[14] See Harriet Jay, Robert Buchanan: Some Account of His Life, His Life's Work, and His Literary Friendships (London, 1903). Robert Williams Buchanan was born at Caverswell, Lancashire, August 18, 1841, and died in London, June 10, 1901.
[15] For similar spelling of the name by John James Audubon, see [Appendix I, Document No. 12].
[16] For notice of these records of Jean Audubon and his family, see [the Preface], and for the most important documents, [Appendix I].
[17] Pierre Audubon's service in the merchant marine of France is undoubtedly recorded in the archives of the Department of Marine in Paris, but all researches in that direction were suddenly halted by the war.
[18] Jean Audubon had a brother Claude, and on February 27, 1791, he wrote to him, asking for 4,000 francs, which he needed for the purchase of a boat. It was probably this brother who lived at Bayonne, and left three daughters, Anne, Dominica, and Catherine Françoise, who married Jean Louis Lissabé, a pilot (see [Vol. I, p. 263]). If this inference be correct, and the sum referred to was demanded in payment of a debt, it may explain a statement of the naturalist that his father and his uncle were not on speaking terms.
Another brother is said to have been an active politician at Nantes, La Rochelle and Paris from 1771 to 1796, when he dropped out of sight for a number of years. When heard of again he was living at La Rochelle in affluence and piety. This was apparently the Audubon to whom the naturalist referred in certain of his journals and private letters as one who, possessing the secret of his birth and early life, had done both him and his father an irreparable injury (see [Vol. I, p. 270]).
A sister, Marie Rosa Audubon, was married in 1794 to Pierre de Vaugeon, a lawyer at Nantes; their only son, Louis Lejeune de Vaugeon, was living at Nantes as late as 1822, when he deeded his former home to Henri Boutard. (The substance of this and the preceding paragraph is based partly upon data furnished by Miss Maria R. Audubon.)
Jean Audubon gave his daughter, Rosa, the name of her aunt, but in later life seems to have broken off all relations with his brothers. Upon his death his will was immediately attacked by Mme. Lejeune de Vaugeon, of Nantes, and by the three nieces from Bayonne (see [Chapter XVII]). The naturalist does not give the name of the aunt who, as he said, was killed during the Revolution at Nantes, but I have found no reference to any other.
[19] This was recalled by the naturalist on March 5, 1827, when he wrote: "As a lad I had a great aversion to anything English or Scotch, and I remember when travelling with my father to Rochefort in January, 1800, I mentioned this to him.... How well I remember his reply.... 'Thy blood will cool in time, and thou wilt be surprised to see how gradually prejudices are obliterated, and friendships acquired, towards those that we at one time held in contempt. Thou hast not been in England; I have, and it is a fine country.'" (See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His Journals ([Bibl. No. 86]), vol. i, p. 216).
[20] In 1789 over 7,000,000 pounds of cotton and 758,628 pounds of indigo were exported from the French side of the island, while further products of that year, including smaller amounts of cocoa, molasses, rum, hides, dye-woods, and tortoise shell, swelled the grand total of exports to 205,000,000 livres or francs. Bryan Edwards, however, whose deductions were based on official returns, placed the average value of all exports from French Santo Domingo for the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, at 171,544,000 livres in Hispaniola currency, or £4,765,129 sterling; this would be equivalent to about $23,158,426, and imply a purchase value of the French livre or franc of about 13½ cents in American money.