On the 11th we ran into Simon's Bay, and captain Tomkinson set off immediately for Cape Town with his despatches to vice-admiral Bertie and His Excellency the earl of Caledon; he took also a letter from me to the admiral, making application, conformably to my instructions, for the earliest passage to England; and requesting, if any circumstance should place general De Caen within his power, that he would be pleased to demand my journal from him, and cause it to be transmitted to the Admiralty. I went on shore next morning and waited upon colonel sir Edward Butler, the commanding officer at Simon's Town; and learning that an India packet had put into Table Bay, on her way to England, made preparation for going over on the following day. At noon, however, a telegraphic signal expressed the admiral's desire to see me immediately; and as the packet was expected to stop only a short time, I hoped it was for the purpose of embarking in her, and hastened over with horses and a dragoon guide furnished by the commandant; but to my mortification, the packet was standing out of Table Bay at the time I alighted at the admiral's door, and no other opportunity for England presented itself for more than six weeks afterward.
During the tedious time of waiting at Cape Town for a passage, I received much polite attention from His Excellency the earl of Caledon, and Mr. Alexander, secretary to the colony; as also from the Hon. general Grey, commander of the forces, commissioner Shield of the navy, and several other civil and military officers of the Cape establishment. I made little excursions to Constantia and in the neighbourhood of the town; but feared to go into the interior of the country lest an opportunity, such as that which the India packet had presented, might be lost. Towards the latter end of August [AUGUST 1810], captain Parkinson of the army and lieutenant Robb of the navy arrived from commodore Rowley's squadron, with intelligence of the island Bourbon being captured; and a cutter being ordered to convey them to England, I requested of the admiral and obtained a passage in her.
SEPTEMBER 1810
We sailed from Simon's Bay on the 28th August, in the Olympia, commanded by lieutenant Henry Taylor; and after a passage of fourteen days, anchored in St. Helena road on the afternoon of September 11; and having obtained water and a few supplies from the town, sailed again the same night. On the 16th, passed close to the north side of Ascension, in the hope of procuring a turtle should any vessel be lying there; but seeing none, steered onward and crossed the Line on the 19th, in longitude 19½° west. The trade wind shifted to the S. W. in latitude 5° north, and continued to blow until we had reached abreast of the Cape-Verde Islands, as it had done at the same time of year in 1801. At my recommendation lieutenant Taylor did not run so far west as ships usually do in returning to England, but passed the Cape-Verdes not further distant than sixty leagues; we there met the north-east trade, and on the 29th Mr. Taylor took the brig Atalante from Mauritius.
[IN ENGLAND]
OCTOBER 1810
On reaching the latitude 22¾° north and longitude 33° west, the north-east trade veered to east and south-eastward, which enabled us to make some easting; and being succeeded by north-west winds, we passed within the Azores, and took a fresh departure from St. Mary's on the 15th of October. Soundings in 75 fathoms were obtained on the 21st, at the entrance of the English Channel; but it then blew a gale of wind from the westward, and obliged us to lie to on this, as it did on the following night; and it was greatly feared that the cutter would be driven on the coast of France, near the Casket rocks. In the morning of the 23rd, the wind being more moderate, we made sail to the northward, and got sight of the Bill of Portland; and at five in the evening came to an anchor in Studland Bay, off the entrance of Pool Harbour, after a run from St. Helena of six weeks; which in an indifferent sailing vessel, very leaky, and excessively ill found, must be considered an excellent passage.
Captain Parkinson and lieutenant Robb went off the same night with their despatches; and next morning we ran through the Needles and came to at Spithead, where the prize brig, from which we had been long separated, had just before dropped her anchor. I went on shore to wait upon admiral sir Roger Curtis, and the same evening set off for London; having been absent from England nine years and three months, and nearly four years and a half without intelligence from any part of my connexions.
The account of the Investigator's voyage, and of the events resulting from it is concluded; but there is one or two circumstances which the naval reader may probably desire to see further explained.
A regulation adopted at the Admiralty forbids any officer to be promoted whilst a prisoner, upon the principle apparently, that officers in that situation have almost always to undergo a court martial, which cannot be done until they are set at liberty. My case was made subject to this regulation, although it required no court martial; and was moreover so different to that of prisoners in general, that nothing similar perhaps ever occurred. In consequence of my French passport, not only was the possibility of reaping any advantage from the war done away, but the liberation on parole or by exchange, granted to all others in Mauritius, was refused for years, the passport removing me from the class of prisoners of war; yet one of the greatest hardships to officers of a state of warfare was at the same time applied to me in England, and continued throughout this protracted detention. So soon as it was known that I had been released, and was arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, a commission for post rank was issued; and on my representations to the Right Hon. Charles Yorke, first lord commissioner of the Admiralty, by whom I had the honour to be received with the condescension and feeling natural to his character, he was pleased to direct that it should take date as near to that of general De Caen's permission to quit Mauritius, as the patent which constituted the existing Board of Admiralty would allow. A more retrospective date could be given to it only by an order of the King in council; unhappily His Majesty was then incapable of exercising his royal functions; and when the Regency was established, my proposed petition did not meet with that official encouragement which was necessary to obtain success. It was candidly acknowledged, that my services in the Investigator would have been deemed a sufficient title to advancement in 1804, had I then arrived in England and the Admiralty been composed of the same members; but no representation could overcome the reluctance to admitting an exception to the established rule; thus the injustice of the French governor of Mauritius, besides all its other consequences, was attended with the loss of six years post rank in His Majesty's naval service.