The Salem Institute has also some
data on the ships. The _Massachusetts Proceedings_ for 1869-1870 also
give, from the Archives of California, the letter of Governor Don Pedro
Fages of Santa Barbara to Don Josef Arguello of San Francisco, warning
the latter against the American navigators. Greenhow obtained from the
Hydrographical Office at Madrid the report of Captain Bruno Heceta's
voyage in 1775, when he sighted the mouth of a river supposed to be the
Columbia.
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CHAPTER IX
1778-1790
JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK
A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich Relatives,
joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure among the Russians of
Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor to interest New England Merchants in Fur
Trade--A Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul Jones
and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds in crossing
Siberia alone on the Way to America, but is thwarted by Russian Fur
Traders
When his relatives banged the door in his face, turning him destitute
in the streets of London, if John Ledyard could have foreseen that the
act would indirectly lead to the Lewis and Clark exploration of the
great region between the Mississippi and the Pacific, he would
doubtless have regarded the unkindness as Dick Whittington did the cat,
that led on to fortune.
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