OCTOBER 1805
M. Pitot came to pass a day with me at the end of a month, as did captain Bergeret; and on the 9th of October, the proprietor of the Refuge arrived with two of her sons and three daughters, to take up their residence on the plantation. On the following day I received a proposal from Madame D'Arifat, as liberal as the terms in which it was couched were obliging, to partake of her table with the family, which after some necessary stipulations, was accepted; and in a short time I had the happiness to enumerate amongst my friends one of the most worthy families in the island. The arrival of two other proprietors from the town increased the number of our neighbours, and of those who sought by their hospitable kindness to make my time pass agreeably. To M. de Chazal I was indebted for sending out my baggage, and in the sequel for many acts of civility and service; this gentleman had passed two years in England, during the tyranny of Robespiérre, and consequently my want of knowledge in the French language, at first an obstacle to communication with others, was none to reaping the advantage of his information.
On the 22nd, a packet of letters brought intelligence from my family and friends in England, of whom I had not heard for more than three years; Mr. Robertson, my former companion in the Garden Prison, had found means to forward it to M. Pitot, by whom it was immediately sent to Vacouas. A letter from the president of the Royal Society informed me that the misunderstanding between the French and British governments was so great, that no communication existed between them; but that the president himself, having obtained the approbation of the ministry, had made an application in my behalf to the National Institute, from which a favourable answer had been received; and there were strong hopes that so soon as the emperor Napoléon should return from Italy, an order for my liberation would be obtained. Our frigates, the Pitt and Terpsichore, came to cruise off Mauritius a short time afterward [NOVEMBER 1805], for which I was as sorry on one account as any of the inhabitants; every week might produce the arrival of the expected order, but it would probably be thrown overboard if the vessel should be chased, or have an engagement with our ships.
FEBRUARY 1806
Three months thus passed in fruitless expectation; at length an aide-de-camp of the general arrived, and gave a spur to my hopes; but after many days of anxiety to know the result, I learned from captain Bergeret that the despatches said nothing upon my imprisonment. This silence of the marine minister and the great events rising in Europe, admitted little hope of my situation being remembered; and I was thence led to entertain the project of once more requesting general De Caen to send me to France for trial; but the brother of the general and another officer being also expected, it was deferred at that time. In effect, M. De Caen arrived on the 25th, in the frigate La Canonnière from Cherbourg, and excited a renewal of hope only to be again disappointed; the news of victories gained by the French over the Austrians seemed to occupy every attention, and threw a dark shade over all expectation of present liberty. I learned, however, and a prisoner's mind would not fail to speculate thereon, that my detention was well known in Paris, and thought to be hard; but it was also said, that I was considered in the same light as those persons who were arrested in France, as hostages for the vessels and men said to have been stopped by our ships before the declaration of war.
MARCH 1806
My proposed letter to general De Caen was then sent; and after pointing out the uncertainty of orders arriving, or even that the marine minister should find time to think of a prisoner in a distant island, I repeated for the third time my request to be sent to France; where a speedy punishment would put an end to my anxieties, if found culpable, or in the contrary case, a few days would restore me to my country, my family, and occupations. Captain Bergeret had the goodness to deliver this letter, and to give it his support; but it was unsuccessful, the verbal answer being that nothing could be done until the orders of the government were received. To a proposal of taking my parole to deliver myself up in France, should the ship be taken on the passage, the general would not listen; though my friend said he had read the letter with attention, and promised to repeat his request to the minister for orders.
A hurricane had desolated the island on the 20th and 21st of February; and on the 10th of this month a second came on, causing a repetition of mischief in the port and upon the plantations. Several vessels were driven on shore or blown out to sea, and more than one lost; the fruit trees, sugar cane, maize, etc. were laid flat with the earth; the different streams swelled to an extraordinary size, carrying away the best of the vegetable soil from the higher habitations, mixed with all kinds of produce, branches and trunks of trees, and the wrecks of bridges torn away; and the huts of the slaves, magazines, and some houses were either unroofed or blown down. All communication with the port was cut off from the distant quarters, and the intercourse between adjoining plantations rendered difficult; yet this chaotic derangement was said to be trifling in comparison with what was suffered in the first hurricane at Bourbon, where the vessels have no better shelter than open roadsteds, and the plantations of cloves, coffee and maize are so much more extensive. Some American vessels were amongst the sufferers, but as domestic occurrences were not allowed to be published here, I learned only a very general account from the different reports: happily for our cruisers the last had quitted the island in January.
In the evening of Feb. 20, when the first hurricane came on, the swift-passing clouds were tinged at sunset with a deep copper colour; but the moon not being near the full, it excited little apprehension at the Refuge. The wind was fresh, and kept increasing until eleven o'clock, at which time it blew very hard; the rain fell in torrents, accompanied with loud claps of thunder and lightning, which at every instant imparted to one of the darkest nights the brightness of day. The course of the wind was from south-west to south, south-east, east, and north-east, where it blew hardest between one and three in the morning, giving me an apprehension that the house, pavilions, and all would be blown away together. At four o'clock the wind had got round to north and began to moderate, as did the rain which afterwards came only in squalls; at nine, the rain had nearly ceased, and the wind was no more than a common gale, and after passing round to N. N. W. it died away. At the time the wind moderated at Mauritius its fury was most exerted at Bourbon, which it was said to have attacked with a degree of violence that any thing less solid than a mountain was scarcely able to resist. The lowest to which the mercury descended in the barometer at Vacouas. was 5½ lines below the mean level of two days before and two days afterward; and this was at daybreak, when the wind and rain were subsiding.
Soon after the violence of the hurricane had abated, I went to the cascades of the R. du Tamarin, to enjoy the magnificent prospect which the fall of so considerable a body of water must afford; the path through the wood was strewed with the branches and trunks of trees, in the forest the grass and shrubs were so beaten down as to present the appearance of an army having passed that way, and the river was full up to its banks. Having seen the fall in the nearest of the two arms, I descended below their junction, to contemplate the cascade they formed when united, down the precipice of 120 feet; the noise of the fall was such that my own voice was scarcely audible, but a thick mist which rose up to the clouds from the abyss, admitted of a white foam only being distinguished.