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 to you, there they are,'
and he put them on the table. 'I am a traveller myself, and though I
have some fortune to support my travels, yet I have been so situated as
to want money, which you ought not to do. You have my address in
London.' He then wished me a good morning and left me. This gentleman
was a total stranger to the situation of my finances, and one that I
had, by mere accident, met at an ordinary in Paris."

Ledyard observes, that he had no more idea of receiving money from this
gentleman than from Tippoo Saib. "However," he says, "I took it without