76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRANCIS ARAGO. 



" I have received," answered the Barbary captain, " an 

 express commission to conduct these vessels to Marseilles, 

 and I will execute it." 



"You, individually, can do what may seem to you 

 best," answered the Englishman ; " as to the merchant 

 vessels under your escort, they will be, I repeat to you, 

 taken to Admiral Collingwood." And he immediately 

 gave orders to those vessels to set sail to the East. 



The frigate had already gone a little distance when 

 she perceived that we were steering towards Marseilles. 

 Having then learnt from the crews of the merchant ves- 

 sels that we were ourselves laden with cotton, she tacked 

 about to seize us. 



She was very near reaching us, when we were enabled 

 to enter the port of the little island of Pomegue. In the 

 nio-ht she put her boats to sea to try to carry us off; but 

 the enterprise was too perilous, and she did not dare 

 attempt it. 



The next morning, 2cl of July, 1809, I disembarked at 

 the lazaretto. 



At the present day they go from Algiers to Marseilles 

 in four days ; it had taken me eleven months to make the 

 same voyage. It is true that here and there I had made 

 involuntary sojourns. 



My letters sent from the lazaretto at Marseilles were 

 considered by my relatives and friends as certificates of 

 resurrection, they having for a long time past supposed 

 me dead. A great geometer had even proposed to the 

 Bureau of Longitude no longer to pay my allowance to 

 my authorized representative ; which appears the more 

 cruel inasmuch as this representative was my father. 



The first letter which I received from Paris was full 

 of sympathy and congratulations on the termination of 



