John Ledyard: Controversial Corporal

‘We have made a fruitless search after my friend Ledyard’s letters,’ wrote the Marquis de Lafayette in August, 1823, to Ledyard’s would-be biographer, ‘and am without hopes to recover them - but as the Havre packet is to sail in a few days I will not defer the little information I can give... (concerning) the good and extraordinary man... Mr Jefferson and myself, I am proud to say, had indeed a great share in his affections.’

It must have been extraordinary qualities of character and mind that the Marquis referred to, for John Ledyard had neither great family connexions, high position, nor any personal wealth. In fact, he had nothing at all. His father, a captain in the West India trade, had died when his four children were quite young, leaving an estate of which his widow was soon defrauded.