# Primary Sources on Copyright - Record Viewer
Petition of John Ledyard (1783)

Source: Connecticut State Library: Manuscript (Colleges and Schools, 1661-1789), Series I, Vol. II, Document 149.

Citation:
Petition of John Ledyard (1783), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

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No Translation available.

      To his Excellency the Governor and the Honorable
the General Assembly of the State of Connecticutt


                  The Memorial of John Ledyard humbly
sheweth that in the month of March 1774 the Memo-
rialist left New York in a Merchant Ship in which
he sailed to Falmouth in Great Britain but find-
ing his situation unprofitable & unpleasant in the
ship to which he then belonged he proceeded to
the city of Bristol hoping to [???] he was
however so unfortunate there as to be apprehended
by a kind of Police in that city who obliged him either
to ship himself for the coast of Guinea or to enter
the British Army. Your Memorialist, young,
inexperienced & destitute of friends, chose the
latter as the least of two evils: he continued in
the Army untill early in the year 1775 when
he was ordered to Boston in New England: to this
your memorialist objected being himself a na-
tive of that Country & desired he might be
appointed to some other duty, which ultimatly
was granted: matters continued thus untill
July 1776 when the equipment for discovery
came round from London to Plymouth &
your Memorialist esteeming this a favour-
able conjuncture to free himself forever from
coming to America as her enemy & prompted
also by curiosity & disinterested enterprise

    

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