1786.] VOYAGE OF LA PEROUSE. 163 



1784, where he, in concert with Paul Jones, endeavored to interest 

 the government, or private capitalists, in his scheme. 



The French gave no encouragement to Ledyard's plan for prose- 

 cuting the fur trade ; and no private vessels were sent from that 

 kingdom to the North Pacific until 1791.* The government of 

 France, however, was not unaware of the advantages which might 

 be derived from this branch of commerce ; and their great naviga- 

 tor, La Perouse, on leaving his country for the Pacific, in 1785, 

 was specially instructed to " explore the parts of the north-west 

 coasts of America which had not been examined by Cook, and of 

 which the Russian accounts gave no idea, in order to obtain infor- 

 mation respecting the fur trade, and also to learn whether, in those 

 unknown parts, some river or internal sea might not be found 

 communicating with Hudson's Bay or Baffin's Bay."f 



The multiplicity of objects, in every department of science, to 

 which La Perouse was required by his instructions to attend, during 

 his voyage, prevented him from devoting more than three months 

 to the north-west coasts of America ; and, of that time, he spent 

 one third at anchor, in a bay at the foot of Mount Fairweather, 

 near which he first saw the coast, on the 23d of June, 1786. In 

 this bay, called, by La Perouse, Port des Franpais, % observations 

 were made by the French in various points of science ; and they 

 traded with the natives, of whose persons, language, arts, customs, 

 &c, minute accounts are presented in the journals of the expedi- 



* After the failure of this scheme, Ledyard undertook, at the suggestion of Mr. 

 Jefferson, then minister plenipotentiary of the United States in France, to proceed 

 by land to Kamtchatka, thence by sea to Nootka Sound, or some other point on the 

 west coast of North America, and thence across the continent, to the Atlantic 

 states of the Federal Union. With this view, permission was obtained, through the 

 agency of the celebrated Baron de Grimm, from the empress of Russia, for Ledyard 

 to pass through her dominions ; and, thus protected, as well as aided, by the govern- 

 ment of that empire, he advanced as far as Irkutsk, in Siberia, on his way to 

 Ochotsk, where he proposed to embark for America. At Irkutsk, however, he was 

 arrested, by order of the empress, on the night of the 24th of February, 1788, and 

 was thence conveyed to the frontiers of Poland, where he was liberated, with an 

 injunction not again to set foot in the Russian territory. The reasons for his expul- 

 sion are unknown; but it was probably occasioned by the representations of the 

 members of the Russian American Trading Company, already mentioned, who 

 wished to keep their proceedings secret. On the 15th of November following, Led- 

 yard's irregular life was ended at Cairo, whither he had gone under the auspices of 

 the African Association of London, on his way to seek for the sources of the Nile. 

 — See the Biography of Ledyard, by Jared Sparks. 



t King Louis XVI. is said to have planned the expedition of La Perouse himself, 

 and to have drawn up the greater part of the instructions with his own hand, before 

 he communicated his intentions to any other person. 



f No account of this extraordinary place has been given by any other navigator. 



