Disappointed and needy, he applied for advice and assistance to Mr. Jefferson, at that time the American minister at the court of France. Ledyard had no views of pecuniary gain in the contemplated enterprise: he sought only an opportunity of indulging his love of adventure by exploring regions at that time unknown. Mr. Jefferson, as the guardian of his country's interests and the friend of science, was warmly interested in any scheme which contemplated the opening of the vast interior regions of the American continent to the occupancy of civilized man. Since it was impossible to engage mercantile adventurers to fit out an expedition by sea, Mr. Jefferson proposed to Ledyard that he should go as a traveller, by land, through the Russian territories, as far as the eastern coast of the continent of Asia, and from thence get such conveyance as he could to the neighboring coast of America, and thus reach the spot where his main journey was to begin. Ledyard eagerly embraced the proposal. Permission was obtained from the Empress Catharine of Russia, and the enterprising traveller, in December, 1786, set forth. He traversed Denmark and Sweden; passed round the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, after an unsuccessful attempt to cross it on the ice; and reached St. Petersburg in March, 1787, without money, shoes, or stockings, having gone this immense journey on foot in an arctic winter. At St. Petersburg he obtained notice, money to the amount of twenty guineas, and permission to accompany a convoy of stores to Yakoutsk, in Siberia. But, for some unexplained reason, he was arrested at that place by order of the empress, and conveyed back to Europe; being cautioned, on his release, not again to set foot within the Russian territories, under penalty of death. This harsh treatment is supposed to have arisen from the jealousy of the Russian fur-traders, who feared that Ledyard's proceedings would rouse up rivals in their trade. Mr. Jefferson did not, upon this disappointment, abandon the idea of an exploration of the interior of the American continent. At his suggestion, the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia took measures, in 1792, to send suitable persons to make a similar transit of the continent in the opposite direction; that is, by ascending the Missouri, and descending the Columbia. Nothing was effected, however, at that time, except awakening the attention of Capt. Meriwether Lewis, a young officer in the American army, a neighbor and relative of Gen. Washington. He eagerly sought to be employed to make the contemplated journey.