neuve, nephew to the admiral of that name who
was at Trafalgar, came in. Whenever France and England are not at war,
the French and English certainly seek each other, and like each other
more than any other two nations: and yet they seem like two great heads
of parties, and the other nations take the French and English sides, as
if there were no cause of opposition but theirs. Others may account for
the fact, I am satisfied that it is so; and that whenever we meet a
Frenchman in time of peace, in a distant country, it is something akin
to the pleasure of seeing a countryman; and it is particularly the case
with French naval men. Frequent intercourse of any kind, even that of
war, begets a similarity of habits, manners, and ideas; so I suppose we
have grown alike by fighting, and are all the more likely to fight
again.

There is a report, but I believe not well founded, that placards are
stuck up about the city threatening that all Europeans, especially
Portuguese, who do not leave the place before the 24th of December,
shall be massacred. I listen to these things, because reports, even when
false, indicate something of the spirit of the times.

_December 8th._--This place is now so quiet that the merchants feel
quite safe, and therefore we are leaving Bahia. I have taken leave of
many hospitable persons who have shown us much attention; but my health
is so indifferent, that but for the sake of that civility which I felt
due to them, I should not have gone ashore again: however, it is all
done, and we are in the act of getting under weigh.

[Illustration]

_9th._--As we sailed out of the bay, we amused ourselves with
conjecturing the possible situation of Robinson Crusoe's plantation in
the bay of All Saints. Those who had been at Cachoeira chose that it
should be in that direction; while such as had been confined to the
neighbourhood of the city pitched on different sitios, all or any of
which might have answered the purpose. There is a charm in Defoe's works
that one hardly finds, excepting in the Pilgrim's Progress. The language
is so homely, that one is not aware of the poetical cast of the
thoughts; and both together form such a reality, that the parable and
the romance alike remain fixed on the mind like truth. And what is
truth? Surely not the mere outward acts of vulgar life; but rather the
moral and intellectual perceptions by which our judgment, and actions,
and motives, are directed. Then, are the wanderin