During the years 1783-86 Ledyard tried, on both sides of the Atlantic, to find an entrepreneur willing to finance him and provide him with a ship to reach the northwest coast. In the United States, however, from the end of the war on, the state of commercial affairs was becoming worse in the seaports. By the spring of 1784 the glutted market, scarcity of specie, and overextension of credit all combined to produce a serious commercial depression. Although the merchants in Philadelphia and all along the coast were in difficulty, the depression hit New England states the hardest.
— p13 reprint of John Ledyard’s “Journey Through Russia and Siberia”e