A Voyage to Terra Australis/Volume 2/Book 3/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
1810.
January.The French cartel for the Cape of Good Hope had sailed two days when a packet boat arrived with despatches from Bayonne, and from the unusual degree of secrecy observed respecting them, some persons were willing to suppose that orders to set me at liberty formed part of their contents; of this, the most prudent mode to gain information was to wait patiently for the sailing of the English cartel for India, when my embarkation therein or being again left the sole British prisoner in the island, would afford a practical solution of the question. In the time of waiting for this event, I revised some notes upon the magnetism of the earth and of ships, and considered the experiments necessary to elucidate the opinions formed from observations made in the Investigator; and I was thus occupied when, on March 13th,March. a letter came from Mr. Hope, the commissary of prisoners, to inform me that he had obtained the captain-general's promise for my liberty, and departure from the island with him in the Harriet. This unhoped for intelligence would have produced excessive joy, had not experience taught me to distrust even the promises of the general; and especially when, as in the present case, there was no cause assigned for this change in his conduct. I dared not therefore allow my imagination to contemplate a meeting with my family and friends as likely to soon take place, nor to dwell upon any subject altogether English; the same preparation however was made for a departure, as if this promise were expected to be fulfilled. It was reported that the Harriet would sail within a fortnight after two frigates and a sloop should have gone out upon a cruise; and as these ships sailed on the 14th, the official information of my liberty, if really granted, might be expected daily.
It will be believed that I sought on all hands to learn whether any thing had transpired from the government to bespeak an intention of suffering me to go in the cartel; but it was without success, and every person endeavoured to discourage the hope, with a friendly design of softening another probable disappointment. They argued, that for general De Caen to let me go at this time, when I knew so much of the island and an attack upon it was expected, would be to contradict all the reasons hitherto given for my detention; and therefore, that unless he had received a new and positive order, he could not with any degree of consistency set me at liberty. This state of suspense, between hope and apprehension, continued until the 28th, when an express from the town, sent by M. Pitot, brought the following welcome information from colonel Monistrol.
His Excellency the captain-general charges me to have the honour of informing you, that he authorises you to return to your country in the cartel Harriet, on condition of not serving in a hostile manner against France or its allies during the course of the present war.
Receive, I pray you, Sir, the assurance of the pleasure I have in making you this communication, and of the sentiments of perfect consideration with which I have the honour to be, &c.
P.S. The cartel is to sail on Saturday next (31st.)
Being then satisfied of the intention to permit my return to England, though the cause of it was involved in mystery, I visited our immediate, and still almost incredulous neighbours, to take leave of them; and wrote letters to the principal of those more distant inhabitants, whose kindness demanded my gratitude. Early next morning a red flag with a pendant under it, showing one or more of our ships to be cruising before the port, was hoisted upon the signal hills; this was an unwelcome sight, for it had been an invariable rule to let no cartel or neutral vessel go out, so long as English ships were before the island. I however took leave of the benevolent and respectable family which had afforded me an asylum during four years and a half; and on arriving at my friend Pitot's in the town, was met by Messrs. Hope and Ramsden, neither of whom knew any other reason for setting me at liberty than that the captain-general had granted it to Mr. Hope's solicitations.
On waiting upon colonel Monistrol on the 30th, it appeared that nothing had been done relative to the Cumberland, or to returning what had been taken away, particularly the third volume of my log book so often before mentioned; he promised however to take the captain-general's pleasure upon these subjects, and to repeat my offer of making and signing any extracts from the book which His Excellency might desire to preserve. In the evening I had the pleasure to meet a large party of my countrymen and women, at a dinner given by M. Foisy, president of the Society of Emulation; and from the difficulty of speaking English after a cessation of four years, I then became convinced of the possibility of a man's forgetting his own language.
April.There were lying in port two Dutch and one American vessel, with a number of Frenchmen on board, whom marshal Daendels, governor of the remaining Dutch possessions in the East, had engaged to officer some new regiments of Malays; these vessels waited only for the absence of our cruisers to go to Batavia; and that we might not give information of them was the alleged cause for detaining the cartel all the month of April, our squadron keeping so close off the port that they dared not venture out.
May.On May 2, captain Willoughby of the Néréide made a descent upon the south side of the island, at Port Jacotet; where he cut out L'Estafette packet boat, spiked the guns of the fort, carried off the officer with two field pieces, and M. Etienne Bolger, commandant of the quarter of La Savanne, the same who had acted so ungraciously on my arrival at the Baye du Cap. This sullying of the French territory produced a fulminating proclamation from general De Caen, nearly similar in terms to that of the emperor Napoléon after the descent at Walcheren; its effect on the inhabitants, however, was not much, for on asking some of them what they thought of this second-hand gasconade, the reply was,—"Oh it is not to us, it is to Bonaparte "that the proclamation is addressed;" meaning that it was a bait to catch his approbation. Three days afterwards a flag of truce was sent out to negotiate an exchange for M. Bolger and the officer who had commanded the fort, for whom twenty soldiers of the 69th regiment were given; we afterwards learned that a proposal had been made to let the cartel sail, provided the squadron would suffer her to pass without being visited; but to this arrangement captain Pym, the then senior officer, refused his consent.
An order was given on the 8th for all the British officers to embark in the cartel, and we hoped to sail immediately; but the merchants of the town presented a petition to the captain-general for a delay, lest we might give information of the expected arrival of some ships from France. Our cruisers were stationed purposely to stop every French vessel, whether going in or out, and this petition therefore seemed to be ridiculous; it appeared however to be complied with, for we not only were prevented sailing, but denied all communication with the inhabitants for several weeks; and the five ladies on board were as much subjected to these restrictions as the officers. The French cartel returned from the Cape of Good Hope on the 10th, with exchanged prisoners; and the former reports of a projected attack on Mauritius and Bourbon were so strongly revived that general De Caen made a tour of the island, in order, as was said, to have batteries erected at all the landing places without defence, and to strengthen the existing fortifications. On the 18th, an exchange was made with the squadron of sixteen soldiers and people out of the prison on shore, for the commander and some others of L'Estafette; but nothing transpired relative to the sailing of the cartel.
June.June 2, a salute of twenty-one guns was fired to celebrate the marriage of the French emperor with the princess Maria Louisa of Austria. This intelligence, accompanied with that of the capture of La Canonnière, was brought by a ship from Bourdeaux, which had succeeded in getting into the Black River, as had L'Atrée frigate some weeks before. The entrance of these vessels at the time that five or six of our ships were cruising round the island, affords additional proof of the impossibility of blockading it effectually, without a much more extensive force than so small a spot can be thought to deserve. Mauritius owes this advantage principally to its numerous hills; from whence vessels at sea are informed by signal of the situation of the cruisers, and are thus enabled to avoid them.
On the 7th, a parole made out by the English interpreter was brought on board for me to sign; and at daylight of the 13th a pilot came to take the cartel out of harbour, and we received forty-six seamen of the Sea Flower and soldiers of the 69th; my sword was then delivered back, and the following duplicate of the parole was given, with a certificate annexed from colonel Monistrol.
Au Port Napoléon, Isle de France, le 7 Juin 1810,
L'adjutant commᵉ., chef de l'état-major-gen.
I had much feared to be laid under the obligation of going to India, and of thus losing some months of time and incurring a considerable and useless expense; but although the parole expresses the "having obtained leave to return by the way of Bengal," neither the part containing my promise nor the certificate of colonel Monistrol specified any particular route; and the officer of the staff who delivered this duplicate, said he supposed I should not lose time in going to India, but proceed to the Cape in the first vessel sent in by the squadron.
Frequent mention has been made of attempts to procure back the third volume of my journal, the sole book remaining in the hands of the captain-general. Twice during my residence in the town these attempts had been renewed, but with no better effect than were my applications respecting the Cumberland; nor would certificates be given of the refusal either of these objects or of the Port-Jackson despatches. I therefore requested Mr. Hope to certify the steps which had been taken, that the Admiralty and Secretary of State might be satisfied of every thing in my power having been done; and this he did in the following terms.
This is to certify to whomsoever it may concern, that after having succeeded in executing that part of the instructions of His Excellency lord Minto, governor-general of British India, relating to the liberation of Matthew Flinders, Esq., late commander of His Majesty's ship Investigator, who had been detained more than six years in the Isle of France, I did, at the request of captain Flinders, make a personal application to His Excellency general De Caen for the third volume of the log book of his voyage of discovery, which that officer represented to be still kept from him by His Excellency. That the answer to this was a positive refusal, both of the book and of permission to take a copy of it; and the reason given for this refusal was, that captain F. not being set at liberty in consequence of any orders from France, every thing relating to this log book and to his little schooner Cumberland must remain to be settled between the French and British governments in Europe.
I do further certify that captain Flinders did, in my presence, apply to the chief of the staff in the Isle of France, for certificates of the above log book and schooner being refused to be given up; and also for a certificate of two boxes of despatches having been taken on his arrival in this island, in December 1803, and that I have since made a similar application to the same officer for the said certificates; but which have been refused for the same alleged reason as before given to me by His Excellency the captain-general De Caen.
It may probably be asked, what could be general De Caen's object in refusing throughout to give up this log book, or to suffer any copy to be taken? I can see no other reasonable one, than that the statements from it, sent to the French government as reasons for detaining me a prisoner, might have been partial and mutilated extracts; and he did not choose to have his accusations disproved by the production either of the original or an authentic copy. Besides this book and the little schooner, I lost a cask containing pieces of rock collected from different parts of Terra Australis, the two spy-glasses taken in the Garden Prison, and various small articles belonging to myself; but I was too happy at the prospect of getting out of the island to make any difficulty upon these heads.
On the same morning that the pilot came on board, the anchors were weighed; but in swinging out, the ship touched the ground, and hung till past four in the afternoon. During this time we saw L'Estafette coming in with a flag of truce from the squadron; and the boat that went to meet her was returning when the cartel had floated off, and sail was made. We were a good deal alarmed at what might be the subject of L'Estafette's communication, and particularly anxious to get without side of the port before any counter order should come from the general; at sunset it was effected, the French pilot left us, and after a captivity of six years, five months and twenty-seven days, I at length had the inexpressible pleasure of being out of the reach of general De Caen.
Three frigates and a sloop of war composed the squadron cruising before the port; but instead of coming to speak us for information, as was expected, we observed them standing away to the southward; a proceeding which could be reconciled only upon the supposition, that commodore Rowley had sent in an offer not to communicate with the cartel. This was too important an affair to me to be let pass without due inquiry; my endeavours were therefore used with Mr. Ramsden, the commander, to induce him to run down to the ships; and this was done, on finding they persisted in stretching to the southward. At nine o'clock Mr. Ramsden went in a boat to the Boadicea, but was desired to keep off; a letter was handed to him for the commissary, containing a copy of one sent in by L'Estafette, wherein it was proposed, if general De Caen would suffer the cartel to sail, that she should not be visited by any ship under the commodore's orders. Mr. Hope replied that the cartel had not come out in consequence of this proposal, nor had the boat reached the shore at the time; and this point being clearly ascertained, a communication was opened, and I applied for a passage to the Cape of Good Hope. It happened fortunately, that the Otter sloop of war was required to go there immediately with despatches; and the commodore having satisfied himself that no engagement of the commissary opposed it, complied with my request. Next day I took leave of Mr. Hope, to whose zeal and address I owed so much, and wished my companions in the cartel, with her worthy commander, a good voyage; and after dining with commodore Rowley, embarked in the evening on board the Otter with captain Tomkinson.
On bidding adieu to Mauritius, it is but justice to declare that during my long residence in the island, as a marked object of suspicion to the government, the kind attention of the inhabitants who could have access to me was invariable; never, in any place, or amongst any people, have I seen more hospitality and attention to strangers,—more sensibility to the misfortunes of others, of whatever nation, than here,—than I have myself experienced in Mauritius. To the names of the two families whose unremitting kindness formed a great counterpoise to the protracted persecution of their governor, might be added a long list of others whose endeavours were used to soften my captivity; and who sought to alleviate the chagrin which perhaps the strongest minds cannot but sometimes feel in the course of years, when reflecting on their far-distant families and friends, on their prospects in life indefinitely suspended, and their hopes of liberty and justice followed by continual disappointment; and to the honour of the inhabitants in general be it spoken, that many who knew no more than my former employment and my misfortunes, sought to render me service by such ways as seemed open to them. The long continuation and notorious injustice of my imprisonment had raised a sensation more strong and widely extended than I could believe, before arriving at Port Louis to embark in the cartel; when the number of persons who sought to be introduced, for the purpose of offering their felicitations upon this unexpected event, confirmed what had been before said by my friends; and afforded a satisfactory proof that even arbitrary power, animated by strong national prejudice, though it may turn aside or depress for a time, cannot yet extinguish in a people the broad principles of justice and humanity generally prevalent in the human heart.
Some part of my desire to ascertain the motives which influenced 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 "King;" yet, after a delay of fifteen months, an application was answered by saying, "that having communicated to His Excellency the marine minister the motives which had determined him to suspend my return to Europe, he could not authorize my departure before having received an answer upon the subject;" in twenty months more, however, he let me go, and declared to Mr. commissary Hope that it was not in consequence of any orders from France.
When first imprisoned in 1803, for having expressed a wish to learn the present state of the colony, there was no suspicion of any projected attack upon it; in 1810, preparations of defence were making against an attack almost immediately expected, and there were few circumstances relating to the island in which I was not as well informed as the generality of the inhabitants; then it was, after giving me the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the town and harbour of Port Louis, that general De Caen suffered me to go away in a ship bound to the place whence the attack was expected, and without laying any restriction upon my communications.
Such are the leading characteristics of the conduct pursued by His Excellency general De Caen, and they will be admitted to be so far contradictory as to make the reconciling them with any uniform principle a difficult task; with the aid however of various collateral circumstances, of opinions entertained by well informed people, and of facts which transpired in the shape of opinions, I will endeavour to give some insight into his policy; requesting the reader to bear in mind that much of what is said must necessarily depend upon conjecture.
After the peace of Amiens, general De Caen went out to Pondicherry as captain-general of all the French possessions to the east of the Cape of Good Hope; he had a few troops and a number of extra officers, some of whom appear to have been intended for seapoy regiments proposed to be raised, and others for the service of the Mahrattas. The plan of operations in India was probably extensive, but the early declaration of war by England put a stop to them, and obliged His Excellency to abandon the brilliant prospect of making a figure in the annals of the East; he then came to Mauritius, exclaiming against the perfidy of the British government, and with a strong dislike, if not hatred to the whole nation. I arrived about three months subsequent to this period, and the day after M. Barrois had been sent on board Le Géographe with despatches for France; which transaction being contrary to the English passport, and subjecting the ship to capture, if known, it was resolved to detain me a short time, and an embargo was laid upon all neutral ships for ten days. It would appear that the report of the commandant at La Savanne gave some suspicion of my identity, which was eagerly adopted as a cause of detention; I was therefore accused at once of imposture, closely confined, and my books, papers, and vessel seized. Next day another report arrived from La Savanne, that of major Dunienville; from which, and the examination I had just undergone, it appeared that the accusation of imposture was untenable; an invitation to go to the general's table was then sent me, no suspicion being entertained that this condescension to an Englishman, and to an officer of inferior rank, might not be thought an equivalent for what had passed. My refusal of the intended honour until set at liberty, so much exasperated the captain-general that he determined to make me repent it; and a wish to be acquainted with the present state of Mauritius being found in my journal, it was fixed upon as a pretext for detaining me until orders should arrive from France, by which an imprisonment of at least twelve months was insured. The first motive for my detention therefore arose from the infraction previously made of the English passport, by sending despatches in Le Géographe; and the probable cause of its being prolonged beyond what seems to have been originally intended, was to punish me for refusing the invitation to dinner.
The marine minister's letter admits little doubt that general De Caen knew, on the return of his brother-in-law in January 1805, that the council of state at Paris, though approving of his conduct, proposed granting my liberty and the restitution of the Cumberland; and he must have expected by every vessel to receive orders to that effect; but punishment had not yet produced a sufficient degree of humiliation to make him execute such an order willingly. When the exchange was made with commodore Osborn in the following August, it became convenient to let me quit the Garden Prison, in order to take away the sentinels; captain Bergeret also, who as a prisoner in India had been treated with distinction, strongly pressed my going into the country; these circumstances alone might possibly have induced the captain-general to take the parole of one who had been detained as a spy; but his subsequent conduct leaves a strong suspicion that he proposed to make the portion of liberty, thus granted as a favour, subservient to evading the expected order from France, should such a measure be then desirable. At length the order arrived, and three years and a half of detention had not produced any very sensible effect on his prisoner; the execution of it was therefore suspended, until another reference should be made to the government and an answer returned. What was the subject of this reference could not be known, but there existed in the island only one conjecture; that from having had such a degree of liberty during near two years, I had acquired a knowledge of the colony which made it unsafe to permit my departure.
Extensive wars were at this time carrying on in Europe, the French arms were victorious, and general De Caen saw his former companions becoming counts, dukes, and marshals of the empire, whilst he remained an untitled general of division; he and his officers, as one of them told me, then felt themselves little better circumstanced than myself,—than prisoners in an almost forgotten speck of the globe, with their promotion suspended. Rumours of a premeditated attack at length reached the island, which it was said the captain-general heard with pleasure; and it was attributed to the prospect of making military levies on the inhabitants, and increasing his authority by the proclamation of martial law; but if I mistake not, the general's pleasure arose from more extended views and a more permanent source. If the island were attacked and he could repulse the English forces, distinction would follow; if unsuccessful, a capitulation would restore him to France and the career of advancement. An attack was therefore desirable; and as the captain-general probably imagined that an officer who had been six years a prisoner, and whose liberty had been so often requested by the different authorities in India, would not only be anxious to forward it with all his might, but that his representations would be attended to, the pretexts before alleged for my imprisonment and the answer from France were waved; and after passing six weeks in the town of Port Louis and five on board a ship in the harbour, from which I had before been debarred, he suffered me to depart in a cartel bound to the place where the attack was publickly said to be in meditation. This is the sole motive which, upon a review of the general's conduct, I can assign for being set at liberty so unexpectedly, and without any restriction upon my communications; and if such a result to an attack upon Mauritius were foreseen by the present count De Caen, captain-general of Catalonia, events have proved that he was no mean calculator. But perhaps this, as well as the preceding conjectures on his motives may be erroneous; if so, possibly the count himself, or some one on the part of the French government may give a more correct statement,—one which may not only reconcile the facts here brought together, but explain many lesser incidents which have been omitted from fear of tiring the patience of the reader.
I thought it a happy concurrence of circumstances, that on the same day we quitted Port Louis in the cartel, the arrival of a frigate from India should require commodore Rowley to despatch the Otter to the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Tomkinson took his departure on the 14th at nine in the evening, from Cape Brabant, with a fresh trade wind and squally weather; at noon next day the island Bourbon was in sight, and the breakers on the south-east end distinguishable from the deck; but thick clouds obscured all the hills. The winds from south-east and north-east carried us to the latitude 27° and longitude 49°; they were afterwards variable, and sometimes foul for days together, and we did not make the coast of Africa until the 3rd of July.July. Being then in latitude 34° 52′ and longitude 25½°, the hills were descried at the distance of twenty leagues to the northward; and the water being remarkably smooth, the lead was hove, but no bottom found at 200 fathoms. A continuance of western winds obliged us to work along the greater part of the coast, and Cape Agulhas was not seen before the 10th; we then had a strong breeze at S.E., and Cape Hanglip being distinguished at dusk, captain Tomkinson steered up False Bay, and anchored at eleven at night in 22 fathoms, sandy bottom. In this passage of twenty-six days from Mauritius, the error in dead reckoning amounted to 1° 18′ south and 2° 21′ west, which might be reasonably attributed to the current.
On the 11th we ran into Simon's Bay, and captain Tomkinson set off immediately for Cape Town with his despatches to vice-admiral Bertie and His Excellency the earl of Caledon; he took also a letter from me to the admiral, making application, conformably to my instructions, for the earliest passage to England; and requesting, if any circumstance should place general De Caen within his power, that he would be pleased to demand my journal from him, and cause it to be transmitted to the Admiralty. I went on shore next morning and waited upon colonel sir Edward Butler, the commanding officer at Simon's Town; and learning that an India packet had put into Table Bay, on her way to England, made preparation for going over on the following day. At noon, however, a telegraphic signal, expressed the admiral's desire to see me immediately; and as the packet was expected to stop only a short time, I hoped it was for the purpose of embarking in her, and hastened over with horses and a dragoon guide furnished by the commandant; but to my mortification, the packet was standing out of Table Bay at the time I alighted at the admiral's door, and no other opportunity for England presented itself for more than six weeks afterward.
During the tedious time of waiting at Cape Town for a passage, I received much polite attention from His Excellency the earl of Caledon, and Mr. Alexander, secretary to the colony; as also from the Hon. general Grey, commander of the forces, commissioner Shield of the navy, and several other civil and military officers of the Cape establishment. I made little excursions to Constantia and in the neighbourhood of the town; but feared to go into the interior of the country lest an opportunity, such as that which the India packet had presented, might be lost. Towards the latter end of August,August. captain Parkinson of the army and lieutenant Robb of the navy arrived from commodore Rowley's squadron, with intelligence of the island Bourbon being captured; and a cutter being ordered to convey them to England, I requested of the admiral and obtained a passage in her.
We sailed from Simon's Bay on the 28th, in the Olympia, commanded by lieutenant Henry Taylor; and after a passage of fourteen days, anchored in St. Helena road on the afternoon of September 11;September. and having obtained water and a few supplies from the town, sailed again the same night. On the 16th, passed close to the north side of Ascension, in the hope of procuring a turtle should any vessel be lying there; but seeing none, steered onward and crossed the Line on the 19th, in longitude 19½° west. The trade wind shifted to the S.W. in latitude 5° north, and continued to blow until we had reached abreast of the Cape-Verde Islands, as it had done at the same time of year in 1801. At my recommendation lieutenant Taylor did not run so far west as ships usually do in returning to England, but passed the Cape-Verdes not further distant than sixty leagues; we there met the north-east trade, and on the 29th Mr. Taylor took the brig Atalante from Mauritius.
October.On reaching the latitude 22¼° north and longitude 33° west, the north-east trade veered to east and south-eastward, which enabled us to make some easting; and being succeeded by north-west winds, we passed within the Azores, and took a fresh departure from St. Mary's on the 15th of October. Soundings in 75 fathoms were obtained on the 21st, at the entrance of the English Channel; but it then blew a gale of wind from the westward, and obliged us to lie to on this, as it did on the following night; and it was greatly feared that the cutter would be driven on the coast of France, near the Casket rocks. In the morning of the 23rd, the wind being more moderate, we made sail to the northward, and got sight of the Bill of Portland; and at five in the evening came to an anchor in Studland Bay, off the entrance of Pool Harbour, after a run from St. Helena of six weeks; which in an indifferent sailing vessel, very leaky, and excessively ill found, must be considered an excellent passage.
Captain Parkinson and lieutenant Robb went off the same night with their despatches; and next morning we ran through the Needles and came to at Spithead, where the prize brig, from which we had been long separated, had just before dropped her anchor. I went on shore to wait upon admiral sir Roger Curtis, and the same evening set off for London; having been absent from England nine years and three months, and nearly four years and a half without intelligence from any part of my connexions.
The account of the Investigator's voyage, and of the events resulting from it is concluded; but there is one or two circumstances which the naval reader may probably desire to see further explained. A regulation adopted at the Admiralty forbids any officer to be promoted whilst a prisoner, upon the principle apparently, that officers in that situation have almost always to undergo a court martial, which cannot be done until they are set at liberty. My case was made subject to this regulation, although it required no court martial; and was moreover so different to that of prisoners in general, that nothing similar perhaps ever occurred. In consequence of my French passport, not only was the possibility of reaping any advantage from the war done away, but the liberation on parole or by exchange, granted to all others in Mauritius, was refused for years, the passport removing me from the class of prisoners of war; yet one of the greatest hardships to officers of a state of warfare was at the same time applied to me in England, and continued throughout this protracted detention. So soon as it was known that I had been released, and was arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, a commission for post rank was issued; and on my representations to the Right Hon. Charles Yorke, first lord commissioner of the Admiralty, by whom I had the honour to be received with the condescension and feeling natural to his character, he was pleased to direct that it should take date as near to that of general De Caen's permission to quit Mauritius, as the patent which constituted the existing Board of Admiralty would allow. A more retrospective date could be given to it only by an order of the King in council; unhappily His Majesty was then incapable of exercising his royal functions; and when the Regency was established, my proposed petition did not meet with that official encouragement which was necessary to obtain success. It was candidly acknowledged, that my services in the Investigator would have been deemed a sufficient title to advancement in 1864, had I then arrived in England and the Admiralty been composed of the same members; but no representation could overcome the reluctance to admitting an exception to the established rule; thus the injustice of the French governor of Mauritius, besides all its other consequences, was attended with the loss of six years post rank in His Majesty's naval service.
One of my first cares was to seek the means of relieving some relations of my Mauritius friends, prisoners of war in England; and in a few months, through the indulgence of the Admiralty and of the earl of Liverpool, secretary of state for the colonies, I had the gratification of sending five young men back to the island, to families who had shown kindness to English prisoners.
The Board of Admiralty was pleased to countenance the publication of the Investigator's voyage by providing for the charts and embellishments; and a strong representation was made by its directions to the French government, upon the subjects of my detained journal, the schooner Cumberland, and the parole exacted on quitting Mauritius. A release from the parole was transmitted in April 1812, after three applications; but upon the other points it was answered, that "the vessel of captain Flinders was at the Isle of France at the capitulation of that colony, and returned in consequence to the power of the English government. With respect to the journal of that navigator, as it did not make part of the papers brought from the Isle of France by the prefect of that colony, a demand has been made for it to the captain-general De Caen, who is with the army. In default of an answer he will be again written to, and so soon as it shall be remitted, my first object will be to send it." The Cumberland had been seized in 1803, and the capitulation was made in 1810; in the interval, both vessel and stores, if not used, would be in great part rotten; but I saw the Cumberland employed in the French service, and believe that the stores were also. General De Caen, it appeared, still kept the log book in his own hands; although, if considered to be private property, it was undoubtedly mine, and if as a public document it ought to have been given up at the capitulation, or at least to have been deposited in the office of the marine minister. But the captain-general had probably his reasons for not wishing even the minister to see it; and up to this time, the commencement of 1814, he has so far persevered against both public and private applications, that neither the original nor a copy has been obtained.