1804.
November.
obtained permission to go to India, on condition of returning, should four French officers whose names were specified, be not sent back in exchange; and two other gentlemen left the Garden Prison, and the island soon afterward. In lieu of these, were sent in captain Turner and lieutenant Cartwright of the Indian army, and the officers of the Princess Charlotte indiaman.
By information received from the Grande-Rivière prison, where the merchant officers and the seamen were confined; it appeared that my six remaining people, and no doubt many others, were very miserable and almost naked; having been hurried off suddenly from Flacq, and compelled to leave their few clothes behind. On this occasion I addressed the captain-general on the score of humanity, intreating him either to order their clothes to be restored, or that they should be furnished with others; and on the same day an answer was returned in the most polite manner by colonel D'Arsonval, saying that an order had been given for all the prisoners to be fresh clothed, and their wants supplied. Six weeks afterward, however, finding that the poor seamen remained in the same naked state as before, I wrote to remind the town major of what he had said; requesting at the same time, if it were not intended to give these unfortunate men any clothing, that Mr. Aken might be permitted to visit them, in order to relieve their urgent necessities from my own purse. No answer was returned to this letter, but it produced the desired effect.
December.My hopes of a speedy liberation by an order of the first consul became weakened in December, on seeing nothing arrive to confirm them after a whole year's imprisonment. On the 17th I wrote to remind the captain-general that one year had elapsed; and requested him to consider that the chance of war rendered the arrival of despatches uncertain,—that I was suffering an irretrievable loss of time, and very severely in my health, advancement, and every thing that man holds dear; I begged him to reflect, that the rights of the most severe justice would be ensured by sending me