2 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
speaks of himself as being nearly sev- 
enteen when his mother had him con- 
firmed in the Catholic Church, and this 
was about the time that his father, then 
an Officer in the French navy, was sent 
to England to effect a change of prison- 
ers, which time is given as 1801. 
The two race strains that mingle in 
him probably account for this illogical 
habit of mind, as well as for his roman- 
tic and artistic temper and tastes. 
His father was a sea-faring man and 
a Frenchman ; his mother was a Spanish 
Creole of Louisiana — the old chivalrous 
Castilian blood modified by new world 
conditions. The father, through com- 
mercial channels, accumulated a large 
property in the island of St. Domingo. 
In the course of his trading he made 
frequent journeys to Louisiana, then the 
property of the French government. 
On one of these trips, probably, he mar- 
ried one of the native women, who is 
said to have possessed both wealth and 
