III.
The secret of their impunity lay in the fact that in the Isles of France and Bourbon the enemy's cruisers possessed a strong base of operations. It was the charmed refuge to which they could retire; from which they could issue with renewed strength. It may be asked why the British, boasting as they did of the command of the seas, allowed those islands to remain so long in the possession of their deadliest enemy. The question is difficult, even at this distant period, to answer. The sagacious intellect of Marquess Wellesley had early detected the weak point in the British armour, and with characteristic vigour he had at once applied himself to repair it. Very soon after the fall of Seringapatam he had organised from the armies of the three presidencies a force which, massed at Trincomali, should proceed thence to the conquest of Java and of the French islands. This expedition had been on the very point of setting out when urgent orders from England, despatched overland, diverted it to Egypt to aid the expeditionary corps of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Partly, probably, owing to the "timid counsels" which supervened on the departure of the
