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Rh distributing to the people of the island copies of a proclamation in which the ambition of the French was contrasted disadvantageously with the good government of the English. This somewhat childish demonstration met with the fate that might have been anticipated. It failed to seduce a single islander.

Before adverting to the measures next taken by the English, I propose to remark for a few moments on the state of affairs at this moment in the Isle of France. The Governor of that island was General Count Decäen. He was one of the most distinguished officers of the French Army. He had made his earlier campaigns under Kléber, Hoche, and Moreau. At Hohenlinden he had contributed more than any other general, excepting perhaps General Richepanse, to the decisive victory. Named in 1802 by the First Consul Captain-General of the French possessions to the east of the Cape of Good Hope, he had accompanied Admiral Linois to the Indian waters, had with him visited Pondichery, and recognising the impossibility of keeping that place in the event of the breaking out of a war, then imminent, with England, had sailed to the Isle of France, thence to concert the measures which it might still be possible to direct against the resolute enemy of his country. But he did not stop there. He devoted himself with all the ardour of his generous and enlightened nature to the amelioration of the condition of the islanders. He modified and improved the old commercial laws; he established a number of useful institutions; codified the general, the civil,