at having communicated
to His Excellency the marine minister the motives which had determined
him to suspend my return to Europe, he could not authorize my departure
before having received an answer upon the subject;" in twenty months
more, however, he let me go, and declared to Mr. commissary Hope that it
was _not in consequence of any orders from France_.

When first imprisoned in 1803, for having expressed a wish to learn the
present state of the colony, there was no suspicion of any projected
attack upon it; in 1810, preparations of defence were making against an
attack almost immediately expected, and there were few circumstances
relating to the island in which I was not as well informed as the
generalitv of the inhabitants; then it was, after giving me the
opportunity of becoming acquainted with the town and harbour of Port
Louis, that general De Caen suffered me to go away in a ship bound to the
place whence the attack was expected, and without laying any restriction
upon my communications.

Such are the leading characteristics of the conduct pursued by His
Excellency general De Caen, and they will be admitted to be so far
contradictory as to make the reconciling them with any uniform principle
a difficult task; with the aid however of various collateral
circumstances, of opinions entertained by well informed people, and of
facts which transpired in the shape of opinions, I will endeavour to give
some insight into his policy; requesting the reader to bear in mind that
much of what is said must necessarily depend upon conjecture.

After the peace of Amiens, general De Caen went out to Pondicherry as
captain-general of all the French possessions to the east of the Cape of
Good Hope; he had a few troops and a number of extra officers, some of
whom appear to have been intended for seapoy regiments proposed to be
raised, and others for the service of the Mahrattas. The plan of
operations in India was probably extensive, but the early declaration of
war by England put a stop to them, and obliged His Excellency to abandon
the brilliant prospect of making a figure in the annals of the East; he
then came to Mauritius, exclaiming against the perfidy of the British
government, and with a strong dislike, if not hatred to the whole nation.
I arrived about three months subsequent to this period, and the day after
M. Barrois had been sent on board Le Geographe with despatches for
France; which transaction being contrary to th