JOHN LEDYARD'S IDEA.
Corporal John Ledyard's[1] fancy had been taken captive by the exploits of Captain Cook, which for a time fairly renewed the enthusiasm Drake's bold dash into the far South Sea had created so long before.
Ledyard was a born explorer. Every thing he saw while under Cook's command was jotted down from day to day in his diary. He was quick-witted, restless, and ambitious of making his way in the world, nor was he slow to see the advantage that the north-west coast offered to whomsoever should be first in the field. But Ledyard had been wearing King George's uniform, though himself an American, whom thirst for new scenes had led to enlist under a hostile flag. When, however, after his return to England, Ledyard was sent out to America, rather than fight against his country he deserted.
His mind was filled with crude projects for securing the commerce of the north-west coast, not for England, but for America, and America was now a free republic. So he had imbibed at least the spirit of what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine.
Ledyard first tried to get American merchants to fit out a ship for him. Failing in this he went to France, thinking to secure there the help he wanted.
It happened that while Ledyard was trying to get up a company to carry on his schemes, Louis XVI. was fitting out La Peyrouse to follow up Cook's track in the Pacific, and so make good what that eminent navigator had failed to make complete.
Ledyard importuned everybody. Haunting those who would listen to him, borrowing money first from one and then another in order to live, sometimes without a crown in his pocket, always repulsed, but never despairing, the would-be explorer woke and slept on his one ever-present idea.
"I die with anxiety," he says to a friend, "to be on the back of the American States, after having penetrated to the Pacific Ocean. There is an extensive field for the acquirement of honest fame. The American Revolution invites to a thorough discovery of the continent. It was necessary that a European should discover America, but in the name of love of country let a native explore its resources and boundaries. It is my wish to be that man."
Thomas Jefferson was, at this time (1785), our minister to France, "in every word and deed the representative of a young, vigorous and determined state." Ledyard often sought his counsel and aid. Struck by Ledyard's uncommon devotion to his one idea, Jefferson said to him one day, "Why not go by land to Kamschatka, cross over in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri, and penetrate to and through that to the United States?"
This conversation curiously shows us that, at the time the American Union was first formed, more was known about Kamschatka than about the region lying between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. Through Siberia, at least, there was a travelled route, while from the Mississippi to the Pacific there was none. The conversation is therefore an instructive starting-point in the history of our country.
Although the enterprise itself failed to bear fruit at this time, the coming together of these two men, one of whom became the apostle of the American idea in its broadest sense, was like the striking together of flint and steel. Fire followed it. Ledyard had the best knowledge of the subject. Ledyard pointed out the way. Ledyard had given Jefferson something to ponder, which, in his sagacious mind, soon grew to a question of highest national importance.
Ledyard eagerly agreed to make the trial, provided that the Russian Government would give its consent. This being granted, the explorer set out for Kamschatka; but at Irkutsk, in Siberia, he was stopped and turned back, in consequence of the jealousy of the Russian-American Company, whose headquarters were at Irkutsk, and who feared their interests would be endangered if this daring stranger were permitted to pass into their territory.
From this time Ledyard's personal history ceases to be associated with that of the Great West. But he was the first to perceive, perhaps dimly, what was shortly to become, with a broader growth, the ruling idea of American statesmen.
FOOTNOTE
[1] John Ledyard was a native of Groton, Conn.; (born 1751, brother of Colonel William, who fell in the defence of Groton, 1781). John went first to Dartmouth College to be fitted as an Indian missionary. In those primitive days the students were called together by the blowing of a conch-shell. Though quick and apt to learn, Ledyard hated study. He preferred climbing the mountains about the college. In four months he ran away. He, however, returned, but finding the rigid discipline no less irksome than before, made his escape in a canoe, in which he floated down the Connecticut River, from Hanover to Hartford, one hundred and forty miles. Ledyard was proud, sensitive, impulsive, and restive under correction or restraint. Finding his purpose to enter the ministry thwarted, in a fit of resentment he shipped for the Mediterranean as a common sailor before the mast. This voyage was Ledyard's preparation for service under Cook. He was in turn theological student, sailor, soldier, explorer, and in his make-up all these characters were combined to produce a thorough-going explorer.