Our crew were now
set to work in earnest, aided by some of the men of the _Phoebe_, who
were kindly spared to us by her captain. I took the opportunity of
seeing something of the island. My brother William and some of the
other midshipmen of the _Phoebe_ got leave to accompany me, and merry
parties we had.

Bourbon is about one hundred and fifty miles in circumference, and rises
rapidly from the sea, forming one huge blunt-topped mountain in the
centre; indeed, the whole island is not unlike a big tea-cup in the
middle of the ocean, with some rather large cracks, however, in it. It
is generally fertile, coffee and cotton being grown on it. On the south
side, a few miles from the sea, there is a volcano, which grumbled and
growled, but seldom did more than send forth a little smoke. The
inhabitants did not appear to be at all soured at having been placed
under British rule.

Probably, indeed, it was a matter of indifference to them, for they have
themselves sprung from a mixture of half the races under the sun. Many
of the inhabitants are descended from some of those English pirates
whose headquarters were, for nearly a hundred years, on the island of
Madagascar, but who, about the middle of the seventeenth century,
growing weary of their lawless calling, settled here. As their wives
were mostly from Madagascar, they are somewhat darkish, but not
bad-looking. They are a lively, merry race, fond of dancing, and their
climate is delightful. The names of some of the families belonging to
the island are derived from the English, as are those of several places.
I remember a bay in Madagascar, Antongil Bay, which clearly takes its
name from the well-known pirate-leader, Antony Gill, who robbed and
murdered on the high seas early in the seventeenth century.

A squadron and troops were collecting here, the latter under General
Abercrombie, for an expedition to the Mauritius. We were greatly
disappointed, I must own, that our ship was not in a condition to
proceed to sea, or we should have been chartered to convey troops and
been witnesses of the triumphs we hoped they would achieve. My object
is, however, to describe my own adventures in the pursuit of pacific
commerce. I will thus only briefly say that the expedition arrived
speedily off the Mauritius, the troops were landed, and that after some
sharp fighting, by which we lost one hundred and fifty men killed and
wounded, the French General, De Caen, capitulated