However, Peale was in his later years to regard his debts and his flight from imprisonment as a great blessing. Had it not been for them, "I might have been contented to drudge in an unnoticed manner through life." As it was, he was separated from the tools of all his crafts except that of painter. He was forced to become a pro­fessional artist.

Peale visited his sister's family in Accomac County, Virginia. When his brother-in-law, who owned a coastal schooner, secured a cargo of grain to sell in New England and invited Peale to come along, he was delighted, but soon he wrote in his -diary: "The wind blows hard, which makes our vessel leak a little. I suffer si­lently." After almost running on Block Island, "a place then famous for,making fine cheese," the boat reached Boston on July 26, 1765.

As he walked the streets, Peale happened on a colour shop "which had some figures with ornamental signs upon it. . . . Becoming a little acquainted with the owner of the shop, he told me that a re­lation of his had been a painter, and said he would give me a feast. Leading me upstairs, he introduced me into a painter's room, an appropriate apartment lined with green cloth or baize, where there were a number of pictures unfinished. He [the painter] had begun a picture—several heads painted—of the ancient philosophers, and some groups of figures." Peale scared about him thunderstruck, for he had never guessed that the world contained such marvellous. canvases. He stammered for a moment before he succeeded in ask­ing the colour dealer what had been the name-'of his brilliant uncle. Smiling, the man replied: Smibert, John Smibert.

Peale mourned that Smibert was dead and wondered whether any painters still lived who could equal him. When the dealer told him about a man who resided down the street, a man named Cop­ley, Peale determined to call, but he was forced instead to accom­pany the schooner, which meant food and lodgings to Newbury-port. After he had painted the boat as she lay in that harbour, the delighted captain lent him sixteen dollars, enabling him to stay behind when the schooner sailed on, "Having nothing to do, I painted a small portrait of myself." This picture was much admired and procured him several commissions. Peale consorted with the patriot leaders, and during the Stamp Act agitation "assisted," he tells us, "in making emblematic designs showing with what una­nimity of detestation the people viewed that odious act of Parlia­ment."

Since he was eager to meet the Mr. Copley the paint dealer had praised, as soon as he had made enough money he took passage back to Boston. "I went and introduced myself to him as a person just-beginning to paint portraits. He received me very politely. I found in his room a considerable number of portraits, many of them highly finished. He lent me a head done by and representing candle­light, which I copied. . . . The sight of Mr, Copley's picture room was a great feast to me."

Perhaps because Copley told him it was easier to get started as a professional painter that way, Peale worked on miniatures, begin­ning with a portrait of himself. He slaved away happily until one morning he found that he was again entirely without funds. After he had failed in his attempt to rent himself out as a journeyman saddler, destitution stared him in the face, but just as he began to

■despair, someone commissioned him to do his portrait and paid the princely sum of twelve dollars. "I now determined to leave Boston while I had the means." However, he met a friend who gave him free passage to Virginia, enabling him to spend his money on paints.

Back with his sister's family in Accomac County, he set up as a professional portrait painter and received five or six commissions. He presented a copy in full colour of a print after Reynolds to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, an old acquaintance, who was so im­pressed that he arranged with most of Peale's creditors to allow the exile to return to Annapolis, where he rejoined his wife and saw for the first time the baby that had been born in his absence. How­ever, his difficulties eventually cropped up again, "and I was in expectation of immediately going to jail." At last he quieted his creditors by assigning to them an estate his wife expected to inherit.