EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 245 



At one of their last meetings, in 1842, Rozier, who had 

 then returned from France, visited Audubon at his home 

 on the Hudson, and both were entertained in New York 

 by their mutual friend, Nicholas Berthoud. 



Ferdinand Rozier, with whom we now part company, 

 lived to enjoy abundant prosperity as a trader and mer- 

 chant at Ste. Genevieve. Born in Nantes on November 

 9, 1777, 7 at the age of twenty-five he entered the French 

 navy, at a time when Napoleon was contesting with 

 England the supremacy of the sea. He made numerous 

 voyages, and we hear of him at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 the Island of France or Mauritius, at Cadiz, Teneriffe, 

 and at the Island of Bartholomew. Eventually, on 

 April 8, 1804, he embarked on the cutter Experiment, 

 with Captain Upton in charge, bound for the United 

 States, where he visited a number of American ports, 

 including Philadelphia and Norfolk. In the following 

 year he returned to France in the frigate President, 

 Captain Gallic Lebrosse, and entered the harbor of 

 Nantes on March 1, 1805. 8 In the spring of that year 

 John James Audubon, as we have seen, had also re- 

 turned to that city, and plans were eventually laid for 

 their commercial aggrandizement in the New World 

 which both had so lately visited. To what extent Au- 

 dubon's dreams failed of realization may be gathered 

 from the following chapters. 



Having settled finally at Ste. Genevieve, Rozier, at 

 thirty-six, married Constance Roy, a girl of eighteen, 

 who bore him ten children, four of whom, all octogena- 

 rians, were living in 1905. Ferdinand Rozier's thrift 

 and industry soon brought him substantial rewards. In 

 his earlier days he is said to have made six journeys to 



T Compare Note, Vol. I, p. 152. 

 See Note, Vol. I, p. 148. 



