CHAPTER XII.

Ledyard departs from Yakutsk, and returns to Irkutsk up the Lena on the ice. Is seized by order of the Empress and hurried off in the charge of two guards.-Returns through Siberia to Kazan. His remarks on the peculiarity of his fate.-Further observations on the Tartars.-No good account of them has ever been written.-Passes Moscow and arrives in Poland.-Left by his guards, with an injunction never to appear again in Russia.-Health much impaired by his sufferings.-Proceeds to Konigsberg, and thence to London.-Inquiry into the motives of the Empress for her cruel treatment of him.—Her pretences of humanity not to be credited. Her declaration to Count Segur on the subject.— Dr. Clarke's explanation incorrect. The true cause was the jealousy of the Russian American Fur Company, by whose influence his recal was procured from the Empress.-Lafayette's remark on her conduct in this particular.

THAT We may not anticipate events, we will again take up our traveller at Yakutsk, where we left him with Captain Billings, then just returned from the Kolyma, near near the end of November. Here they lived together about five weeks. Meantime Billings was making preparation for his journey to Irkutsk, and invited Ledyard to accompany him thither. This invitation he readily accepted, since it was impossible for him to proceed to Okotsk before spring; nor indeed would any object be gained by such a journey, till Captain Billings himself

should return to that place, and his vessels be got in readiness, for no chance of a passage was likely to offer at an earlier date. Accordingly he joined Captain Billings's party, which left Yakutsk on the twenty-ninth of December, and travelled in sledges up the river Lena on the ice. With such speed did they move forward by this mode of conveyance, that they reached Irkutsk in seventeen days, having passed over a distance of fifteen hundred miles. Ledyard's voyage down the river in a canoe had taken up twenty-two days.

Nothing is found recorded in his journal, during this second visit to Irkutsk. In Sauer's account of Billings' expedition, the fate which overtook him there is made known to us, and the manner in which he submitted to it. "In the evening of February," says Sauer,

the twenty-fourth of "while I was playing

at cards with the brigadier and some company of his, a secretary belonging to one of the courts of justice came in, and told us, with great concern, that the Governor General had received positive orders from the Empress, immediately to send one of the expedition, an Englishman, under guard to the private Inquisition at Moscow, but that he did not know the name of the person, and that Captain Billings was with

a private party at the Governor General's. Now, as Ledyard and I were the only Englishmen here, I could not help smiling at the news, when two hussars came into the room, and told me, that the Commandant wished to speak to me immediately. The consternation into which the visitors were thrown is not to be described. I assured them, that it must be a mistake, and went with the guards to the Commandant.

"There I found Mr. Ledyard under arrest. He told me, that he had sent to Captain Billings, but he would not come to him. He then began to explain his situation, and said he was taken up as a French spy, whereas Captain Billings could prove the contrary, but he supposed that he knew nothing of the matter, and requested that I would inform him. I did so, but the Captain assured me, that it was an absolute order from the Empress, and that he could not help him. He, however, sent him a few roubles, and gave him a pelisse; and I procured him his linen quite wet from the washtub. Ledyard took a friendly leave of me, desired his remembrance to his friends, and with astonishing composure leaped into the kibitka, and drove off, with two guards, one on each side. I wished to travel with him a little way, but was not permitted. I therefore re

turned to my company, and explained the matter to them; but though this eased their minds with regard to my fate, it did not restore their harmony."*

One word more only need be added respecting Billings. He went to Okotsk in the summer, made a voyage to the Aleutian Islands, and thence to Bering's Strait. From the bay of St. Lawrence he passed across the Tchuktchi country to the river Kolyma by land, whence he proceeded to Yakutsk, and at length returned to Petersburg, after an absence of seven or eight years. No evidence exists, that his labours were of any service to Russia or to the world, either in the field of discovery, or the departments of science. Sauer's book has made his incompetency notorious. The misfortune was, that this should have been found. out so late. Captain Burney, who was well acquainted with Billings while on Cook's voyage, observes, in alluding to Ledyard's arrest, "If the Empress had understood the characters of the two men, the commander of the expedition would probably have been ordered to Moscow, and Ledyard, instead of

* See Sauer's Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia, &c. p. 100.

being denied entertainment in her service, have been appointed to supply his place.”*

66

Being now a prisoner, Ledyard was under the entire control of his two guards, who conducted him, with all the speed with which horses and sledges could convey them, towards Moscow, exposed to the extreme rigours of a Siberian winter. In such a situation, it cannot be presumed, that he would have either the heart or leisure to write in his journal. A few particulars only are recorded, and to these a place will now be given. Dates are rarely noted. The following was apparently written soon after he left Irkutsk. My ardent hopes are once more blasted,--the almost half accomplished wish. What secret machinations have been at work? What motive? But so it suits her royal Majesty of all the Russias, and she has nothing but her pleasure to consult; she has no nation's resentment to apprehend, for I am the minister of no state, no monarch. I travel under the common flag of humanity, commissioned by myself to serve the world at large; and so the poor, the unprotected wanderer must go where sovereign will ordains; if to death, why then my journeying will be over sooner, and

* Burney's Chronological History of the Northeastern Voyages of Discovery, p. 279.