CHAPTER XXX

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY

In London once more—MacGillivray's assistance continued—Return to Edinburgh—MacGillivray's character and accomplishments—Audubon's acknowledgments—Tributes of "Christopher North"—Results of overwork—Fusilades from "Walton Hall"—Progress of the large plates.

Audubon's return voyage, begun in mid-April, lasted twenty days, and was one of the uneventful, "not unpleasant sort." Liverpool was reached in early May, and later in the month the Audubons were again settled in London, where on June 1, 1834, the naturalist wrote to Edward Harris:

We found Victor at home in the evening of our arrival; I thought that the very sight of him was a restoration of life to me, and our happiness was as complete as it may ever be expected on _this Earth_.

After all, I long to be in America again, nay, if I can go home to return no more to Europe, it seems to me that I shall ever enjoy more peace of mind, & even Physical comfort than I can meet with in any portion of the world beside.[118]

While at Charleston in the previous winter, Audubon had worked diligently at his letterpress, and no doubt, before returning to Europe had his "biographical" materials well in hand. We have seen that at Edinburgh in the autumn of 1830 he entered upon a businesslike arrangement with William MacGillivray to assist him with the technical portions of the _Ornithological Biography_. The part which his young assistant played in this work was long a subject of dispute, until letters of both which showed the precise character of the relations between them were finally published.

Immediately upon his return to England Audubon again applied to his young friend, and received from him the following letter:[119]

_William MacGillivray to Audubon_

EDINBURGH, 11 GILMORE PLACE. _28th May 1834._

DEAR SIR,

I am glad to hear of your safe arrival, which I did not expect so soon, and pleased to find you in good health and high spirits. As you have the kindness to inquire respecting myself and family, I am happy to inform you that we are all very well, contented and busy. My head and hands are quite full—abundance of work and sufficient pay—time to ramble now and then for the purpose of hammering rocks, pulling plants, and shooting birds.

You say you have accumulated a mass of materials which you are desirous of seeing in print, and propose that I should revise it as before. I shall be glad to do so, if you please, and willing that you confer the benefit on another, if you find it expedient. As to the terms, let them be such as you please with respect to money; but as time is valuable to me, I should like that arrangements be made so as to prevent unnecessary loss of it, by letting me have manuscripts, books, &c. in due array.

The skins of which you speak I apprehend cannot be disposed of here to any great extent; but I believe shells might be sold to advantage, and bring higher prices than in London.

You ask if I draw Birds yet, with a view to publish. My answer is that I dissect, describe, and draw Birds, Quadrupeds, whales, reptiles, and fishes, with view of astonishing the world, and bettering my condition. I have about a hundred drawings, all the size of life, excepting two dolphins. But I have determined nothing as yet respecting publication. Some time ago a friend of mine called on Mr. Havell with a letter in which I desired that person to engrave for me a few of my drawings, for the purpose of being exhibited at the meeting of naturalists. I had no answer, and so Mr. Havell may go to Jerico, or elsewhere, as he lists; but further your correspondent saith not.

I am decidedly of opinion that, although you should continue the publication of the Ornithological Biography, you might bring out various other works which could not fail to be popular; for example a biography of yourself, and sketches of American scenery. But of these matters it is impossible to speak to purpose unless I had the pleasure of seeing you, a pleasure which I hope I shall have at the time of the general assembly of the naturalists.

With best respects to Mrs. Audubon, and best wishes for the prosperity of all that bear that name, I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, yours in sincerity,

W MACGILLIVRAY.

[Superscribed] JOHN J. AUDUBON, ESQR. MR. HAVELL, 77 Oxford St. London.

A satisfactory arrangement was made and MacGillivray set to work on Audubon's second volume. On the 16th of June he wrote from Edinburgh:

If you send me twenty or twenty-five articles, I can revise them without the books to which you refer, and without your own presence, provided your descriptions be full, and the drawings or plates sent to me. The skins and books might be consulted afterwards, when we might go over the articles in company. Should you come here for the purpose, it would not, I believe, be necessary for you to stay more than three weeks or so.... To be methodical I should like twenty-five birds, that is description of birds, by your first parcel; but I cannot state precisely at what time they might be revised, only I think were you to send them, you might make a trip to France and be back before I should be done.[120]

By the 9th of July MacGillivray had received the twenty-five descriptions of birds called for, and on the 18th of that month he wrote to report progress as follows:

I commenced my operations on the 1st of July, and have transcribed and corrected eighteen articles, one _for_ each day, but not one _on_ each, the work of Sunday being transferred to Monday. This volume will certainly be much richer and more interesting.... You wish to know my opinion as to the improvement of your style. It seems to me to be much the same as before, but the information which you give is more diversified & more satisfactory.

On more than one occasion MacGillivray urged Audubon to reduce the size of his text, and in the letter just quoted he said: "Had it been of the post 8vo size, in two volumes it would have gone off in style; but your imperial size and regal price do not answer for radicals, or republicans either. Could you _sacrifice_ the first volume, reprint it of a small size and continue the series to the end?" He remarked that if twenty woodcuts or engravings were added to each volume, "it would spread over the land like a flock of migratory pigeons. Even without the embellishments it would fly, but were you to give it those additional wings, it would sweep along in beautiful curves, like the nighthawk or the purplebreasted swallow." "I have often thought," he continued, "that your stories would sell very well by themselves, and I am sure that with your celebrity, knowledge, and enthusiasm, you have it in your power to become more _popular_ than your glorious pictures can ever make you of themselves, they being too aristocratic and exclusive."

Audubon kept MacGillivray supplied with materials, while he remained in London during the summer of 1834. On the 25th of August he wrote Bachman that he had sold bird skins to the British Museum to the amount of fifty-two pounds sterling, and again for twenty-five pounds, while Havell had disposed of a goodly number more, so that "he would not be a loser in that way"; he added: "My own double collection I have in drawers at home." Acting evidently upon Swainson's advice, Audubon began to accumulate a large and valuable collection of the skins of American birds, which he brought with him to America in 1839.[121] Though rightly criticized for not having deposited in some museum a complete series of the forms which he described, Elliott Coues certainly was not justified in remarking that his interest in a bird ceased from the moment he had made a drawing of it; on the contrary, he spent no end of time and lavished large sums of money on collections to illustrate variation in every description, as well as for anatomical dissection.

A hint thrown out by MacGillivray seems to have been well taken, for in the letter just quoted Audubon said: "This coming winter I will spend at writing my _own_ Biography, to be published as soon as possible, and to be continued, as God may be pleased to grant me life." As already noticed,[122] this effort resulted only in a fragmentary sketch, which was not published for over half a century.

Audubon started for Edinburgh in September of 1834. He wrote to Edward Harris from Liverpool, on the 15th of that month, to inquire into the truth of a report, which had circulated in London, of the failure of the house in New Orleans "in which our friend N. Berthoud is concerned." "I wish you would have the kindness to inform me," he adds, "if he is a sufferer by this mishap, and I wish you to keep this quite _entre nous_."

At a slightly earlier day Audubon had entertained the idea of illustrating the birds of Great Britain on a scale commensurate with his work on those of America, but on May 1, 1828, he wrote Swainson that no one favored the project, and it was quickly given up. The subject is referred to by MacGillivray, in a letter written from Edinburgh, May 7, 1831: "As I understand your proposals respecting the Birds of Britain to have ended in nothing, and as you do not allude to the subject, I shall suppose all your ideas to have dispersed, and shall think of the matter myself." The first volume of MacGillivray's _History of British Birds_ appeared six years later.[123] It is evident that he wished to obtain Audubon's criticism of some of the drawings subsequently used in this work when he sent the following formal note[124] to his lodgings at Edinburgh:

_William MacGillivray to Audubon_

EDINBURGH, _22d. october, 1834_.

DEAR SIR,

I take the liberty of sending you a collection of drawings made by myself, and intended for a work on the vertebrate animals of Great Britain. The astonishing success with which you have depicted a whole class of the productions of your native land, as evinced in the incomparable delineations of your "Birds of America," renders your opinions respecting ornithological drawings of the very highest authority; and I have been anxious to submit my attempts to your decision, which, if unfavourable, will induce me to remedy my defects, or, if otherwise, will encourage me to proceed with an undertaking, which by its arduousness and extent, is precisely suited to my disposition. I shall therefore feel grateful for the expression of your ideas respecting the Drawings, and I request that should you favour me with it, you will not scruple to censure freely, should you find occasion.

I have the honour to be, Dear Sir, your most obedient servant,

W. MACGILLIVRAY.

[Addressed] To J. J. AUDUBON, Esqe. Edinburgh.

Audubon and MacGillivray finished their work in November, and by the first of December the manuscript of the second volume of the _Ornithological Biography_ was in the printer's hands. On the 10th of the latter month Audubon wrote to Bachman from Edinburgh: "I am quite sure I never have been half as anxious as I am at this moment to do all in my power to _compleat_ my vast enterprise, and sorrowful indeed would be my dying moments if this book of mine were not finished ere my eyes are for ever closed." The naturalist was thinking of materials for new "Episodes" for the work when he added:

Try to study the habits of the alligator, the time of its propagation, number of eggs, form of the nest, &c., &c., &c. I long to possess all respecting this reptile (amphibian) [sic] for my article of the Wood Ibis and Sand Hill Crane, for it will make a fine picture on paper, and I can show Waterton the _bold_ astride of one's bare back in great style.

By now Docr. Parkman has at least a portion of the letter press and I hope has begun printing the second vol. of Biog. 750 copies for America, and the same number are printing here. I wish you would cut out from all newspapers the pros and cons about me.

We thus have from Audubon himself a definite statement in regard to the publication of his _Biography_ of Birds in America, and as to the number of copies issued.

MacGillivray immediately agreed to "revise and correct" Audubon's forthcoming third and fourth volumes, and that he was quite satisfied with their method of cooperation is shown by the following definite statement of his contract:

_William MacGillivray to Audubon_

EDINBURGH _15th December 1834_.

DEAR SIR,

Agreeably to your request I hereby bind and oblige myself to revise and correct the third and fourth volumes of your work entitled "Ornithological Biography" at the same rate as the two first volumes, namely at Two Pounds Two Shillings per sheet; as well as to revise, for a sum to be subsequently determined, any other work which you may intend to publish.

I have the honour to be Dear Sir, your most obedt. Servant

W. MACGILLIVRAY.

To JOHN J. AUDUBON Esq.

When William MacGillivray first met Audubon, in the autumn of 1830, he was an enthusiastic naturalist of four and thirty, young, but, as we have seen, a thorough anatomist, who stood firmly on his own feet and was destined to advance his favorite study in a notable degree. Audubon at this time was forty-five, but in anatomy the older man gladly sat at the feet of the younger and acknowledged him master; while this young anatomist was dissecting, Audubon in the _rôle_ of student was seated by his side, and we may be sure that little escaped his penetrating eye and keen intelligence. To MacGillivray, on the other hand, Audubon was master of his art, and to him he looked for criticism of his own artistic efforts; after him he named a son, and to him dedicated a child of his brain.[125] In short, MacGillivray looked upon Audubon as his best friend in the world, and the latter fully appreciated his indebtedness to this able assistant. MacGillivray continued to aid Audubon with his letterpress, revising and probably contributing most of the technical details; in the fourth and concluding volumes, published in 1838 and 1839, the large store of anatomical matter and many excellent drawings were duly acknowledged as coming from his hand. His own writings were varied and numerous, but were generally characterized by a high degree of excellence. His _History of British Birds_, in five volumes (1837-1852), was too extended and too technical ever to become popular, but in that work, for the first time in the history of science, classification was placed on a strictly anatomical basis. MacGillivray even followed Audubon to some extent by introducing into this work "delineations of British scenery and character," but under another head. The sixth of his "Lessons in Practical Ornithology" recounts in dialogue form the experiences of two friends in tramping the Pentland Hills together; says "Physiophilus" [himself], "You must have many fine songsters in America"; to which "Ornithologus" [Audubon] replies:

That we have indeed. The Mocking Bird, of course, stands first in my opinion, and is unrivalled. Then, perhaps on account of my own sensitive nature, I would place next the Wood Thrush, although the Cat Bird is far its superior in many points, as is also the Turdus rufus. Think of our Rose-breasted Pine and Blue Grosbeaks, how mellow and sweet their continuous songs are, whether by day or during calm nights. Watch the varied ditties of the Orchard Oriole, and the loud and more musical notes of its brother, the Golden Hangnest. You have never heard the Tawny Thrush or the Hermit Thrush, otherwise, believe me, you would have enjoyed much delicious pleasure....

William MacGillivray was a man of the finest character and an honor to the best traditions of British scholarship; in his enthusiasm and indefatigable energy he was fully a match to Audubon. For nearly twelve years (1841-1852) he was an honored lecturer and professor in Marischal College and University, Aberdeen, where he died, probably as a result of overwork in the field, in 1852, thus outliving his older friend but one year. His last completed work, _Natural History of Deeside and Braemar_, was published under the patronage of Queen Victoria and by her command privately printed, under the editorship of E. Lancaster, in 1855. MacGillivray's surviving son, whose career as a field naturalist was also cut short by too strenuous work, accompanied Huxley, then an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy, on the memorable voyage of the _Rattlesnake_ under Captain Owen Stanley in 1842. MacGillivray was honored when alive, and though dead has not been forgotten; in 1890 a beautiful tablet was dedicated to him in Aberdeen, and at the same time a worthy monument was raised to his memory at Edinburgh.[126]

In authorship the public is mainly interested in seeing merit duly acknowledged. Said Audubon, in the introductory address to his first volume:

There are persons whose desire of obtaining celebrity induces them to suppress the knowledge of the assistance which they have received in the composition of their works. In many cases, in fact, the real author of the drawings or the descriptions in books on Natural History is not so much as mentioned, while the pretended author assumes to himself all the merit which the world is willing to allow him. This want of candour I could never endure. On the contrary, I feel pleasure in here acknowledging the assistance which I have received from a friend, Mr. William MacGillivray, who being possessed of a liberal education and a strong taste for the study of the Natural Sciences, has aided me, not in drawing the figures of my Illustrations, nor in writing the book now in your hand, although fully competent for both tasks, but in completing the scientific details, and in smoothing down the asperities of my Ornithological Biographies.

In the introduction to Volume IV he added that the

anatomical descriptions, as well as the sketches by which they are sometimes illustrated, have been executed by my learned friend, William MacGillivray, who in the most agreeable manner consented to undertake the labour, by no means small, of such a task, and to whom those who are interested in the progress of Ornithological science, as well as myself, must therefore feel indebted.

Audubon evidently believed that this printed acknowledgment was just; MacGillivray was as plainly satisfied, so that complaints which have been made against the naturalist on this score seem to have been rather groundless. It might be noticed that bookmaking at that time was regarded as more of a trade than at present; as Sir Walter Besant remarks, a traveler would often give his notes to a bookseller, who in turn would hand them over to a literary hack to be cast into suitable form.

A fine token of the friendship which existed between these two men was discovered in the summer of 1903 in a London bookshop, where it was found reflected in the pages of a handsomely bound copy of Audubon's _Biography of Birds_; on the title pages were inscribed the autographs of William MacGillivray, while on the first page of the introduction to the first volume the hand of Audubon had written this dedication:

These volumes are presented to William MacGillivray with sentiments of the highest esteem and best wishes by his truly and sincerely attached friend

JOHN J. AUDUBON

Edinburgh July 1 t 1839.

Professor John Wilson gave the third volume of the _Ornithological Biography_ a very handsome notice in _Blackwood's Magazine_, and on New Year's Day, 1836, Audubon acknowledged the compliment in the following letter:[127]

_Audubon to John Wilson_ ("_Christopher North_")

MY DEAR FRIEND:—

The first hour of this new year was ushered to me surrounded by my dear flock, all comfortably seated around a small table in middle-sized room, where I sincerely wished you had been also, to witness the flowing gladness of our senses, as from one of us "Audubon's Ornithological Biography" was read from your ever valuable Journal. I wished this because I felt assured that your noble heart would have received our most grateful thanks with pleasure, the instant our simple ideas had conveyed to you the grant of happiness we experienced at your hands. You were not with us, alas! but to make amends the best way we could, all of a common accord drank to the health, prosperity, and long life, of our generous, talented, and ever kind friend, Professor John Wilson, and all those amiable beings who cling around his heart! May those our sincerest wishes reach you soon, and may they be sealed by Him who granted us existence, and the joys heaped upon the "American woodsman" and his family, in your hospitable land, and may we deserve all the benefits we have received in your ever dear country, although it may prove impossible to us to do more than to be ever grateful to her worthy sons.

Accept our respectful united regards, and offer them to your family, whilst I remain, with highest esteem, your truly thankful friend and most obedient servant,

JOHN J. AUDUBON.

Wilson had said in his earlier review:

We do not believe that till within these few years, he had any practice in composition.... Yet Genius, if from circumstances behindhand in any common accomplishment, soon supplies it—soon makes up its lee-way—or rather, it has only to try to do what it has never done before, and it succeeds in it to admiration. Audubon, who had written but little even in his native tongue—French—under a powerful motive, took to writing English; and he was not long in learning to write it well, not only with fluency, but eloquence, as the fine extracts we have quoted show in unfading colours.

The following comment on Audubon's second volume of the _Biography_ appeared in the _Athenæum_ for 1835:

If only considered as evidence that it is in the power of man to achieve whatever he _wills_, and that no obstacles are too great to be overcome by energy and devotion of purpose, it would claim our good will and best wishes.

He has told what he has seen and undergone, not perhaps in the smooth nicely balanced periods of a drawing-room writer ... but with unstudied freedom, rising at times to eloquence, nor been ashamed to utter the thousand affectionate and benevolent feelings which a close and enthusiastic communion with nature must nourish. The work is full of the man.

The winter and spring of 1835 were spent in London, and though suffering from the strain of overwork, Audubon kept doggedly at his tasks. On April 20 he wrote to Bachman:

Immediately on my arrival in London I set to writing, and finished in one month, one 4th. of the Biographies of my 3d. vol. This rendering me _puffy_, I could scarcely breathe—my appetite was gone—my digestion bad—in other words I was attacked by Dyspepsia as bad as ever. Then I thought of a change of work—for in change of labour the body and the mind undergo sure and certain relief. I took to Drawing! and what do you think—I have positively finished 33 drawings of American birds in England. This has enabled me to swell my 3d. vol. of Illustrations with 57 species not given by Wilson and therefore forestalling my friend Charles Bonaparte.

On the 28th of April Audubon wrote to Edward Harris, begging him to send specimens of certain birds which he needed, as well as a circumstantial account of the shad fisheries of the Delaware River as material for an "Episode" for the third volume of his _Biography_; the fiftieth number of his illustrations was then in the hands of the colorist. He continued:[128]

I thought better to push my publication on account of the woeful dulling of the times in this country, where political strife engrosses the mind of every person so much that arts and sciences are, as it were, put on the shelves. Ministers are beings of six weeks lives now-a-days. The Reformers are struggling against the Tories, and vice versa. The Churchmen are aghast at the prospect of the future, and all this puts a complete stoppage to business, independent of such matters. Even since my return to England I have obtained only two or three subscribers, and have lost more than a dozen; nay, I may safely say, two dozen. In America, on the contrary, things appear to go on more prosperously. May God's will grant a long continuation of this to our _only Land_ of Liberty. France, you will have heard, has at last passed an order for the payment of her debts to the citizens of the United States, and I hope that this may prove amply sufficient to save us from having a war with that powerful nation.... I wrote you that Dr. George Parkman, of Boston, would have my 2d. volume of Biographies reprinted in his city. I have seen 100 pages of this reprint here, but do not know if the Vol. (American Ed.) has appeared before the Public?

My—Friends—erton, Ord & Co. keep up their curious animadversions against me still—methinks they must be shockingly mortified at my stubborn silence toward them. Some unknown friends now & then reply to their absurdities.

His persistent heckler, Charles Waterton, was quite busy at this time, four articles having been directed against Audubon or his friends in 1835, though this was not his most prolific year. A similar reference occurs in a letter written to Bachman from Edinburgh on the 20th of July: "As to the rage of Mr. Waterton, or the lucubrations of Mr. Neal, who by the bye is a subscriber to the Birds of America (bona fide), I really care not a fig—all such stuffs will soon evaporate, being mere smoke from a Dung Hill."

In the summer of 1835 Audubon was again established in Edinburgh and working with unremitting vigor at his _Biography_; some idea of the speed which he maintained when able to devote himself unreservedly to this task can be gathered from the fact that after the issue of his second volume, of 620 large pages, in December, 1834, the third, of 654 pages, was published in just a year from that time. He wrote to Edward Harris from Edinburgh on the 5th of July, when engaged in this work:

I intend to write a few ["Episodes"] of such extraordinary men, now deceased, with whom I have been acquainted—Thomas Bewick, and Baron Cuvier, for example.

We receive no new subscribers in Europe. The taste is passing for Birds like a flitting shadow—Insects, reptiles and fishes are now the rage, and these fly, swim or crawl on pages innumerable in every Bookseller's window. When this is also passed, naturalists will have to turn over a new leaf and commence afresh, or go to the antipodes in search of materials to please the taste for novelty's sake.—However my work will I hope be finished ere I leave this world, and must be appreciated in years to come, when perhaps my childrens' children will feel proud of their gone ancestor, "The American Woodsman." You see my Dear Friend how far enthusiasm and a portion of the like for standing fame carries even your humble servant a man with no other means than his industry and prudence as a means of support, and one with scarce the motive of education. There are moments, and they are not far between, when thinking of my present enormous undertaking, I wonder how I have been able to support the extraordinary amount of monies paid for the work alone, without taking cognizance of my family and my expeditions, which ever and anon travelling as we are from place to place and country to country are also very great. When I publish my Life and let the world know that Audubon like Wilson, was at Phila. without the half of a Dollar, and that had it not been for benevolent generosity of a certain Gentleman whose name is Edward Harris, Audubon must have walked off from one of the fairest of our Cities like a beggar does in poor Ireland, left destitute of all things save his humble talents, and his determination to produce something worthy of the soul of man: I say my dear Harris will not the world stare! Poor Wilson was only better off than I on account of his superior talents over me at driving the goose quill, but much similarity still seems to have [existed] in both of us, as I could drive the pencil, the brush, the Fiddle bow and even the "Fleuret" [better] than he.

Audubon wrote to Harris again from Edinburgh, on September 5, when he said:

Between you and I the measurements of different Birds given by Wilson are hardly to be depended upon, as I constantly discover a great deficiency in this part of his descriptions which indeed in some cases are otherwise slack, and given as if when fatigued or vexed. Nay I even think at times that he has copied _Authors_ and not nature? as in the instance of the Oyster Catcher, which I fear he made & figured from a European one in the Philadelphia museum, took the descriptions from _Latham_, and described the Habits of Palliartus which is our own Bird and it seems the only species to be met with in America, at least on our Atlantic coast. Wilson committed the same blunder with the Rallus elegans which he _figured_ and described the habits of the R. capitans for it! I could enumerate more instances of carelessness, but poor Wilson is dead and may God bless his soul!

The third volume of his letterpress,[129] which dealt with the water birds of America, made its appearance at the close of 1835; in the introduction he said:

I look forward to the summer of 1838 with an anxious hope that I may then be able to present you with the last plate of my Illustrations, and the concluding volume of my Biographies. To render these volumes as complete as possible, I intend to undertake a journey to the southern and western limits of the Union, with the view of obtaining a more accurate knowledge of the birds of those remote and scarcely inhabited regions. On this tour I shall be accompanied by my youngest son, while the rest of my family will remain in Britain to direct the progress of my publication.

Audubon returned to London with his family early in 1836, visiting Newcastle, York, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield by the way, and took a house at Number 4, Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square. As Mrs. Audubon's health was anything but good, they were fortunate in having as a neighbor in this street an eminent surgeon, Benjamin Phillips,[130] and this friend was also a subscriber to _The Birds of America_. "Were I to mention," said Audubon,

the many occasions on which he has aided me by his advice and superior knowledge of the world, you would be pleased to find so much disinterestedness in human nature. His professional aid too, valuable as it has proved to us, and productive of much inconvenience to him, has been rendered without reward, for I could never succeed in inducing him to consider us his patients, although for upwards of two years he never passed a day without seeing my wife.

In the spring of 1836 Audubon's two sons made a tour of France and Italy; on the 9th of March he wrote to Harris that they expected to leave England in a week, be gone three and a half months, visit Paris, Rome and Messina, and return by way of Marseilles and Paris. With the passage of 1836 he had completed 70 numbers, of 350 plates, of his larger work, leaving but 85 plates yet to be engraved. Though anxious to see this greatest of his tasks brought to an end, he still looked with longing eyes to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast, and began preparations for his last journey to obtain materials and subscribers in the United States.