2 LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



me with a shirt, a dress of warm clothing, his blessing, and a 

 cane, and sent me out to seek my fortune." 



The youth went to Nantes, and falling in with the captain of 

 a yessel 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 commanded 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 

 purchased a small estate. The prosperity of St. Dotningo, 

 already French, so influenced the mariner's fortunes, that in 

 ten years he realised a considerable fortune. Obtaining 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 government of the First 

 Empire. Through their good offices he obtained an appoint- 

 ment 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 re- 

 markable 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 manners 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 

 inanners, 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 residing in the West 

 Indies, he frequently visited North America, and with some fore- 

 sight made purchases of land in the French colony of Louisiana, 

 in Virginia, and Pennsylvania. In one of his American visits he 

 met and married in Louisiana a lady of Spanish extraction 



