172, AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
Audubon remained in New York as late as August 
22, 1807, for on that day he made a drawing of the 
“Sprig-tail Duck,” but without doubt he had come to 
feel the incongruity of his position in a business to 
which his heart was a stranger. As an instance of his 
preoccupation at this time, he confesses to have once 
forwarded but forgot to seal a letter containing $8,000. 
If Benjamin Bakewell failed to make a business man 
out of Audubon, it was not from lack of kindness, and 
probably no one else would have been more successful. 
As it happened, Audubon did not leave his employer 
any too soon, for at the close of 1807 Benjamin Bake- 
well’s exporting business was ruined by the Embargo 
Act, through which President Jefferson had hoped to 
bring Great Britain and France to terms by cutting off 
their American trade, and for a year or more his estate 
was in the hands of creditors for settlement. 
The naturalist has left a characteristic sketch of 
himself at this time: “I measured,” said he, “five feet, 
ten and one half inches, was of fair mien, and quite a 
handsome figure; large, dark, and rather sunken eyes, 
light-colored eyebrows, aquiline nose and a fine set of 
teeth; hair, fine texture and luxuriant, divided and pass- 
ing down behind each ear in luxuriant ringlets as far 
as the shoulders.” The habit of wearing his hair long, 
thus early acquired and later favored by his wandering 
mode of life, appears to have lasted more than twenty 
years. 
