Under Louis Philippe he made large contributions to French jurisprudence, editing the Journal du palais, 1791-1837 (27 vols., 1837), and 1837-1847 (17 vols.), with a commentary Répertoire général de la jurisprudence française (8 vols., 1843-1848), the introduction to which was written by himself. His later writings were political in character. See Ledru-Rollin, ses discours et ses écrits politiques (2 vols., Paris, 1879), edited by his widow.
[1] Arago, Garnier-Pagès, Marie, Lamartine, and Ledru-Rollin.
LEDYARD, JOHN (1751-1789), American traveller, was born in Groton, Connecticut, U.S.A. After vainly trying law and theology, Ledyard adopted a seaman’s life, and, coming to London, was engaged as corporal of marines by Captain Cook for his third voyage (1776). On his return (1778) Ledyard had to give up to the Admiralty his copious journals, but afterwards published, from memory, a meagre narrative of his experiences—herein giving the only account of Cook’s death by an eye-witness (Hartford, U.S.A., 1783). He continued in the British service till 1782, when he escaped, off Long Island. In 1784 he revisited Europe, to organize an expedition to the American North-West. Having failed in his attempts, he decided to reach his goal by travelling across Europe and Asia. Baffled in his hopes of crossing the Baltic on the ice (Stockholm to Abo), he walked right round from Stockholm to St Petersburg, where he arrived barefoot and penniless (March 1787). Here he made friends with Pallas and others, and accompanied Dr Brown, a Scotch physician in the Russian service, to Siberia. Ledyard left Dr Brown at Barnaul, went on to Tomsk and Irkutsk, visited Lake Baikal, and descended the Lena to Yakutsk (18th of September 1787). With Captain Joseph Billings, whom he had known on Cook’s “Resolution,” he returned to Irkutsk, where he was arrested, deported to the Polish frontier, and banished from Russia for ever. Reaching London, he was engaged by Sir Joseph Banks and the African Association to explore overland routes from Alexandria to the Niger, but in Cairo he succumbed to a dose of vitriol (17th of January 1789). Though a born explorer, little resulted from his immense but ill-directed activities.
See Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard, by Jared Sparks (1828).
LEE, ANN (1736-1784), English religious visionary, was born in Manchester, where she was first a factory hand and afterwards a cook. She is remembered by her connexion with the sect known as Shakers (q.v.). She died at Watervliet, near Albany, New York.
LEE, ARTHUR (1740-1792), American diplomatist, brother of Richard Henry Lee, was born at Stratford, Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 20th of December 1740. He was educated at Eton, studied medicine at Edinburgh, practised as a physician in Williamsburg, Virginia, read law at the Temple, London, in 1766-1770, and practised law in London in 1770-1776. He was an intimate of John Wilkes, whom he aided in one of his London campaigns. In 1770-1775 he served as London agent for Massachusetts, second to Benjamin Franklin, whom he succeeded in 1775. At that time he had shown great ability as a pamphleteer, having published in London The Monitor (1768), seven essays previously printed in Virginia; The Political Detection: or the Treachery and Tyranny of Administration, both at Home and Abroad (1770), signed “Junius Americanus”; and An Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the People of Great Britain in the Present Disputes with America (1774), signed “An Old Member of Parliament.” In December 1775 the Committee of Secret Correspondence of Congress chose him its European agent principally for the purpose of ascertaining the views of France, Spain, and other European countries regarding the war between the colonies and Great Britain. In October 1776 he was appointed, upon the refusal of Jefferson, on the commission with Franklin and Silas Deane to negotiate a treaty of alliance, amity and commerce with France, and also to negotiate with other European governments. His letters to Congress, in which he expressed his suspicion of Deane’s business integrity and criticized his accounts, resulted in Deane’s recall; and other letters impaired the confidence of Congress in Franklin, of whom he was especially jealous. Early in 1777 he went to Spain as American commissioner, but received no official recognition, was not permitted to proceed farther than Burgos, and accomplished nothing; until the appointment of Jay, however, he continued to act as commissioner to Spain, held various conferences with the Spanish minister in Paris, and in January 1778 secured a promise of a loan of 3,000,000 livres, only a small part of which (some 170,000 livres) was paid. In June 1777 he went to Berlin, where, as in Spain, he was not officially recognized. Although he had little to do with the negotiations, he signed with Franklin and Deane in February 1778 the treaties between the United States and France. Having become unpopular at the courts of France and Spain, Lee was recalled in 1779, and returned to the United States in September 1780. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1781 and a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782-1785. With Oliver Wolcott and Richard Butler he negotiated a treaty with the Six Nations, signed at Fort Stanwix on the 22nd of October 1784, and with George Clark and Richard Butler a treaty with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, signed at Ft. McIntosh on the 21st of January 1785. He was a member of the treasury board in 1784-1789. He strongly opposed the constitution, and after its adoption retired to his estate at Urbana, Virginia, where he died on the 12th of December 1792.