188 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



the style and character of the man, and they were not 

 made in vain. Audubon's belief in his mission was so 

 plainly sincere, his power so manifest and his enthusiasm 

 so ardent, that there were few who did not gladly ac- 

 claim the extraordinary success of the man who twelve 

 years before had landed in Liverpool poor and unknown. 

 In the winter and spring of 1839, while Audubon 

 was engaged in Edinburgh and Victor was in America, 

 the settlement of his business affairs in London was 

 entrusted mainly to Robert Havell, his engraver. At 

 that time Havell was also pulling up roots, for he had 

 caught the spirit of his patron and had decided to emi- 

 grate with his family to the United States ; this involved 

 disposing of his stock and breaking up his engraving 

 and printing establishment at 77 Oxford Street. Havell 

 had acquired distinction as well as a competence through 

 his long engagement with Audubon, and being then in 

 his forty-sixth year, he doubtless looked to America 

 as a field for the fuller expression of his artistic aspira- 

 tions and talents. How anxious Audubon was at this 

 juncture regarding the disposition of the residual stock 

 of his plates, his drawings, and his books, then in Ha- 

 vell's hands, is seen by the following letter, 11 written at 

 Edinburgh, in the winter of this year. 



Audubon to Robert Havell 



EDINBURGH, Feb. 20th, Monday, 1839. 

 MY DEAR MR. HAVELL 



I perceive by the date of your letter of the 16th instant 

 that you must have been some days beyond my expectations, 



"First published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), in The Auk, 

 vol. xxv (1908). Mr. Deane writes me that he has a copy of a receipt from 

 William MacGillivray to Audubon for the final amount due him for work 

 on the technical parts of Volume V of the Ornithological Biography; at the 

 bottom of this paper Audubon made a memorandum, under date of Novem- 

 ber 21, 1838, to the effect that the total amount which he had paid MacGil- 

 livray for his work upon this volume was 47-11-1. 



