1805.
January.
despatches in time of war was therefore improper. Common report said, that captain Melius objected to it, as compromising the safety of his ship and results of the voyage; but on its being known from the signals that an English vessel was on the south side of the island, M. Barrois embarked secretly, and the ship was ordered off the same evening. Hence I missed seeing her, and was arrested on arriving at Port Louis without examination; and hence it appeared to have been, that an embargo was immediately laid on all foreign ships for ten days, that none of our cruisers might get information of the circumstance and stop Le Géographe; hence also the truth of what was told me in the Café Marengo, that my confinement did not arise from any thing I had done.
Such was the respect paid by general De Caen to the English passport; and how little sacred he held that given by his own government for the protection of the Investigator's voyage, will in part have already appeared. The conduct of the British government and its officers in these two cases was widely different. In consequence of the English passport, the Géographe and Naturaliste were received at Port Jackson as friends, and treated with the kindness due to their employment and distressed situation, as will satisfactorily appear from M. Peron's account of their voyage; and with regard to the French passport, it may be remembered that the Admiralty directed me, on leaving England, not even to take letters or packets other than such as might be received from that office, or that of the secretary of state; and the despatches sent from those offices were to governor King alone, and related solely to the Investigator's voyage. I was ordered to stop at Madeira and the Cape of Good Hope, but neither to the officers commanding His Majesty's land or sea forces at one, nor at the other place was any despatch sent; although no opportunity of writing to the Cape had for some time presented itself.
February.The return of M. Barrois gave a reasonable hope that the captain-general might have received orders concerning me, and that some-