Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/501

Off Mauritius.]

enced general De Caen to act so contrary to the passport of the first consul, and to the usages adopted towards voyages of discovery, may perhaps be felt by the reader; and he may therefore not be displeased to see the leading points in his conduct brought into one view, in order to deducing therefrom some reasonable conclusion.

On arriving at Mauritius after the shipwreck, and producing my passport and commission, the captain-general accused me of being an impostor; took possession of the Cumberland with the charts and journals of my voyage, and made me a close prisoner. On the following day, without any previous change of conduct or offering an explanation, he invited me to his table.

All other books and papers were taken on the fourth day, and my imprisonment confirmed; the alleged cause for it being the expression in my journal of a desire to become acquainted with the periodical winds, the port, and present state of the colony, which it was asserted were contrary to the passport; though it was not said that I knew of the war when the desire was expressed.

After three months seclusion as a spy, I was admitted to join the prisoners of war, and in twenty months to go into the interior of the island, on parole; I there had liberty to range two leagues all round, and was unrestricted either from seeing any person within those limits or writing to any part of the world. It might be thought, that the most certain way of counteracting my desire to gain information alleged to be contrary to the passport, would have been to send me from the island; but general De Caen took the contrary method, and kept me there above six years.

His feeling for my situation, and desire to receive orders from the French marine minister had been more than once expressed, when at the end of three years and a half, he sent official information that the government granted my liberty and the restitution of the Cumberland; and this was accompanied with the promise, that "so soon as circumstances would permit, I should fully enjoy the favour which had been granted me by His Majesty the Emperor and