in the preface that Lederer's presumption in going “where Englishmen never had been, and whither some refused to accompany him,” brought on him “affronts and reproaches” in Virginia, so that he was obliged to flee to Maryland. Here he became known to Talbot, who, though at first prejudiced against him by popular report, found him “a modest, ingenious person and a pretty scholar,” and determined to vindicate him by translating his account of his travels. Lederer appears to have reached only the “top of the Apalatean mountains,” but gives reasons for supposing that “they are certainly in a great error who imagine that the continent of North America is but eight or ten days' journey over from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean.” Sir William's volume is rare.
LEDLIE, James Hewett, soldier, b. in Utica,
N. Y., 14 April, 1832 ; d. in New Brighton, Staten
island, N. Y., 15 Aug., 1882. He studied at Union
college, became a civil engineer, and at the begin-
ning of the civil war was commissioned major of
the 19th New York infantry, which in the autumn
of 1801 became an artillery regiment. He was made
chief of artillery on the staff of Gen. John G. Fos-
ter late in 1862, and on 24 Dec. promoted to
brigadier - general of volunteers. lie served in
North and South Carolina, and subsequently in
the Army of the Potomac, where his brigade made
the assault on the crater after the mine-explosion
at Petersburg. On 23 Jan., 1865, he resigned, de-
clining a commission in the regular army, and re-
turned to his profession. He took the entire con-
tract for the construction of bridges, trestles, and
snow-sheds on the Union Pacific railroad, built the
breakwaters of Chicago harbor, and was engaged
in railroad construction in the west and south.
At the time of his death Gen. Ledlie was chief en-
gineer of railways in California and Nevada, and
president of the Baltimore, Cincinnati, and West-
ern railroad construction company.
LEDO, Joaquim Goncalves (lay-do), Brazilian
statesman, b. in Rio Janeiro, 11 Dec, 1771; d. in
Macacu, 19 May, 1847. He studied at Coimbra,
but was not graduated on account of feeble health.
In 1821 he was elected from Rio Janeiro to the
constituent assembly that opened its sessions in
that year. He was active in exciting the people to
rebellion against the Portuguese authorities, and
as soon as independence was secured, in 1825, was
elected to parliament. He gained the friendship
of the Emperor Dom Pedro I. and the sympathies
of a great part of the intelligent people of the
country, but he had to contend against the broth-
ers Andrada (q. v.), who were his political adver-
saries. In 1827 Ledo fled to Buenos Ayres because
the Andradas had discovered a plot to wrest the
power from them ; but Pedro I. pardoned him and
recalled him from exile. In 1831, when Pedro I.
abdicated, Ledo also retired from politics; but in
1835 he was elected representative by the province
of Rio Janeiro, and until 1847 he held several pub-
lic offices. When he was in the government he
struggled to introduce in his country labor-saving
machinery. In 1847 he resolved to withdraw for-
ever from politics, and retired to a farm to devote
himself to literature; but in a fit of insanity he
burned the larger part of his manuscripts, only a
few being saved. The Brazilian government has
lately issued a decree for printing those of his
works that remain unedited. Ledo was a power-
ful orator and good writer, his best work being his
" History of the Independence of Brazil " (1846).
He also composed several poems and tragedies.
LEDRU, Andre Pierre (leh-droo'), French nat-
uralist, b. in Chantenay, France, 22 Jan., 1761 ; d. in
Mans, 11 July, 1825. At the beginning of the French
revolution he had been ordained to the priesthood,
and was one of the first to take the oath prescribed
by the civil constitution of the clergy in 1791.
When, in 1793, the convention decreed the abolition
of all religion, Ledru returned to his family and
afterward went to Paris, where he remained until
he left his country with the expedition to the
Canary and West India islands under Capt. Bau-
din, to which he had been appointed botanist. On
his return in 1798 the government made him the
professor of legislation in the central school of La
Sarthe, and afterward opened a school for free in-
struction in physics and natural history in his
house, where he had a large library, a fine herbari-
um, and a botanical garden. His collections are
now in the museum of the city of Mans. From
1816 until 1830 he occupied himself in preparing
for publication several works, of which the most
important are " Memoires sur les ceremonies re-
ligieuses et vocabulaire des Guanches," published
in " Memoires de PAcademie Celtique " (1809), and
"Voyage aux isles de Tenerif, La Trinite, St.
Thomas, Ste. Croix, et Porto Rico, execute par
l'ordre du gouvernement Francais, par Andre Pierre
Ledru, l'un des natural istes de Pexpedition " (Paris,
1810-'20). A Spanish translation of the part of
this book that relates to Porto Rico was made by
Julio L. Vizcarrondo (Porto Rico, 1863).
LEDRU, Hector Priam, West Indian sculp-
tor, b. in Les Saintes in 1726; d. there in 1775.
He was a mulatto, and, as he early exhibited a
strong tendency for sculpture, the Marquis Pinel
Dumanoir de la Palan, whose slave he was, sent
him to study in Paris. There he interested Dide-
rot, D'Alembert, Holbach, Rousseau, and the phi-
losophers of the " Encyclopaedia," to which he con-
tributed several articles and sketches on the colo-
nies and Central American characters. In 1761 he
exhibited, in the salon of the Louvre, a bust of
Columbus, which was highly praised. Among his
other works are " Captive Indians" (1756); "Buc-
caneers at Rest" (1759); "Slave Unjustly Chas-
tised" (1763); and "America the Treasure of Eu-
rope" (1767). Returning to his native country in
1763, he executed ornaments and statues for
churches of Les Saintes, Guadeloupe, and Martin-
ique, and became wealthy. He published " Histoire
de l'art en Amerique" (2 vols., Paris, 1769) and
" L'art chez les Aztiques et les Incas " (4 vols., 1771).
LEDYARD, William, soldier, b. in Groton,
Conn., about 1750; d. there, 7 Sept., 1781. He
held the commission of colonel in the militia of
Connecticut, and during the expedition of Benedict
Arnold along the coast of that state in
September, 1781, was in command of Fort Trumbull
and Fort Griswold, which protected New London.
In the latter work, with 157 hastily collected and
poorly armed militia, he resisted for nearly an hour
the attack of a British force of 800 men led by
Lieut.-Col. Eyre. This attack was made on three
sides, and, although there was a battery between
the fort and the river, the Americans could spare
no men to work it. The enemy made their way into
the fosse and scaled the works in the face of a
severe fire from the little garrison. Lieut.-Col. Eyre
was wounded, and died twelve hours afterward on
shipboard, and his successor, Maj. Montgomery,
having been killed while mounting the parapet,
the command devolved upon Maj. Bromfield, a
Tory, who effected an entrance into the fort after
nearly 200 of his men had been disabled, including
48 killed, the Americans having lost only about
twelve men. Col. Ledyard ordered his men to
cease firing and to lay down their arms. “Who
