116 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



merit of his youthful charge was quite as difficult as 

 making a success of the mine. His grievances on this 

 score were duly reported at Coueron, and if he was 

 really trying to carry out the instructions which came 

 from France, it was perhaps no wonder that he received 

 the undisguised contempt of his rebellious pupil. How 

 just the naturalist's charges against his hated tutor 

 may have been, will be considered in the sequel, but 

 Lieutenant Audubon's letters, 5 to be given presently at 

 length, clearly show that in spite of the strained rela- 

 tions which later ensued, Dacosta continued to enjoy his 

 confidence for some time after young Audubon's return 

 to France in 1805. The more serious troubles that fol- 

 lowed seem to have arisen from entanglements into 

 which all were later drawn. 



In the first two letters to be given, but the third and 

 fourth of the series, Jean Audubon refers particularly 

 to "Mill Grove" and the prospective mine, and to the 

 proposed marriage of his son to Lucy Bakewell, con- 

 cerning which he was reluctant to give his consent for 

 reasons which he specifies at length; his sanction was 

 in fact withheld until the young man was on the road to 

 self-support two years later. 



Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta 



[Nantes, 1804-5] 



I told you to sell to W. Thomas the portion on the other 

 side . . . but your letter of the 27th of September with that 



5 For copies of a part of the Audubon-Dacosta correspondence, which 

 is perhaps half of what exists but all that it was possible to obtain, I 

 am indebted to Monsieur Lavigne. The first letter, the present copy of 

 which is incomplete, was evidently written in the winter of 1804-5. 

 Lieutenant Audubon, who at this time was sixty-one years old, was living 

 at Coueron, but came to Nantes to conduct his correspondence. All 

 the letters were carefully transcribed in a separate copybook, and are 

 here translated as literally as possible from the French. 



