In a short time Jean Audubon had acquired an independent business of his own, both as a planter and merchant. He made his home at Les Cayes, but extended his enterprises to Saint Louis and possibly to other points. From this time onward he commonly described himself as _négotiant_,[28] or merchant, and his son, when writing to his father from America, addressed him in this way. His business letters and other documents of the period refer to his house at Les Cayes, his plantations of cane and his sugar refinery, his exportation of colonial wares, his purchases of French goods, particularly at Nantes, and to his trade in black slaves which eventually assumed large proportions. How important his sugar plantations may have been is not known, but a tax-receipt shows that at one time he possessed forty-two slaves.[29] The naturalist said that his father acquired a plantation on the Ile à Vaches, an island of considerable importance at the southern bound of the roadstead of Les Cayes and nine miles from the town, but we have found no other reference to it. Great numbers of negroes must have passed through Jean Audubon's hands, as shown by his bills of sale, which strangely reflect the customs of a much later and sadder day on the North American continent (see Appendix I, Documents Nos. 4-6). In one of these bills, dated at Les Cayes, September 16, 1785, Jean is credited with one-half the net proceeds of the sale of forty negroes, bought originally of M. Th. Johnston for the sum of 60,000 francs, and sold by Jean Audubon and Messrs. La Croix, Formon & Jacques for 71,552 francs; after deducting 183 francs for food and treatment, the net returns became 71,369 francs, and Jean's profits, on a half-interest basis, 5,684 francs, or about 142 francs per head. The prices of these slaves, which were sold to planters on the island when not retained for their own use, ranged from 1,500 to 2,100 francs, or from $300 to $420, at the present rate of exchange. It is interesting to notice that while these negroes were held for sale, the exact period of which is not stated, they received as food eighty bunches of bananas and three beef heads; though under the care of a physician, it is not surprising to find that one of them died. Another bill, bearing date of August 7, 1785, records the sale to Jean Audubon of ten negroes and three negresses for a total sum of 26,000 francs; 16,000 francs of this amount was paid in sugar, but what is particularly interesting now is the fact that a balance of 2,000 francs was finally cancelled on June 9, 1788, a year or more after Jean Audubon, according to the accepted accounts, is supposed to have lost his wife and his property and to have fled from the island. Mme. Anne Moynet Audubon never visited America, and her husband, as we have seen, left Santo Domingo in 1789, before the outbreak of the revolution. His property remained substantially intact until after 1792, and in some years, it is believed, yielded