Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Sparks, Jared. The Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller; Comprising Selections from his Journals and Correspondence. Cambridge: Published by Hilliard and Brown; Boston: and by Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins: and Richardson and Lord; New York: G. and C. Carvill; Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Carey, 1828.

Jared Sparks. The Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller; Comprising Selections from his Journals and Correspondence. Cambridge: Published by Hilliard and Brown...., 1828. p. 325.

Sparks presented Ledyard as an American pioneer who traveled not westward across the continent, but eastward to Europe, Asia, and Africa.

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His letters afford convincing proofs of his kind and amiable disposition, gratitude to his benefactors, humanity, and disinterestedness. This last virtue, indeed, he practised to an excess. No man ever acted with less regard to self, or on a broader scale of philanthropy and general good. That he finally accomplished little, compared with the magnitude of his designs, was his misfortune, but not his fault. Had he been less eccentric, however, in some of his peculiarities, more attentive to his immediate interests, more regardful of the force of circumstances, it is possible that his efforts would have been rewarded with better success. The acts of his life demand notice less on account of their results, than of the spirit with which they were performed, and the uncommon traits of character which prompted to their execution. Such instances of decision, energy, perseverance, fortitude, and enterprise, have rarely been witnessed in the same individual; and, in the exercise of these high attributes of mind, his example cannot be too much admired or imitated.