_Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta_ NANTES, _14 June, 1805_ TO MR. DACOSTA, Philadelphia: I have received, at this very moment, your letter of the 8th of April. I have replied to your preceding by duplicate. Like yourself I am greatly astonished that you should not have received the contracts which I forwarded to you at once. I have reserved copies of these papers, which I have literally copied. If I had the least idea that they would not reach you, and that an accident had befallen the ship, I should forward them in duplicate, but as this boat, at the time of its departure, was long delayed by the embargoes as well as by bad weather, I am persuaded that this is the sole cause, and that they will have reached you since. You are about to appeal to the supreme court to prove your ownership; is there a living being who can contest it? If our deeds, granted in France, have not their full force in that country, nothing can annul them for us who are French. You shall do in this matter what you like; the greatest objection is this, that it stops your operations; but who is to blame? It is due to distance, and not to any negligence. You say that you will do nothing until you have these documents; if your intention is to work for our benefit, as you say in your preceding, a company still being disagreeable [to you], that ought not to stop you; you have every power, [and] time lost is irreparable. I am much annoyed at the delay that this Mr. Miers Fisher causes you; as you say, he is an honest man, but negligent, and this in consequence of his age, and absorption in his great business.