in were now permitted to
go to England by the way of America [NOVEMBER 1804]; and I took the good
opportunity of sending by the first of these gentlemen a copy of the
general chart of Terra Australis, comprehending the whole of my
discoveries and examinations in abridgment, and a paper on the magnetism
of ships addressed to the president of the Royal Society.* Four officers
of the army also obtained permission to go to India, on condition of
returning, should four French officers whose names were specified, be not
sent back in exchange; and two other gentlemen left the Garden Prison,
and the island soon afterward. In lieu of these, were sent in captain
Turner and lieutenant Cartwright of the Indian army, and the officers of
the Princess Charlotte indiaman.

[* This paper was read before the Society, and published in the
Transactions of 1805, Part II.]

By information received from the Grande-Riviere prison, where the
merchant officers and the seamen were confined, it appeared that my six
remaining people, and no doubt many others, were very miserable and
almost naked; having been hurried off suddenly from Flacq, and compelled
to leave their few clothes behind. On this occasion I addressed the
captain-general on the score of humanity, intreating him either to order
their clothes to be restored, or that they should be furnished with
others; and on the same day an answer was returned in the most polite
manner by colonel D'Arsonval, saying that an order had been given for all
the prisoners to be fresh clothed, and their wants supplied. Six weeks
afterward, however, finding that the poor seamen remained in the same
naked state as before, I wrote to remind the town major of what he had
said; requesting at the same time, if it were not intended to give these
unfortunate men any clothing, that Mr. Aken might be permitted to visit
them, in order to relieve their urgent necessities from my own purse. No
answer was returned to this letter, but it produced the desired effect.

DECEMBER 1804

My hopes of a speedy liberation by an order of the first consul became
weakened in December, on seeing nothing arrive to confirm them after a
whole year's imprisonment. On the 17th I wrote to remind the
captain-general that one year had elapsed; and requested him to consider
that the chance of war rendered the arrival of despatches uncertain--that
I was suffering an irretrievable loss of time, and very severely in my
health, advancement, an