biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1751–89)
|
| biography:
| Explorer and adventurer, born in Groton, Connecticut, USA. He joined a British regiment and sailed with Captain James Cook (1776–80). Back in London, he refused to fight against the American colonists so he spent two years confined to barracks (1780–2). He had seen the possibility of a fur trade in NW North America and spent several years unsuccessfully trying to organize expeditions there. In 1786 he conceived the notion of walking across Siberia, but after setting out from St Petersburg (1787) he was stopped by officials (under order from Empress Catherine) at Irkutsk, Siberia (1788). He returned to London, and the next year died in Cairo while planning an expedition to the sources of the Niger R. |
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