We have now 54. Subscribers in America. Mr Inman is going to Paint the Portrait of your Dear Mother, and I have not a doubt that it will be "good & true." The Weather is extremely Warm—The Thermometer ranges at nearly 72. The Martins are flying over the City and Tomorrow I shall fly toward the Coast of Labrador—If fortunate I shall bring a load of Knowledge of the Water Birds which spend the Winter in our Country and May hope to Compete in the study of their Habits with any Man in the World.
My Good Friend Charles Bonaparte as (I am told) taken umbrage at a Passage in My Introduction (first Volume)[29] Which proves how difficult it is to please every one—I am going to write to him by Duplicate to try to correct that Error of his—God ever bless You my Dear Son, and May We all meet Well & Happy
Yours ever affectionately,
John J. Audubon.
Audubon was particularly anxious to enlist a number of enthusiastic young men in the Labrador enterprise, and had hoped that his friend, Edward Harris, would join the party. Upon his return to Boston he started at once for Eastport, Maine, where he expected to charter a vessel and complete his preparations. On May 9, 1833, he wrote to Harris from that point:
The more I approach the desired object of this voyage, the more bouyant my spirits, and the greater my hopes that when I return I will bring a cargo (not of codfish) but of most valuable information. Make up your mind; shoulder your firelock, and away to the fields where science awaits us with ample stores, the contents of which are the rarest materials ever employed by nature.
To this friend he wrote again from Eastport on the 14th of the same month:
As to my making use of your name in my letterpress, I shall act as you desire, and yet I hope and fully expect no denial on your part, on such occasions as will grant me the pleasure of giving public notice of the treatment I have received from you. I owe such a thing to you as a trifling, very trifling, mark of my gratitude towards one, whom I shall never cease to admire and esteem.
The National Gazette of Philadelphia for May 2, 1833, devoted an editorial to Audubon and his prospective Labrador journey, in which the writer said: "We wish him a degree of success and prolongation of vigor equal to his great merits: indeed, for the past at least, success is fully assured." He added that between fifty and sixty subscribers to The Birds of America had then been obtained in the United States; Boston had furnished eighteen; New York, eleven; Philadelphia, four; Baltimore, eight; Savannah, seven; Louisville, two, and New Orleans, three; moreover, the legislatures of Massachusetts, New York, Maryland and South Carolina and the Congressional Library were subscribers for one copy each. The writer continued:
A contribution to Mr. Audubon equal at least to that of Boston or New York, would seem due from Philadelphia. The subscription price may be considered as large ($ 1,000), but how rich, ornamental, instructive, and entertaining is the work, and how much preferable to the merely personal gewgaws or transitory gratifications, upon which greater sums are as frequently expended! There are few minds of any refinement or elevation, to which an act that rewards genius and fosters science, would not yield higher and more durable pleasure than any ordinary luxury.
We learn that Mr. Audubon will return to the United States next autumn, and make a short sojourn before his embarkation for Europe. Eight or nine more years, it is supposed, will yet be necessary for the consummation of his grand design. His constitution appears to be still vigorous; his zeal is unabated; his powers of graphic delineation have suffered no decay; we may, therefore, expect that he will realize all his own laudatory hopes and projects, and in so doing confer new obligations on the votaries of natural history, and reflect additional honor on his country.