satisfied the mind of Ledyard, who was insatiable of adventure. Conceiving the plan of a voyage to the North Pacific Ocean, he repaired to New York, but could obtain no coadjutors there. He next tried Philadelphia, and after being reduced to the most mortifying distress by poverty, met there with the encouragement which he so anxiously sought for his new project. Robert Morris, the prince of liberal and sagacious merchants, instantly took, as he expresses it," a noble hold of the enterprise;' engaged to contribute a ship and funds for its execution; and provided the sanguine projector with the means of comfortable subsistence until all preparations should be completed. Unexpected difficulties multiplied, however, so as to defeat the hopes and exertions of both; and Morris lost an opportunity of acquiring immense wealth, in a mercantile adventure, which, when pursued by others several years after, verified in its lucrative results all the calculations of Ledyard—

the first, whether in Europe or America, to suggest a scheme of trade with the North-west Coast. His views, observes Mr Sparks, his American biographer, accorded exactly with those acted upon by the first adventurers, who were rewarded with extraordinary success.

Clinging still enthusiastically to his project, he determined to try his fortune with it abroad. Robert Morris replenished his purse, and enriched him with letters of introduction to eminent merchants in Europe, particularly in France. He selected Cadiz as his first port; spent upwards of a month there in the best social circles; wrote entertaining descriptions to his friends in America; and then suddenly quitted that scene for Brest and L'Orient. Some of the principal merchants of the latter city signed an agreement, by which they engaged to send him forth on his favourite expedition, in a vessel fully equipped for the new and arduous purpose. They actually provided a fine ship of 400 tons; and Ledyard, after eight or nine months of buoyant hope and joyful diligence, was nearly at the summit of his wishes, when, from some difficulty with the government, the voyage was entirely abandoned by his patrons. Again cruelly baffled and left penniless, he shaped his course to Paris, where he supposed a better fortune might await his ambition as an explorer. Mr Jefferson happened to be then minister from the United States at the court of France. That illustrious patriot, with his habitual fondness for noble enterprise, animated the intelligent confidence, and relieved the immediate necessities of his romantic countryman. Ledyard contracted, besides, an intimacy with the celebrated Paul Jones, who assisted him to the best of his ability.

The restless temperament of Ledyard did not suffer him to despair at his want of success in procuring the object of his desire. Clinging to his determination to find his way, by land if not by sea, to the north-west coast of America, with the view of exploring that vast and as yet almost unknown region, he formed a plan of travelling overland to the north-eastern extremity of Asia, through Russia and Siberia, and thence crossing Behring's Straits.

While preparing to proceed in this extraordinary undertaking, he was induced suddenly to set out for London, an invitation having been sent to him to repair thither, and embark in an English ship, which was in readiness to sail for the Pacific Ocean, and of which the owners undertook to have him set on shore at any place on the north-west coast that he might choose. In six days he was in London, where Sir Joseph Banks and other distinguished men of science entered warmly into his plan, which was to land at Nootka Sound, and thence strike directly into the interior, and pursue his course, as fortune should guide him, to Virginia. Colonel Smith, then secretary of the American legation in London, described him, in an official letter, in these terms: He is perfectly calculated for the attempt; robust and healthy, and has an immense passion to make discoveries which will benefit society, and insure him, agreeably to his own expression, a small degree of honest fame?

He embarked with no other equipment than two dogs, an Indian pipe, and a hatchet: he thought himself now secure of his object; but the vessel was not out of sight of land, before it was brought back by an order from the government; and the voyage was finally relinquished! This miscarriage might be deemed enough to have weighed upon his heart with invincible pressure; to have paralysed the energics of the stoutest spirit; but in a very short time after, Ledyard was prepared to make the tour of the globe, from London east, on foot.' He called himself the slave of fortune and the son of care;' remarking, however, that the nearer the approach which he had so often made to each extreme of happiness and distress, had rendered him so hardy, that he could meet either with composure.' Sir Joseph Banks, Dr Hunter, Sir James Hall, and Colonel Smith, subscribed a small sum for his journey, and contributed also the most flattering letters of introduction. At Hamburg, to which city he immediately went, he unfortunately learned that an American major, whom he wished to enlist as the companion of his enterprise, had repaired to Copenhagen, and