AUDUBON 



This made, as I have said, a very deep impression on my 

 youthful mind. But now, my dear children, I must tell you some- 

 what of my father, and of his parentage. 



John Audubon, my grandfather, was born and lived at the 

 small village of Sable d'Olhonne, and was by trade a very humble 

 fisherman. He appears to have made up for the want of wealth 

 by the number of his children, twenty-one of whom he actually 

 raised to man and womanhood. All were sons, with one excep- 

 tion ; my aunt, one uncle, and my father, who was the twentieth 

 son, being the only members of that extraordinary numerous 

 family who lived to old age. In subsequent years, when I visited 

 Sable d'Olhonne, the old residents assured me that they had seen 

 the whole family, including both parents, at church many times. 



When my father had reached the age of twelve years, his father 

 presented him with a shirt, a dress of coarse material, a stick, and 

 his blessing, and urged him to go and seek means for his future 

 support and sustenance. 



Some ki7id whaler or cod-fisherman took him on board as a 

 " Boy." Of his life during his early voyages it would be useless 

 to trouble you ; let it suffice for me to say that they were of the 

 usual most uncomfortable nature. How many trips he made I 

 cannot say, but he told me that by the time he was seventeen he 

 had become an able seaman before the mast ; when twenty-one 

 he commanded a fishing-smack, and went to the great Newfound- 

 land Banks; at twenty-five he owned several small crafts, all 

 fishermen, and at twenty-eight sailed for Santo Domingo with his 

 little flotilla heavily loaded with the produce of the deep. " For- 

 tune," said he to me one day, " now began to smile upon me. I 

 did well in this enterprise, and after a few more voyages of the 

 same sort gave up the sea, and purchased a small estate on the 

 Isle a Vaches ; ^ the prosperity of Santo Domingo was at its zenith, 

 and in the course of ten years I had realized something very con- 

 siderable. The then Governor gave me an appointment which 

 called me to France, and having received some favors there, I 

 became once more a seafaring man, the government having 

 granted me the command of a small vessel of war." ^ 



1 Isle \ Vache, eight miles south of Aux Cayes. 



2 This vessel was the " Annelle." 



