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That a Stranger should presume (though with Sir William Berkly’s Commission) to go into those Parts of the American Continent where Englishmen never had been, and whither some refused to accompany him, was, in Virginia look’d on as so great an insolence, that our Traveller at his Return, instead of Welcom and Applause, met nothing but Affronts and Reproaches; for indeed it was their part, that forsook him in the Expedition, to procure him discredit that was a witness to theirs; Therefore no industry was wanting to prepare Men with a prejudice against him, and this their malice improved to such a general Animosity, that he was not safe in Virginia from the outrage of the People, drawn into a perswasion, that the Publick Levy of that year, went all to the expence of his Vagaries. Forced by this storm into Maryland, he became known to me, though then ill-affected to the Man, by the stories that went about of him: Nevertheless finding him, contrary to my expectation, a modest ingenious person, & a pretty Scholar, I thought it common Justice to give him an occasion of vindicating himself from what I had heard of him; which truly he did with so convincing Reason and circumstance, as quite abolished those former impressions in me, and made me desire this Account of his Travels, which here you have faithfully rendred out of Latine from his own Writings and Discourse, with an entire Map of the Territory he traversed, copied from his own hand. All these I have compared with Indian Relations of those parts (though I never met with any Indian that had followed a Southwest-Course so far as this German) and finding them agree, I thought the Printing of these Papers was no injury to the Author, and might prove a Service to the Publick.

William Talbot.

A MAP OF THE WHOLE TERRITORY TRAVERSED BY JOHN LEDERER IN HIS THREE MARCHES.