gal. It will furnish me, also,
with an opportunity of adverting to some errors in the work of Messrs
Savigny and Correard.

It only now remains for me to crave the indulgence of the reader for my
style. I trust such will not be refused to one who has dared to take the
pen, only in compliance with a father's dying request.

SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA.

CHAPTER I.

M. PICARD MAKES HIS FIRST VOYAGE TO AFRICA, LEAVING AT PARIS HIS
WIFE AND TWO YOUNG DAUGHTERS--DEATH OF MADAME PICARD--THE
CHILDREN TAKEN HOME TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR GRANDFATHER--RETURN OF
M. PICARD AFTER NINE YEARS ABSENCE--HE MARRIES AGAIN, AND DEPARTS
A SHORT WHILE AFTER, WITH ALL HIS FAMILY, FOR
SENEGAL--DESCRIPTION OF THE JOURNEY BETWEEN PARIS AND ROCHEFORT.

About the beginning of 1800, my father solicited and obtained the
situation of resident attorney at Senegal, on the west coast of Africa.
My mother was then nursing my youngest sister, and could not be
persuaded to expose us, at so tender an age, to the fatigue and danger
of so long a voyage. At this period I was not quite two years old.

It was then resolved that my father should go alone, and that we should
join him on the following year; but my mother's hopes were disappointed,
war having rendered impossible all communication with our colonies. In
despair, at a separation which placed her nearly two thousand leagues
from her husband, and ignorant how long it might continue, she soon
after fell into a languid condition; and death deprived us of her, at
the end of five years of suffering. My grandfather, at whose house we
had hitherto lived, now became both father and mother to us; and I owe
it to the good old man to say, that his care and attention soon made us
forget we were orphans. Too young to reflect, that the condition of
happiness which we enjoyed under his guardianship would ever have an
end, we lived without a care for the future, and our years glided on in
perfect tranquillity.

Thus were we living when, in 1809, the English captured the colony of
Senegal, and permitted our father to return to his family. But what a
change did he meet with on his arrival at Paris! Wife, home, furniture,
friends, had all disappeared; and nothing remained but two young
daughters, who refused to acknowledge him for their father: so much were
our young minds habituated to see and love but one in the world--the
worthy old man who had watched over our infancy.

In 1810, our father thought fit to