CAPTAIN LEPELLETIER. 253 



inasmuch as I was of service to him in vari- 

 ous particulars where his natives were useless. 

 He spoke to me often of his voyages, and of the 

 life a very lazy one it was, too which he led, 

 and in which he delighted. He was a man of 

 some means, had a plantation in the Mauritius, 

 where he managed to have a little sugar raised; 

 owned the vessel of which he was now master, 

 and made in her generally a voyage each yeai to 

 Massowah, or some other of the ports on the Bed 

 Sea, for horses, and a trip or two to Madagascar 

 for cattle, making long stays on shore between 

 these trips, and evidently enjoying his family life 

 very highly. He was forty-five years of age, 

 tall, portly, gray haired and good natured, and 

 prided himself much on his purely French extrac- 

 tion, and his name, Lepelletier, which he main- 

 tained occupied a conspicuous place in the annals 

 of la belle France. As in duty bound, he despised 

 Johnny Bull, and thought that the greatest calamity 

 which ever befell his native isle, was its com- 

 ing into the possession of the British. Every- 

 thing, he complained, was now taxed. The slave 

 trade and slavery was abolished, but the wretched 

 Hindoos who were yearly brought thither under 

 the name of free laborers, were in a far more 

 abject condition of slavery than ever were the 

 Madagassy who were formerly held in an easy 

 bondage under the French. 



"In former times there was some blood and 

 dome good society to be found in Port Louis ; but 



