1 2 Life of Audubon, 



The youth went to Nantes, and falling in with the 

 captain of a vessel bound on a fishing voyage to the coast 

 of America, he shipped on board as a boy before the mast. 

 He continued at sea, and by the age of seventeen was 

 rated as an able-bodied seaman. At twenty-one he com- 

 manded a vessel, and at twenty-five he was owner and 

 captain of a small craft. Purchasing other vessels, the 

 enterprising adventurer sailed with his little fleet to the 

 West Indies. He reached St. Domingo, and there fortune 

 dawned upon him. After a few more voyages he pur- 

 chased a small estate. The prosperity of St. Domingo, 

 already French, so influenced the mariner's interests, that 

 in ten years he reahzed a considerable fortune. Obtain- 

 ing an appointment from the Governor of St. Domingo, 

 he returned to France, and in his official capacity became 

 intimate with influential men connected with, the govern- 

 ment of the First Empire. Through their good offices he 

 obtained an appointment in the Imperial navy and the 

 command of a small vessel of war. A warm sympathy 

 with the changes wrought by the revolution, and an 

 idolatrous worship of Napoleon, must have contributed 

 greatly to his success. 



While resident in France he purchased a beautiful 

 estate on the Loire, nine miles from Nantes ; — there, 

 after a life of remarkable vicissitude, the old sailor died, 

 in 1818, at the great age of ninety -five, regretted, as 

 he deserved to be, on account of his simplicity of man- 

 ners and perfect sense of honesty. Our Audubon has 

 described his father as a man of good proportions, 

 measuring five feet ten inches in height, having a hardy 

 constitution and the agility of a wild cat. His manners, 

 it is asserted, were most polished, and his natural gifts 

 improved by self-education. He had a warm and even 

 violent temper, described as rising at times into "the 

 blast of a hurricane," but readily appeased. While 



