100 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
phia,” and to the hands of this trustworthy man he now 
confided his son. Accordingly, when young Audubon 
had been nursed back to health, word was sent to his 
father’s friend, who came in his carriage and drove the 
lad to his own home in the outskirts of Philadelphia. To 
follow the account which the naturalist gave, when writ- 
ing of this visit a quarter of a century later, his host, 
finding his charge to be a comely youth, and having a 
daughter “of no mean appearance,” proposed that he 
should remain with them and become one of the family. 
Audubon seems to have suspected that this was a pre- 
meditated scheme to entangle him in marriage, and as 
he had no liking for the severity of Quaker manners, 
determined to make his escape. This, he said, was finally 
accomplished by appealing to his own rights and to the 
honest Quaker’s sense of duty in seeing him established 
on the estate which his father had designed for him. 
Though effective for the time, as will presently appear, 
this appeal was quite fanciful, for Jean Audubon’s ideas 
concerning the future of his son were of a more practical 
character, and he had no intention at this time of estab- 
lishing him at “Mill Grove,” which was soon to be sold. 
The friend to whom the following letter was addressed 
is implored to aid in finding a good American family 
in which his son could acquire the English language as 
a step to entering trade:* 
This will be handed to you by my son, to whom, I request 
you will render every service in your power, wishing that you 
shd. join Mr. Miers Fisher to procure him a good and healthy 
place where he might learn english. I come to point out to 
* The rough draft of a letter in English, evidently written by Lieutenant 
Audubon to be delivered by his son to the ship’s captain, and probably 
in duplicate to his agent, Miers Fisher, but bearing no name or date. 
(Lavigne MSS.) 
