this communication, and of the sentiments of perfect consideration
with which I have the honour to be, etc.

P. S. The cartel is to sail on Saturday next (31st.)

Being then satisfied of the intention to permit my return to England,
though the cause of it was involved in mystery, I visited our immediate,
and still almost incredulous neighbours, to take leave of them; and wrote
letters to the principal of those more distant inhabitants, whose
kindness demanded my gratitude. Early next morning a red flag with a
pendant under it, showing one or more of our ships to be cruising before
the port, was hoisted upon the signal hills; this was an unwelcome sight,
for it had been an invariable rule to let no cartel or neutral vessel go
out, so long as English ships were before the island. I however took
leave of the benevolent and respectable family which had afforded me an
asylum during four years and a half; and on arriving at my friend Pitot's
in the town, was met by Messrs. Hope and Ramsden, neither of whom knew
any other reason for setting me at liberty than that the captain-general
had granted it to Mr. Hope's solicitations.

[AT MAURITIUS. PORT LOUIS.]

On waiting upon colonel Monistrol on the 30th, it appeared that nothing
had been done relative to the Cumberland, or to returning what had been
taken away, particularly the third volume of my log book so often before
mentioned; he promised however to take the captain-general's pleasure
upon these subjects, and to repeat my offer of making and signing any
extracts from the book which His Excellency might desire to preserve. In
the evening I had the pleasure to meet a large party of my countrymen and
women, at a dinner given by M. Foisy, president of the Society of
Emulation; and from the difficulty of speaking English after a cessation
of four years, I then became convinced of the possibility of a man's
forgetting his own language.

APRIL 1810

There were lying in port two Dutch and one American vessel, with a number
of Frenchmen on board, whom marshal Daendels, governor of the remaining
Dutch possessions in the East, had engaged to officer some new regiments
of Malays; these vessels waited only for the absence of our cruisers to
go to Batavia; and that we might not give information of them was the
alleged cause for detaining the cartel all the month of April, our
squadron keeping so close off the port that they dared not venture out.

MAY 1810

On May 2, captain Wi