Ledyard's project
Three years later, when minister to Paris, Jefferson met
John Ledyard, a Connecticut adventurer who had been a petty
officer with Captain James Cook on the latter's third
voyage around the world (1778), and had written
a widely-read account of that enterprise. Ledyard
agreed to cross Europe and Asia to Kamchatka, thence embarking
on a Russian vessel trading to Nootka Sound, from
which he was to find his way to the sources of the Missouri,
whose current was to be descended to the American
settlements. But Ledyard, when within a few days of the
Kamchatka port, was arrested by imperial orders from St.
Petersburg, and ignominously carried back to Poland, where,
"disappointed, ragged, and penniless," he was dismissed.
