Seven letters of the naturalist, dating from January 10, 1807, to July 19 of that year, by good fortune have been preserved, and they throw into full light another shaded corner of his interesting life. From the contents of these letters,[130] as well as from other facts, we know that Audubon remained in Bakewell's office for nearly a year, from the autumn of 1806 to the summer of 1807. Bakewell's house imported linens, lace, gloves, wines, firearms and any kind of merchandise that promised a ready and remunerative sale in New York; in return they forwarded coffees, sugars and other commodities to Rozier, receiving from him also prices current and introductions to other merchants in France. Another correspondent was the Huron firm in Philadelphia, so it is probable that Ferdinand owed his employment there to Benjamin Bakewell. While Audubon expressed himself at this time as freely in English as in French, in the former language the tendencies of his French tongue and the influence of his Quaker friends were strangely blended. He never bothered with accents, and took as many liberties with the spelling of French as of English. Some of these lapses are purely phonetic, while others are more original, as "schacket" for "packet," "fither" for "Fisher"; two variations of Rozier's name and of Nantes occur in the same letter. It should be remembered, however, that at the beginning of the nineteenth century bad or random spelling was a very venial offense, which gentlemen of quality, or even scholars, could commit with impunity. In this respect Audubon's early essays in English would probably compare favorably with Gibbon's youthful French. _John James Audubon to Claude François Rosier_ [Letter No. 1, addressed] M. FR. ROZIER, Merchant-Nantes. NEW YORK, _10 January, 1807._ DEAR SIR: We have had the pleasure of receiving by the _Penelope_ your consignment of 20 pieces of linen cloth, for which we send our thanks. As soon as we have sold them, we shall take great pleasure in making our return.