looking after the proceeds of the prizes which he had taken and carried
into the ports of France. This adventurer entered warmly into his views,
and undertook to fit out two vessels for the expedition. It was settled
that Jones was to command the vessels, and carry the furs to the China
market, while Ledyard was to remain behind and collect a fresh cargo
ready for their return, after which he meant to perambulate the
continent of America, and show his countrymen the path to unbounded
wealth. Jones, it seems, was so much taken with the plausibility of a
scheme, which presented at once the prospect of adventure, fame, and
profit, that he advanced money to Ledyard to purchase a part of the
cargo for the outfit; but, 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."