Connecticut, arrived there, well-known in the United States for energy of body and mind. He had accompanied Captain Cook on his voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and distinguished himself on that voyage by his intrepidity. Being of a roaming disposition, he was now panting for some new enterprise. His immediate object at Paris was to engage a mercantile company in the trade of the western coast of America, in which, however, he failed. I then proposed to him to go by land to Kamchatka, cross 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. He eagerly seized the idea, and only asked to be assured of the permission of the Russian government."
Ledyard set out by way of Saint Petersburg, and penetrated to within two hundred miles of Kamchatka, where he was obliged to take up his winter quarters. He was preparing to resume his journey in the spring when he was arrested by an officer of the Empress, put into a close carriage and conveyed back to Poland. There he was set down and left to himself. The Empress had never given her consent to the project. Jefferson soon had Ledyard under another promise to make the trip across the American continent. July 19, 1788, he wrote Madison that Ledyard had left Paris a few days before, en route to Alexandria in Egypt, "thence to explore the Nile to its source; cross to the head of the Niger and descend that to its mouth. He promises me, if he escapes through his journey, he will go to Kentucky and endeavor to penetrate westwardly to the South Sea." But Ledyard perished in the very beginning of his African exploration.
A few years later, in 1792, Jefferson was again promoting a scheme to achieve this end. Funds were raised by subscription, as he had proposed to the American
