1200 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
When the preceding letter was written young Audu- 
bon was on his way to France, to protest, as he said, 
against Dacosta’s treatment of him. At the date of the 
letter which follows, he was at Couéron, hunting birds 
with Dr. d’Orbigny. 
Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta 
Nantes, 14 June, 1805 
To Mr. Dacosta, Philadelphia: 
I have received, at this very moment, your letter of the 
8th of April. I have replied to your preceding by duplicate. 
Like yourself I am greatly astonished that you should not have 
received the contracts which I forwarded to you at once. I 
have reserved copies of these papers, which I have literally 
copied. 
If I had the least idea that they would not reach you, and 
that an accident had befallen the ship, I should forward them 
in duplicate, but as this boat, at the time of its departure, was 
long delayed by the embargoes as well as by bad weather, I 
am persuaded that this is the sole cause, and that they will 
have reached you since. 
You are about to appeal to the supreme court to prove 
your ownership; is there a living being who can contest it? 
If our deeds, granted in France, have not their full force in 
that country, nothing can annul them for us who are French. 
You shall do in this matter what you like; the greatest objec- 
tion is this, that it stops your operations; but who is to blame? 
It is due to distance, and not to any negligence. 
You say that you will do nothing until you have these 
documents ; if your intention is to work for our benefit, as you 
say in your preceding, a company still being disagreeable [to 
you], that ought not to stop you; you have every power, [and] 
time lost is irreparable. I am much annoyed at the delay that 
this Mr. Miers Fisher causes you; as you say, he is an honest 
man, but negligent, and this in consequence of his age, and 
absorption in his great business. 
