This second voyage to the New World began late in July but did not end until 100 days later, when, on the night of November 2, his ship ran on the Race Rocks near New London, at the western end of Long Island Sound, and eventually went down within sight of land with all his possessions. "I had lost everything," he said, "my fortune, my share of the cargo, my collections and labors for twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts, my drawings, even my clothes ... all that I possessed, except some scattered funds, and the insurance ordered in England for one third of the value of my goods." "I have found men," he continued, "vile enough to laugh without shame at my misfortune, instead of condoling with me! But I have met also with friends who deplored my loss, and helped me in need." One of these friends was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of New York, who had given a helping hand to Audubon,[266] and it was probably through him that Rafinesque obtained a position as private tutor in a family living on the Hudson. Traveling up and down the country, collecting objects in natural history, writing, with frustrated attempts at business, occupied a number of the following years; meanwhile he had aided in founding the Lyceum of New York and had become a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society. At Philadelphia he found another friend in Mr. John O. Clifford, of Lexington, Kentucky, who encouraged him to visit the West, and in the spring of 1818 he descended the Ohio in an "ark" in company with several others who had joined him in the enterprise. At Shippingport he was welcomed by the Tarascon brothers, flour merchants, formerly of Marseilles and Philadelphia, and it was through them, possibly, that he first heard of Audubon's drawings of birds.