[47] The Governor, who it seems did not like the sight of the unfortunate, had, however, no reason to fear that it would too much affect his sensibility. He had elevated himself above the misfortunes of life, at least, when they did not affect himself, to a degree of impassibility, which would have done honor to the most austere stoic and which, doubtless, indicates the head of a statesman, in which superior interests, and the thought of the public good, leave no room for vulgar interests, for mean details, for care to be bestowed on the preservation of a wretched individual. Thus, when the death of some unhappy Frenchman was announced to him, this news no further disturbed his important meditations than to make him say to his secretary, "Write, that Mr. such a one is dead."
The governor is, at the bottom, doubtless, a man not destitute of sensibility; for example, he never passed by the king's picture (if any strangers were present) but he shed tears of emotion. But his great application to business, the numerous occupations, the divers enterprises which have agitated his life, have, if we may so express it, so long distracted his thoughts that he has at length felt the necessity of concentrating them wholly in himself.
We cannot here become the historians of the governor; we do not know whether his modesty will ever permit him to publish the memoirs of his life; but the public who know, or easily may know, that having been an apothecary in Bengal, a physician in Madagascar, a dealer in small wares, and land-surveyor in Java, a shopkeeper's clerk in the isle of France and Holland, an engineer in the camp of Batavia, commandant at Guadaloupe, chief of a bureau at Paris, he has succeeded after passing through all these channels, in obtaining the orders of St. Louis, and the Legion of Honor, the rank of colonel, and the command of a colony; the public, we say, will reasonable conclude, that the governor is, without doubt, a universal man, and that it is very natural that so superior a genius should have set himself above many little weaknesses, which would have arrested his flight, and which are proper for none but weak minds, for good people who are made to creep on upon the common route, and to crawl on the ground.
[48] The giving up of the colony did not take place till six months after our shipwreck. It was not till the 25th of January, 1817, that we took possession of our settlements on the coast of Africa.
[49] What would our good Major have said if he had known that our Minister of the Marine, Mr. Dubouchage, had exposed himself in a far greater degree, to the embarrassment of the species of shame, attributed to him here, by confiding seven or eight expeditions to officers who do no more honour to his choice and discernment, than the expedition to Senegal has done.
Besides the Medusa, which was conducted so directly upon the bank of Arguin, by the Viscount de Chaumareys, Knight of St. Louis, and of the Legion of Honour, and in the intervals of his campaigns, receiver of the droits réunis, at Bellac, in Upper Vienne, every body knows that the Golo, bound from Toulon to Pondichery, nearly perished on the coast, by the unskilfulness of the Captain, Chevalier Amblard, Knight of St. Louis, and the Legion of Honour, who, in order not to lose sight of maritime affairs, had become a salt merchant, near Toulon. Neither is the début of the Viscount de Cheffontaine forgotten, who, on quitting Rochefort, whence he was to sail to the Isle of Bourbon, put into Plymouth to repair his masts, which he had lost after being three or four days at sea. Who does not know that it would be in our power to mention more examples of this kind?
We spare the French reader these recollections, which are always painful; besides, what could our weak voice add to the eloquent expressions which resounded in the last session, in the chamber of deputies: when a member, the friend of his country and of glory, pointed out the errors of the Minister of the Marine, and raised his voice against those shadows of officers whom favor elevated to the most important posts. He represented, with reason, how prejudicial it was to government, that the command of ships and colonies should be given as caprice dictates, and to gratify the pretentions of vain pride, while experienced officers were overlooked, or disdainfully repulsed, condemned to figure on the lists of the half-pay, of the reforms, and even before the time, which would have called them to a necessary, or at least legal repose. How burdensome to the State, are these retraites which render useless, men whose zeal and talents ought to insure no other than their vessel, who wished but to spend their life there in uninterrupted service, who would have found there a tomb, the only one worthy of a French sailor, rather than suffer any thing contrary to duty and honour. Instead of that, we have seen titles take the reward of knowledge, repose of experience, and protection of merit. Men proud of thirty years of obscurity, make them figure on the lists, as passed under imaginary colours, and this service of a novel description establishes for them the right of seniority. These men, decorated with ribbons of all colours, who counted very well the number of their ancestors, but of whom it would have been useless to ask an account of their studies, being called to superior commands, have not been able to shew anything but their orders, and their unskilfulness. They have done more: they have had the privilege of losing the vessels and the people of the State, without its being possible for the laws to reach them; and after all, how could a tribunal have condemned them? They might have replied to their judges, that they had not passed their time in studying the regulations of the service, or the laws of the marine, and that, if they had failed, it was without knowledge or design. In fact, it would be difficult to suppose that they intended their own destruction; they have but too well proved that they knew how to provide for their own safety. And what reply could have been made to them, if they had confined their defence to these two points? We did not appoint ourselves; it is not we who are to blame.
[50] Just as we are going to send this sheet to the press, we learn from the newspapers, that this expedition has failed; that it was not able to proceed above fifty leagues into the interior, and that it returned to Sierra Leone, after having lost several officers, and among them Captain Campbell, who had taken the command after the death of Major Peddy. Thus the good fall and the Thersites live, and are often even honoured. Captain Campbell was one of our benefactors, may his manes be sensible to our regret, and may his family and country permit us to mingle with their just affliction, this weak tribute of respect, by which we endeavour as far as lies in our power to discharge the sacred debt of gratitude!
Among the losses which this expedition has experienced, it is feared that we must reckon that of our excellent companion, the Naturalist Kummer; nevertheless, as no positive information of his death has yet been received of his fate, his numerous friends, in the midst of their fears, still cherish some hopes: May they not be disappointed.
The accounts which inform us of this event, attribute the ill success of the expedition, to the obstacles opposed to it by the natives of the interior, but enter into no details. We learn from geographers, that up the Rio Grande there lives the warlike nation of the Souucsous, whom some call the Fonllahs of Guinea. The name of their capital is Teembo. They are Mahometans, and make war on the idolatrous tribes who surround them, to sell their prisoners. A remarkable institution, called the Pouarh, seems to have a great resemblance with the ancient secret Tribunal of Germany. The Pouarh is composed of members who are not admitted among the initiated till they have undergone the most horrible probations. The association exercises the power of life and death; every body shuns him, whose head it has proscribed. It may be that it was by this species of government, which seems not to want power, that the English expedition was stopped.