Audubon's stay at Rochefort, the date of which is no doubt correctly given in the journal just quoted, was destined to be short. After a year he returned to Nantes, and later to "La Gerbetière," where as before he spent all of his leisure in roaming the fields and looking for birds, their nests, their eggs and their young. At about this time, when fifteen years of age, Audubon began to make a collection of his original drawings of French birds, which was greatly extended in 1805 and 1806. He has recorded that at the behest of his foster mother, who was an ardent Catholic, he was confirmed in that Church when "within a few months of being seventeen years old"; he was surprised and indifferent, but "took to the catechism, studied it and other matters pertaining to the ceremony, and all was performed to her liking." Since no record of this act has been found, it is probable that the ceremony in question was confused with that of his baptism, which, as we have noticed, occurred on October 23, 1800, six months before he attained his sixteenth birthday. After having seen something of the character of Audubon's early training in France, it will not be surprising to find that when, at the age of forty-five, he first seriously began to write for publication and in English, which was not his mother tongue, he found himself handicapped in many ways. In after life he wrote that the only school which he had ever attended was that of Adversity, and that his tuition there had been of a prolonged and elaborate character. Though this statement was made under the stress of present feeling, it was not wholly devoid of truth. CHAPTER VII FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES, AND LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" Audubon is sent to the United States to learn English and enter trade—Taken ill—Befriended by the Quakers—Settles at "Mill Grove" farm—Its history and attractions—Studies of American birds begun—Engagement to Lucy Bakewell—Sports and festivities.