Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1Audubon, John James
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Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1
Audubon, John James
Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 -- Diaries; Birds -- North America; Naturalists -- United States -- Diaries
Mr. Da Costa, my tutor, took it into his head that my affection
for your mother was rash and inconsiderate. He spoke triflingly
of her and of her parents, and one day said to me that for a man
of my rank and expectations to marry Lucy Bakewell was out of
the question. If I laughed at him or not I cannot tell you, but
of this I am certain, that my answers to his talks on this
subject so exasperated him that he immediately afterward
curtailed my usual income, made some arrangements to send me to
India, and wrote to my father accordingly. Understanding from
many of my friends that his plans were fixed, and finally
hearing from Philadelphia, whither Da Costa had gone, that he
had taken my passage from Philadelphia to Canton, I walked to
Philadelphia, entered his room quite unexpectedly, and asked
him for such an amount of money as would enable me at once to
sail for France and there see my father.
The cunning wretch, for I cannot call him by any other name,
smiled, and said: "Certainly, my dear sir," and afterward gave
me a letter of credit on a Mr. Kauman, a half-agent,
half-banker, then residing at New York. I returned to Mill
Grove, made all preparatory plans for my departure, bid a sad
adieu to my Lucy and her family, and walked to New York. But
never mind the journey; it was winter, the country lay under a
covering of snow, but withal I reached New York on the third
day, late in the evening.
Once there, I made for the house of a Mrs. Palmer, a lady of
excellent qualities, who received me with the utmost kindness,
and later on the same evening I went to the house of your
grand-uncle, Benjamin Bakewell, then a rich merchant of New
York, managing the concerns of the house of Guelt, bankers, of
London. I was the bearer of a letter from Mr. Bakewell, of
Fatland Ford, to this brother of his, and there I was again most
kindly received and housed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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