MY REPORTED EXECUTION. 37 
All my old Majorcan friends had abandoned me at the 
moment of my detention. I had had a very sharp cor- 
respondence with Don Manuel de Vacaro in order to 
obtain the restitution of the passport of safety which the 
English Admiralty had granted to us. M. Rodriguez 
alone ventured to visit me in full daylight, and bring me 
every consolation in his power. 
The excellent M. Rodriguez, to while away the mo- 
notony of my incarceration, remitted to me from time to 
time the journals which were then published at different 
parts of the Peninsula. He often sent them to me 
without reading them. Once I saw in these journals the 
recital of the horrible massacres of which the town of 
Valencia—I make a mistake, the sguare of the Bull- 
Jights—had been the theatre, and in which nearly the 
whole of the French established in this town (more than 
350) had disappeared under the pike of the bull-fighter. 
Another journal contained an article bearing this title: 
“ Relacion de la ahorcadura del sefior Arago e del sefior 
Berthémie,’—literally, “Account of the execution of M. 
Arago and M. Berthémie.” This account spoke of the 
two executed men in very different terms. M. Berthémie 
was a Huguenot; he had been deaf to all exhortations ; 
he had spit in the face of the ecclesiastic who was pres- 
ent, and even on the image of Christ. As for me, I 
had conducted myself with much decency, and had 
allowed myself to be hung without giving rise to any 
scandal. The writer also expressed his regret that a 
young astronomer had been so weak as to associate 
himself with treason, coming under the disguise of sci- 
ence to assist the entrance of the French army into a 
friendly kingdom. 
After reading this article I immediately made my de- 
