On the 29th, an American vessel arrived from France with many passengers, and amongst them monsieur Barrois, the brother-in-law of the general. He was charged with despatches; and I was told upon good authorities that he had been sent to France in Le Géographe upon the same service, in December 1803. The knowledge of this fact gave an insight into various circumstances which took place at, and soon after my arrival at Mauritius. Le Géographe having an English passport, was equally bound with myself to observe a strict neutrality; and the conveyance of an officer with public despatches in time of war was therefore improper. Common report said, that captain Melius objected to it, as compromising the safety of his ship and results of the voyage; but on its being known from the signals that an English vessel was on the south side of the island, M. Barrois embarked secretly, and the ship was ordered off the same evening. Hence I missed seeing her, and was arrested on arriving at Port Louis without examination; and hence it appeared to have been, that an embargo was immediately laid on all foreign ships for ten days, that none of our cruisers might get information of the circumstance and stop Le Géographe; hence also the truth of what was told me in the Café Marengo, that my confinement did not arise from any thing I had done.
Such was the respect paid by general De Caen to the English passport; and how little sacred he held that given by his own government for the protection of the Investigator's voyage, will in part have already appeared. The conduct of the British government and its officers in these two cases was widely different. In consequence of the English passport, the Géographe and Naturaliste were received at Port Jackson as friends, and treated with the kindness due to their employment and distressed situation, as will satisfactorily appear from M. Peron's account of their voyage; and with regard to the French passport, it may be remembered that the Admiralty directed me, on leaving England, not even to take letters or packets other than such as might be received from that office, or that of the secretary of state; and the despatches sent from those offices were to governor King alone, and related solely to the Investigator's voyage. I was ordered to stop at Madeira and the Cape of Good Hope, but neither to the officers commanding His Majesty's land or sea forces at one, nor at the other place was any despatch sent; although no opportunity of writing to the Cape had for some time presented itself.
FEBRUARY 1805
The return of M. Barrois gave a reasonable hope that the captain-general might have received orders concerning me, and that some thing would be immediately determined; but a whole month passed in silence as so many others had before done. It was reported, however, as having come from the general, that the council of state had approved of the precautions he had taken; but whether it had decided upon my being set at liberty, sent to France, or continued a prisoner, was not said.
There were at this time only six officers in the Garden Prison, Mr. Aken being still at the hospital; lieutenant Manwaring of the Bombay marine, before commander of the Fly packet, with two of his officers had possession of one part of the house, and Messrs. Dale and Seymour, midshipmen of the Dédaigneuse, lived with me in the other. These two young gentlemen, the first in particular, aided me in making copies of charts and memoirs, in calculating astronomical observations, etc.; and I had much pleasure in furnishing them with books and assisting their studies.
MARCH 1805
In the beginning of March, I was surprised to see in the official gazette of the French government, the Moniteur of July 7, 1804, a long letter from Dunkirk addressed to the editor; containing many particulars of my voyage, praising the zeal with which it had been conducted, and describing my detention in Mauritius as a circumstance which had originated in a mistake and was understood to be terminated. In the succeeding Moniteur of the 11th, some observations were made upon this letter on the part of the government, which afforded some insight into what was alleged against me; and these being important to the elucidation of general De Caen's policy, a translation of them is here given.
MONITEUR, No. 292.
Wednesday 22 Messidor, year 12; or July 11, 1804.
In a letter from Dunkirk, addressed to the editor of the Moniteur, and inserted in the paper of the 18th of this month, No. 288, we read an account of the voyage of Mr. Flinders, an English navigator, who arrived at the Isle of France the 24 Frimaire last, in the schooner Cumberland. The author of the letter in the Moniteur says, that Mr. Flinders, "not knowing of the war, stopped at the Isle of France which was in his route, to obtain water and refreshments: that some secret articles in his instructions gave rise to suspicions upon which the captain-general at first thought it his duty to detain him prisoner; but that, nevertheless, the passports he had obtained from the French government and all other nations, the nature even of his expedition which interested all civilized people, were not long in procuring his release."
The fact is, that Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war, ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its declaration, he doubted whether the passport granted him by the French government in the year 9, would serve him. In reality, the passport was exclusively for the sloop Investigator, of which it contained the description; and it is not in the Investigator that he has been arrested, but in the Cumberland.
The same passport did not permit Mr. Flinders to stop at French colonies but on condition that he should not deviate from his route to go there; and Mr. Flinders acknowledges in his journal that he deviated voluntarily, (for the Isle of France was not in his passage, as the author of the above cited letter says). In fine, the passport granted to Mr. Flinders did not admit of any equivocation upon the objects of the expedition for which it was given: but we read in one part of his journal, that he suspected the war; and in another, that he had resolved to touch at the Isle of France, as well in the hope of selling his vessel advantageously, as from the desire of knowing the present state of that colony, and the utility of which it and its dependencies in Madagascar could be to Port Jackson.
As the passport given by the French government to Mr. Flinders, an English navigator, was far from admitting an examination of that nature in a French colony; it is not at all surprising that the captain-general of that colony has arrested him; and nothing announces as yet, that he has thought it necessary to release him.
An elaborate refutation of these trifling, and in part false and contradictory charges, will not, I should hope, be thought necessary. By turning to Chapter 3 (December), and comparing my reasons for putting in at Mauritius with what the Moniteur says, it will be seen that the necessity of the measure, arising from the bad state of the Cumberland, is kept wholly out of sight; and that in giving the subordinate reasons, there is much omission and misrepresentation. The charges, even as they stand in the Moniteur, amount to nothing, if my suspicion of the war be taken away; and it has no other foundation than that, being a stranger to what had passed in Europe for twelve months, I thought there was a possibility of war between England and France; and thence deduced an additional reason for stopping at Mauritius where my passport would be respected, in preference to going on to the Cape of Good Hope where it might not. This suspicion, which is twice brought forward, is moreover contradicted by inference, in the Moniteur itself. It says, "Mr. Flinders not knowing of, but suspecting the war, ventured to come to the Isle of France; where having learned its declaration, he doubted whether the passport would serve him." Now it is not credible, that with such a suspicion, and being aware, consequently, of the great importance of the passport, I should wait until arriving at the island before seeking to know its particular contents; but going to Mauritius under the belief of peace, and finding war declared, an examination of the passport was then natural. It is true that I did then entertain some apprehensions, from not finding any provision made for another vessel in case of shipwreck or other accident to the Investigator; but my confidence in the justice and liberality of the French government overcame them; and had general Magallon remained governor, this confidence would most probably have been justified by the event.
How my reasons for stopping at Mauritius were worded in the log book, I certainly do not remember correctly, nor how far they were accompanied with explanations; and particular care has been taken to prevent me giving the words themselves; but is it possible to suppose, that suspecting the war and entertaining inimical designs, I should have inserted this suspicion and these designs in my common journal? Or that, having done so, the book would have been put into the hands of general De Caen's secretary, and these very passages pointed out for him to copy? Yet the reasons alleged in the Moniteur, to be true, require no less.