John Jacob got a job next day as oarsman on a lumber raft.

He reached Antwerp in a week. There he got a job on the
docks as a laborer. The next day he was promoted to checker-
off. The captain of a ship asked him to go to London and
figure up the manifests on the way. He went.

The captain of the ship recommended him to the company in
London, and the boy was soon piling up wealth at the rate of a
guinea a month.

In September, Seventeen Hundred and Eighty-three, came
the news to London that George Washington had
surrendered. In any event, peace had been declared--
Cornwallis had forced the issue, so the Americans had stopped
fighting.

A little later it was given out that England had given up her
American Colonies, and they were free.

Intuitively John Jacob Astor felt that the ``New World'' was
the place for him. He bought passage on a sailing ship bound
for Baltimore, at a cost of five pounds. He then fastened five
pounds in a belt around his waist, and with the rest of his
money--after sending two pounds home to his father, with a
letter of love--bought a dozen German flutes.

He had learned to play on this instrument with proficiency,
and in America he thought there would be an opening for
musicians and musical instruments.