CHAPTER XXIV 
FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF NEW BIRDS 
Audubon settles for a time in Camden—Paints in a fisherman’s cottage 
by the sea—With the lumbermen in the Great Pine Woods—Work 
done—Visits his sons—Joins his wife at St. Francisville—Record of 
journey south—Life at “Beechgrove’—Mrs. Audubon retires from 
teaching—Their plans to return to England—Meeting with President 
Jackson and Edward Everett. 
Audubon laid his plans to visit America in 1829 
with unusual care, and was fortunate in being able to 
entrust his publication to the competent hands of John 
George Children, of the British Museum. This was 
to be actually his third voyage to the United States, 
but it was the first which he made from English soil, 
and after he had become known as an ornithologist and 
animal painter. He wished to renew at least fifty of his 
earlier drawings and to obtain new materials of every 
description. Although he was naturally anxious to see 
his wife, from whom he had been absent for nearly three 
years, and his boys, the elder of whom had been left 
at Shippingport five years before, he felt constrained 
to devote to his work every moment that could be spared. 
When writing to his wife of his difficulties and pros- 
pects at this period, he assured her that he would act 
cautiously, with all due diligence and sobriety, and con- 
tinued: 
Thou art quite comfortable in Louisiana, I know; there- 
fore wait there with a little patience. I hope the end of this 
year will see me under headway sufficient to have thee with 
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