1804.
March.
was permitted to speak to me in the presence of an officer before their departure; and after learning the condition of the poor prisoners, I recommended him to keep our people as clean in their persons and regular in their conduct as circumstances would permit; and not to attempt any escape, since we must be liberated in six or eight months by order of the French government. One of them, the Prussian who had behaved so ill, had gone away in the Spanish frigate Fama, by permission of the French; the others had been kept strictly on board the prison ship after the departure of the three Dutch men of war. Although several prizes had been brought in, the number of English prisoners was inconsiderable; owing to some of the vessels being manned with lascars who were not confined, and in part to the sailors having been induced to enter on board the French privateers, for the sake of obtaining more provisions and to avoid being kept in irons.
I had hitherto forborne to write any letters to England, whether public or private, but what passed open through the office of the town major, that no plea, even what arbitrary power could construe into such, might be taken for continuing our imprisonment; but the arrival of letters thus sent being exceedingly problematical, and my hope of liberation from general De Caen having disappeared, the motive for this forbearance had ceased to exist. An account was therefore written to the secretary of the Admiralty of my arrival, reception, and treatment in Mauritius, inclosing copies of all the letters written or received; that my Lords Commissioners might be enabled to take proper measures for obtaining our liberty and the restitution of my charts and journals; especial care was taken at the same time, to avoid the mention of any thing which could be thought to infringe on the passport, as much as if it had remained inviolate on the part of general De Caen. This letter was inclosed to a friend in London, and sent by the way of America; and I afterwards learned from the public papers that it was received in the August following.
The end of March had arrived, and nothing more was said of