74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



tination, and that the brig was not permitted to set sail 

 until the next day but one. 



Bakri often came to the French Consulate to talk of 

 our affairs with M. Dubois Thainville : " What can you 

 want ? " said the latter, " you are an Algerine ; you will 

 be the first victim of the Dey's obstinacy. I have already 

 written to Livorno that your families and your goods are 

 to be seized. When the vessels laden with cotton, which 

 you have in this port, arrive at Marseilles, they will be 

 immediately confiscated ; it is for you to judge whether 

 it would not better suit you to pay the sum which the 

 Dey claims, than to expose yourself to tenfold and certain 

 loss." 



Such reasoning was unanswerable ; and whatever it 

 might cost him, Bakri decided on paying the sum that 

 was demanded of France. 



Permission to depart was immediately granted to us ; 

 I embarked the 21st of June, 1809, on board a vessel 

 in which M. Dubois Thainville and his family were pas- 



sengers. 



The evening before our departure from Algiers, a 

 corsair deposited at the consul's the Majorcan mail, 

 which he had taken from a vessel which he had cap- 

 tured. It was a complete collection of the letters which 

 the inhabitants of the Baleares had been writing to their 

 friends on the Continent. 



" Look here," said M. Dubois Thainville to me, " here 

 is something to amuse you during the voyage, you who 

 generally keep your room from sea-sickness, break the 

 seals and read all these letters, and see whether they con- 

 tain any accounts by which we might profit how to aid 

 the unhappy soldiers who are dying of misery and despair 

 in the little island of Cabrera." 



