154 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
well, Thomas Pears, a nephew of his wife, Thomas 
Bakewell, his son, as well as John James Audubon. 
The hospitable family to which young Audubon was 
now admitted on terms of intimacy, in accordance with 
the custom of the day, lived in the rear of the counting- 
house during the winter months but in summer migrated 
to the country, the Bakewells going five miles out on 
the Bloomingdale Road. Benjamin Bakewell had 
come to this country in 1794, in the same year as the 
famous chemist, Joseph Priestley, whose friendship he 
enjoyed and whose religious teachings had drawn both 
him and his brother, William, from rigid Calvinism to 
the greater tolerance of the Unitarian belief. At 
twenty-four he was an independent mercer in Corn- 
hill, London, and was well acquainted in France, where 
he had spent considerable time during the Revolution, 
which had destroyed his trade. One of his patrons at 
this time was Claude Francois Rozier of Nantes, and 
inasmuch as the correspondence with him had to be 
conducted in French, and may possibly in this instance 
have been due to young Audubon’s initiative, it was 
naturally intrusted to him. 
Seven letters of the naturalist, dating from January 
10, 1807, to July 19 of that year, by good fortune have 
been preserved, and they throw into full light another 
shaded corner of his interesting life. From the con- 
tents of these letters,* as well as from other facts, we 
®For the privilege of examining these letters I am indebted to the 
courtesy of Dr. Louis Bureau, Director of the Museum of Natural His- 
tory and Professor in the School of Medicine at Nantes, maternal great- 
grandson of Francois, and grandnephew of Ferdinand Rozier. The letters 
were found in an old trunk that once belonged to his grandfather, Francois 
Denis Rozier. Five were written in French (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7), and 
addressed from New York to Francois Rozier at Nantes; one (No. 8) 
in English and another (No. 5) in French were sent in care of Rozier, 
to his father, John Audubon, Esq., Nantes, with the direction to be 
delivered as soon as possible; all are on unruled foolscap, wafer-sealed, 
