If there were ever a time when Lieutenant Audubon wished to see his son following the victorious eagles of Napoleon, whom he is said to have idolized, the hated conscription of that day, which was robbing every home in France of its best blood, might well have brought counsels of prudence. Little could the father have thought that by following other eagles of his own choice, his son was destined to add a far greater luster to the family name. Whatever may have turned the scale, in 1803 a decision was quickly reached, and the issue was fortunate for the future of natural science in America; it was decided that young Audubon should emigrate at once to the United States, with what end in view we shall soon see expressed in the sailor's own words. Accordingly, to his "intense and indescribable pleasure," the future naturalist, who had now passed his eighteenth birthday, eagerly prepared for the journey, the first of many that were later to become memorable in the annals of American science. No record of this voyage has been preserved, but from evidence derived from a variety of sources we can fix the time as the autumn of 1803.[79] Audubon's introduction to the country of his adoption proved most inauspicious, for, to follow his account, when walking to Greenwich in Connecticut, some thirty miles from New York, to cash the letter of credit that his father had given him, he was seized with the yellow fever.[80] Fortunately at this critical moment his captain came to his aid, and placed him in the care of two Quaker ladies who kept a boarding house at Morristown in New Jersey. To the faithful ministrations of these kindly sisters the naturalist believed that he owed his life. When Jean Audubon finally left the United States not far from the beginning of 1790, he placed his business interests in America in charge of an agent, named Miers Fisher, "a rich and honest Quaker of Philadelphia," and to the hands of this trustworthy man he now confided his son. Accordingly, when young Audubon had been nursed back to health, word was sent to his father's friend, who came in his carriage and drove the lad to his own home in the outskirts of Philadelphia. To follow the account which the naturalist gave, when writing of this visit a quarter of a century later, his host, finding his charge to be a comely youth, and having a daughter "of no mean appearance," proposed that he should remain with them and become one of the family. Audubon seems to have suspected that this was a premeditated scheme to entangle him in marriage, and as he had no liking for the severity of Quaker manners, determined to make his escape. This, he said, was finally accomplished by appealing to his own rights and to the honest Quaker's sense of duty in seeing him established on the estate which his father had designed for him.