1806.
March.
is nearly in the centre of the island, and upon the road from Port Louis to Port Bourbon. It was here that the man lamented by the good and well informed of all nations,—whom science illumined, and humanity, joined to an honest ambition, conducted to the haunts of remote savages,—in this spot he once dwelt, perhaps little known to the world, but happy; when he became celebrated he had ceased to exist. M. Airolles promised me to place three square blocks of stone, one upon the other, in the spot where the house of this lamented navigator had stood; and upon the uppermost stone facing the road, to engrave, La Pérouse.
April.My lame seaman having recovered from the accident of his broken leg, colonel Monistrol granted a permission for his departure in the beginning of April; and he was shipped on board the Telemaque—Clark, bound to Boston in America. His companion, the last of the Cumberland's crew, had the same means offered of recovering his liberty; but he still refused to leave me in Mauritius.
On the 15th I sent away two packets of letters, one for the Admiralty and my friends in England, the other to France; the last contained a second letter to M. de Fleurieu, and one to the French marine minister giving a short account of my voyage and detention; it inclosed the extract from captain Baudin (p. 399), and requested His Excellency would direct general De Caen either to set me at liberty, or send me to France with my books and papers for examination. These letters were accompanied by duplicates of those written by my friend Pitot in March 1805, to Messieurs De Bougainville, De la Lande, Chaptal, and Dupuis, and were sent away by two different conveyances. The Society of Emulation, formed in Mauritius the preceding year to promote literary and philosophical pursuits, but especially to advance the agriculture, navigation, and commerce of the two islands, wrote also to the National Institute in my favour; and as its sentiments may be supposed analogous to those of the most enlightened part of the inhabitants, I venture