LETTER OF ROBERT HAVELL TO AUDUBON, JUNE 15, 1833.
From the Deane MSS.
While at Halifax Audubon received a congratulatory letter from Bachman, who urged him to visit Charleston and to bring his family. The invitation was accepted, and early in September Audubon returned to New York, where he immediately prepared the new drawings for dispatch to London; thirteen of the land birds were for the completion of his second volume, and seventeen, representing water fowl, were to form the initial series of the third; all, as usual, were heavily insured.
Audubon left New York with his wife on September 25 and spent nearly a month en route to Charleston, while John, who intended to accompany his father to Florida, went direct by water. Dr. Thomas L. McKenney, of Philadelphia, in a letter to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, said:[42]
Mr. Audubon makes no more of tracking it in all directions over this, and I may add other countries, than a shot star does in crossing the heavens. He goes after winged things, but sometimes needs the aid of—at least a few feathers, to assist him better to fly. He means to coast it again round Florida—make a track through Arkansas—go up the Missouri—pass on to the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific. He will require some of your official aid.
As a contrast to the warmth of Audubon's greeting in Philadelphia, while in that city he was arrested for debt, and was on the point of being taken to jail when he was offered bail by a friend. "This event," he said, "brings to my mind so many disagreeable thoughts connected with my former business transactions, in which I was always the single loser, that I will only add I made all necessary arrangements to have it paid."
Four new subscribers were obtained at Baltimore, but when the naturalist applied to Secretary Cass at Washington for the privilege of accompanying an expedition to the Rocky Mountains under the patronage of the Government, he met with a cool reception, and though he had forgotten his letter from Dr. McKenney, he was resolved not to trouble that official further. At this juncture he met Washington Irving, who did his best to save the situation, and thought that Audubon had been mistaken in his judgment of the Secretary; "I might have been," he said, "but those eyes of mine have discovered more truth in men's eyes than their mouths were willing to acknowledge." Irving accompanied him to the offices of Mr. Taney, the Secretary of the Treasury, who at once gave the naturalist the privileges of the revenue cutter service on the southern coast.
At Richmond Audubon met Governor Floyd, who promised to try to induce the legislature of his State to subscribe for a copy of the Birds. From that point to Charleston we shall follow their itinerary as given in his journal under date of October 16:[43]
We left Richmond this morning in a stage well crammed with Italian musicians and southern merchants, arrived at Petersburg at a late hour, dined, and were again crammed in a car drawn by a locomotive, which dragged us twelve miles an hour, and sent out sparks of fire enough to keep us constantly busy in extinguishing them on our clothes. At Blakely we were again crammed into a stage, and dragged two miles an hour. We crossed the Roanoke River by torchlight in a flatboat, passed through Halifax, Raleigh, Fayetteville, and Columbia, where we spent the night. Here I met Dr. Gibbs, at whose house we passed the evening, and who assisted me greatly; at his house I met President Thomas Cooper, who assured me he had seen a rattlesnake climb a five-rail fence on his land. I received from the treasury of the State four hundred and fifty dollars on account of its subscription for one copy of the "Birds of America."