nance on the Pacific. Forts were to be built in
California and Hawaii. In England and India, private adventurers,
Portlock, Dixon, Meares, Barclay, were fitting out ships for Pacific
trade. Some one advised Ledyard to attempt his venture in the country
that had helped America in the Revolution, France; and to France he
sailed with money loaned by Mr. Sands of New York, in 1784.

{255} In Paris Ledyard met two of the most remarkable men in American
history, Paul Jones, the naval hero, and Jefferson. To them both he
told the marvels of Pacific wealth, and both were far-sighted enough to
share his dreams. It was now that Jefferson began to formulate those
plans that Lewis and Clark afterward carried out. The season was too
late for a voyage this year, but Paul Jones loaned Ledyard money and
arranged to take out a ship of four hundred tons the following year.
The two actually went over every detail together. Jones was to carry
the furs to China, Ledyard with assistants, surgeon, and twenty
soldiers to remain at the fur post and explore.

But Paul Jones was counting on the support of the American government;
and when he found that the government considered Ledyard's promises
visionary, he threw the venture over in a pique.

Was Ledyard beaten? Jefferson and he talked over the project day after
day. Ledyard was willing to tramp it across the two Siberias on foot,
and to chance over the Pacific Ocean in a Russian fur-trading vessel,
if Jefferson could obtain permission from the Russian Empress.
Meanwhile, true soldier of fortune, without money, or influence, he
lived on terms of intimacy with the fashion of Paris.

"I have but five French crowns," he wrote a friend. "The Fitzhughes
(fellow-roomers) haven't money for tobacco. Such a set of moneyless
rascals never {256} appeared since the days of Falstaff." Again--"Sir
James Hall, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg, stopped his coach at
our door. I was in bed, but having flung on my robe de chambre, met
him at the door. . . . In walking across the chamber, he laughingly
put his hand on a six livre piece and a louis d'or on my table, and
with a blush asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes beget
blushes. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, 'will be of any service to
you, here they are. You have my address in London.'"

While waiting the passports from the Empress of Russia, he was invited
by Sir James Hall to try his luck in England. The very daring of the