CHAGRINED AND OPPRESSED. 169 



might have cheered him, his only hope being that 

 he might hereafter publish his discoveries, so as to 

 secure some benefit to the world and some honour 

 to himself. But this last consolation was denied 

 him. He was not suffered to depart till all his 

 MSS. had been copied, and he had given a written 

 promise never to publish anything till the return 

 of his travelling companions. In the meanwhile 

 those very companions were detained by authority 

 in Peru ; and in after times many of the original 

 botanical descriptions of Dombey appeared ver- 

 batim, without acknowledgment, in the pompous 

 Flora of Peru and Chili, which thence derived a 

 great part of its value. Thus chagrined and op- 

 pressed, the unhappy Dombey was permitted to 

 return with such part of his collections as they 

 suffered him to retain to Paris. 



There, in 1786, he appeared, " no longer (says 

 the same writer) the handsome lively votary of 

 pleasure, nor even the ardent enthusiastic cultivator 

 of science. The leaden hand of tyranny had im- 

 pressed its own stamp on his countenance, and he 

 had the sallow, silent, melancholy aspect of a 

 depressed and disappointed Spaniard. He chiefly 

 associated with his faithful friends Le Mounier and 

 Thouin, and in their society botanical converse still 

 retained its charms. To the contents of his own 

 collection, which, however injured and diminished, 



