DACOSTA AND THE MINE 115 



tion to a small salary. 4 In case the mine proved a suc- 

 cess, it was understood that young Audubon was to 

 be taken into the business and thus obtain a means of 

 self-support. 



Dacosta was at first averse to forming a company, but 

 the Quaker tenant, William Thomas, who caught the 

 fever, and who was thought to possess more knowledge 

 of the mine than he was ready to divulge, seems to 

 have been taken conditionally into the partnership. Da- 

 costa made full reports of his progress to the old sailor 

 at Coueron, who came regularly to Nantes to send back 

 to America his well considered answers and candid ad- 

 vice. Dacosta also called persistently for money, but 

 as Lieutenant Audubon was unable to meet these de- 

 mands, he applied to his friend Francois Rozier, a 

 wealthy merchant at Nantes, to supply the needed capi- 

 tal. Rozier invested 16,000 francs, and to complicate 

 matters took a mortgage upon one-half of the value of 

 "Mill Grove," in which the earlier proprietor, John 

 Augustin Prevost, as well as Francis Dacosta, was also 

 interested. Jean Audubon, Dacosta and Rozier thus 

 became partners in an enterprise which seems to have 

 swallowed up all of the money which was advanced and 

 never to have made any substantial returns. 



The eventual failure of the lead mine must be at- 

 tributed in part to the high cost of materials, as well 

 as to the expense involved in uncovering the ore, a 

 difficulty which all later exploiters seem to have found 

 insuperable. Dacosta also discovered that the manage- 



4 The following item appears in Dacosta's final account : "To com- 

 pensation claimed by Francis Dacosta for making up half of his expenses, 

 in managing the mining works, the mill-repairs, and taking up the forma- 

 tion of a company during two years of constant cares, troubles, and 

 loss of time, at 300 dollars a year $600.00." (From statement of dis- 

 puted claim; see Note, Vol. I, p. 168.) 



