FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 249 
East and Bakewell was about to return to New Orleans 
in the employ of a firm of Liverpool merchants who 
dealt in cotton. Bakewell, who had seen much of the 
South since the failure of his uncle in New York, in- 
duced Audubon to join him in an independent commis- 
sion business, with the assurance that his French 
nationality would help their undertakings. According 
to Vincent Nolte, when they were descending the Ohio 
in December, 1811, Audubon displayed a business card, 
showing the firm name of “Audubon and Bakewell,” 
and indicating that they were to deal in such homely 
products as pork, lard and flour. Thomas Bakewell, 
we are told, taking with him all the disposable funds of 
Audubon, who continued to send him “almost all the 
money” that he could raise, opened their business at New 
Orleans in the winter or spring of 1812, just in time for 
the war, which broke out in June, to destroy it. When 
he returned north, in August of that year, Thomas 
Bakewell, said the naturalist, suddenly appeared one 
day at “Meadow Brook Farm,” while he was making 
a drawing of an otter, and after bewailing their misfor- 
tune in trade, departed. 
At the approach of spring in 1812 Audubon was hard 
pressed for funds, and Rozier’s notes to him being then 
overdue he set out on foot for Ste. Genevieve to collect 
his money in person. He went out with a party of 
friendly Osage Indians, but returned, still afoot and 
unpaid, with his faithful dog as his only companion.® 
The prairies were then flooded and converted into vast 
This journey was probably made in February, though the date 
is given as April (see Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals, 
vol. i, p. 44), if the legends of four drawings of this time are to be 
trusted; all are labeled Pennsylvania, and bear the following dates: Swamp 
Sparrow, March, 1812; Spotted Sandpiper, April 22, 1812; White-throated 
Sparrow, April 24, 1812; and Whippoorwill, May 7, 1812. 
