318 JOHN LEDYARD. 



I passed under a guard part of last winter and 

 spring; was banished the empire, and conveyed to 

 the frontiers of Poland, six thousand versts from the 

 place where I was arrested, and this journey was 

 performed in six weeks. Cruelties and hardships 

 are tales I leave untold. I was disappointed in the 

 pursuit of an object on which my future fortune 

 entirely depended. I know not how I passed through 

 the kingdoms of Poland and Prussia, or from thence 

 to London, where I arrived in the beginning of 

 May, disappointed, ragged, penniless; and yet so 

 accustomed am I to such things, that I declare my 

 heart was whole. My health for the first time had 

 suffered from my confinement, and the amazing 

 rapidity with which I had been carried through the 

 illimitable wilds of Tartary and Russia. But my 

 liberty regained, and a few days' rest among the 

 beautiful daughters of Israel in Poland, re-esta- 

 blished it, and I am now in as full bloom and vigor 

 as thirty-seven years will afford any man. Jarvis 

 says I look much older than when he saw me three 

 summers ago at Paris, which I can readily believe. 

 An American face does not wear well, like an Ame- 

 rican heart." 



It is difficult to assign a plausible reason for this 

 extraordinary change in the policy and purpose of 

 Catherine II. The most probable explanation ia 



