1809.
March.
sidering it to be a national work, had granted a considerable sum to render the publication complete. From a Moniteur of July 1808, it appeared that French names were given to all my discoveries and those of captain Grant on the south coast of Terra Australis; it was kept out of sight that I had ever been upon the coast; and in speaking of M. Peron's first volume the newspapers asserted, that no voyage ever made by the English nation could be compared with that of the Géographe and Naturaliste. It may be remembered, that after exploring the South Coast up to Kanguroo Island, with the two gulphs, I met captain Baudin, and gave him the first information of these places and of the advantages they offered him; and it was but an ill return to seek to deprive me of the little honour attending the discovery. No means were spared by the French government to enhance the merit of this voyage, and all the officers employed in it had received promotion; but the Investigator's voyage seemed to obtain as little public notice in England as in France, no one of my officers had been advanced on their arrival, and in addition to so many years of imprisonment my own promotion was suspended. It would ill become me to say that in one case there was an ostentatious munificence, or in the other, injustice and neglect; but the extreme difference made between the two voyages could not but add to the bitterness of my situation, and diminish the little remaining hope of being speedily and honourably liberated.
May.A vessel from St. Malo arrived in May, and gave information that one of the ships which carried a duplicate of my memorial to the marine minister, had reached France; and in a few days La Bellone, a frigate in which the brother of the captain-general was an officer, got into Port Louis; she had sailed in the end of January and brought despatches, but if the general received any new order by this or the former vessel, it was kept to himself. June.In June the English cruisers sent in a flag of truce with a French lady, taken in L'Agile from St. Malo; this lady brought many letters, in some of which the arrival in France of La Semillante was mentioned; also that