The next capacity in which we find Ledyard is that of a corporal of marines, on board the ship of Captain Cook, then preparing for his third and last voyage round the world. Of this voyage Ledyard is said to have kept a minute journal, which, as in all cases of voyages of discovery, went among the rest to the Admiralty, and was never restored. Two years afterwards, Ledyard, with the assistance of a brief outline of the voyage published in London, and from his own recollection, brought out, in a small duodecimo, his narrative of the principal transactions of the voyage, in which, we hear (for we have never seen it) he blames the officers, and Captain Cook in particular, for several instances of precipitate and incautious conduct, not to say severity, towards the various natives with whom they were brought in contact. It was to this want of caution, and a due consideration for the habits and feelings of the Sandwich Islanders, that he imputed the death of this celebrated navigator. The late Admiral Burney, who served as a lieutenant on the voyage, says that, "with an ardent disposition, Ledyard had a passion for lofty sentiment and description." He adds that, after Cook's death, Ledyard proffered his services to Captain Clarke, to undertake the office of historiographer of the expedition, and presented a specimen descriptive of the manners of the Society Islanders; "but," says this author, "his ideas were thought too sentimental, and his language too florid."
"A snapper up of unconsidered trifles." SHAKSPEARE.
The village of Polstead, though obscurely situate, is not entirely destitute of celebrity, chiefly derived from an abundance of the small, sweet, black cherries,[10] so common in London, and known for miles round by the exclusive denomination of Polstead cherries. There are here large orchards of cherry-trees; and it is a common observation, that the face of a Polstead man is an index of a good or bad cherry season; if productive, he may be seen with his chin in the air, his hands in his pockets, and a saucy answer on the tip of his tongue; if, on the contrary, the crop of cherries has failed, he hangs his head, folds his hands behind him, and if asked whence he comes, replies, in a subdued tone, "_From poor Poustead_."