ut, being suddenly called away to L'Orient, to
look after his prize concerns, his zeal for this grand scheme began to
cool, and, in a few months, the whole fabric fell to the ground.

Ledyard now felt himself a sort of wandering vagabond, without
employment, motive, or means of support; the supplies he had received
from Jones had ceased, and he was compelled to become a pensioner on the
bounty of the American minister and a few friends. It would appear,
however, from some lively letters written by him at Paris, that his flow
of spirits did not forsake him.

"The two Fitzhughs," he says, "dine with me to-day in my chamber,
together with our worthy consul, Barclay, and that lump of universality,
colonel Franks. But such a set of moneyless rascals have never appeared,
since the epoch of the happy villain Falstaff. I have but five French
crowns in the world; Franks has not a sol; and the Fitzhughs cannot get
their tobacco money. Every day of my life," he continues, "is a day of
expectation, and, consequently, a day of disappointment; whether I shall
have a morsel of bread to eat at the end of two months, is as much an
uncertainty as it was fourteen months ago, and not more so."

While in this state of penury he received a visit, the object of which
was so creditable to a gentleman still living, and not unknown in the
annals of science, that it gives us pleasure to print the story in
Ledyard's own words:--

"Permit me to relate to you an incident. About a fortnight ago, Sir
James Hall,[8] an English gentleman, on his way from Paris to Cherbourg,
stopped his coach at our door, and came up to my chamber. I was in bed
at six o'clock in the morning, but having flung on my _robe de chambre_,
I met him at the door of the ante-chamber. I was glad to see him, but
surprised. He observed, that he had endeavoured to make up his opinion
of me, with as much exactness as possible, and concluded that no kind of
visit whatever would surprise me. I could do no otherwise than remark,
that his _opinion_ surprised me at least, and the conversation took
another turn. In walking across the chamber, he laughingly put his hand
on a six livre piece, and a louis d'or that lay on my table, and with a
half stifled blush, asked me how I was in the money way. Blushes
commonly beget blushes, and I blushed partly because he did, and partly
on other accounts. 'If fifteen guineas,' said he, interrupting the
answer he had demanded, 'will be of any service