At this time he seems to have heard of the publication of Wilson's "Ornithology," and tried in vain to get sight of a copy of it.
In the spring he made an attempt to get an appointment as draughtsman and naturalist to a government expedition that was to leave the next year to survey the new territory ceded to the United States by Spain. He wrote to President Monroe upon the subject, but the appointment never came to him. In March he called upon Vanderlyn, the historical painter, and took with him a portfolio of his drawings in hopes of getting a recommendation. Vanderlyn at first treated him as a mendicant and ordered him to leave his portfolio in the entry. After some delay, in company with a government official, he consented to see the pictures.
"The perspiration ran down my face," says Audubon, "as I showed him my drawings and laid them on the floor." He was thinking of the expedition to Mexico just referred to, and wanted to make a good impression upon Vanderlyn and the officer. This he succeeded in doing, and obtained from the artist a very complimentary note, as he did also from Governor Robertson of Louisiana.
In June, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, to rejoin his wife and boys, but somewhere on the journey engaged himself to a Mrs. Perrie who lived at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, to teach her daughter drawing during the summer, at sixty dollars per month, leaving him half of each day to follow his own pursuits. He continued in this position till October when he took steamer for New Orleans. "My long, flowing hair, and loose yellow nankeen dress, and the unfortunate cut of my features, attracted much attention, and made me desire to be dressed like other people as soon as possible."
He now rented a house in New Orleans on Dauphine street, and determined to send for his family. Since he had left Cincinnati the previous autumn, he had finished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts, and had lived by his talents, not having had a dollar when he started. "I sent a draft to my wife, and began life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much eagerness to pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America."
His family, after strong persuasion, joined him in December, 1821, and his former life of drawing portraits, giving lessons, painting birds, and wandering about the country, began again. His earnings proving inadequate to support the family, his wife took a position as governess in the family of a Mr. Brand.
In the spring, acting upon the judgment of his wife, he concluded to leave New Orleans again, and to try his fortunes elsewhere. He paid all his bills and took steamer for Natchez, paying his passage by drawing a crayon portrait of the captain and his wife.
On the trip up the Mississippi, two hundred of his bird portraits were sorely damaged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder in the chest in which they were being conveyed.
Three times in his career he met with disasters to his drawings. On the occasion of his leaving Hendersonville to go to Philadelphia, he had put two hundred of his original drawings in a wooden box and had left them in charge of a friend. On his return, several months later, he pathetically recounts what befell them: "A pair of Norway rats had taken possession of the whole, and reared a young family among gnawed bits of paper, which but a month previous, represented nearly one thousand inhabitants of the air!"
This discovery resulted in insomnia, and a fearful heat in the head; for several days he seemed like one stunned, but his youth and health stood him in hand, he rallied, and, undaunted, again sallied forth to the woods with dog and gun. In three years' time his portfolio was again filled.