1804.
January.
the chart of the Gulph of Carpentaria; and this employment served to divert my chagrin, and the indignation which, however useless it might be, I could not but feel at the author of our imprisonment. The want of my log book, however, was a great obstacle to laying down the parts seen in the Cumberland; and nothing more having been said of it, a short letter was written to general De Caen on the 5th, reminding him that the log was necessary to the construction of my charts, and that only a small part of the printed books had yet been delivered. A verbal answer was brought by the interpreter, and two days afterward the books came from the schooner; but respecting the log no answer was made.
The sentinel placed at the door of our chambers (for we had a few days before obtained a second, with musketo curtains to our beds), became unusually strict at this time, scarcely allowing the master of the tavern, or even the interpreter or surgeon to see us; and one day, hearing me inquire the name of some dish in French from the slave who waited at dinner, the sentinel burst into the room and drove away the poor affrighted black, saying that we were not to speak to any person. Previously to this, a Dutch, a Swiss, a Norwegian, and two American gentlemen had called; but except the Swiss, who found means to bid us good day occasionally without being noticed, not one came a second time, for fear of being held in a suspicious light by the government; and now, the surgeon and interpreter were not admitted without a written order. Two applications had been made by the surgeon in my behalf, to walk in the fields near the town; the last was personally to the captain-general, but although he might have caused a sentinel to follow, or a whole guard if thought necessary, an unqualified refusal was given to M. Chapotin's humane request.
tion with the Coepang rate, was 57° 40′ 40″,5, or 10′ 43″,5 greater than afterwards obtained from twenty-seven sets of lunar distances. In laying down the track from Timor, this error has been equally distributed throughout the thirty-five days between November 14 and December 19, 1803.
