132 LIFE OP AUDUBON. 



of Jew-stops or any others, and never refusing the offers made 

 me for the pictures I carried quite fresh from the easel. Start- 

 ling and surprising as this may seem, it is nevertheless true, 

 and one of the curious events of my most extraordinary life. 

 Let me add here, that I sold seven copies of the ' Entrapped 

 Otter ' in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, besides one copy 

 presented to my friend Mr. Eichard Rathbone. In other pictures, 

 also, I sold from seven to ten copies, merely by changing the 

 course of my rambles ; and strange to say, that when in after 

 years and better times I called on the different owners to 

 whom I had sold the copies, I never found a single one in their 

 hands. And I recollect that once, through inadvertence, 

 when I called at a shop where I had sold a copy of a picture, 

 the dealer bought the duplicate at the same price he had given 

 for the first ! What has become of all those pictures ?" 



About this date Sir Eobert Peel returned a letter Audubon 

 had brought to him from Lord Meadowbank, and requested him 

 to hand it over to his successor. This Audubon interpreted as 

 giving him to understand that he need trouble him no more. The 

 letter was written with the view of gaining a presentation to the 

 king, and the writer was not a man to easily relinquish an idea or 

 an object which he had once determined on. Accordingly, he 

 says, " I made up my mind to go directly to the American minister, 

 Mr. Gallatin, and know from him how I should proceed, and if 

 there were really no chance of my approaching the king nearer 

 than by passing his castle. To pay a visit of this sort in London 

 is really no joke ; but as I thought there was a possibility of it 

 for myself, 1 wanted to have the opinion of one who I believed 

 was capable of deciding the matter. 



" As I reached his presence he said, laughing, ' Always at 

 home, my dear sir, when I am not out.' I understood him 

 perfectly, and explained the object of my visit. His intellectual 

 face lighted up as he replied, ' What a simple man you must be 

 to believe all that is said to you about being introduced to his 

 majesty ! It is impossible, my dear sir ; the king sees nobody ; 

 he has the gout, is peevish, and spends his time playing whist 

 at a shilling a rubber. I had to wait six weeks before I was 

 presented to him in my position of ambassador, and then I 

 merely saw him six or seven minutes. He stood only during 



