ESCAPE OF THE REPUBLICAN EXILES. 123 



consoling sense of martyrdom in the righteous cause, 

 these men could have felt themselves merely as un- 

 lucky gamesters. In misery of mind and body they 

 now saw no alternative but the grave, and a desperate 

 attempt at escape through the wilderness. But the 

 colony was in a region of which no man knew the 

 limits. The whole horizon was a forest, utterly im- 

 passable from the swamps, the wild beasts, and the 

 arrows of the Indian tribes. This idea was therefore 

 abandoned. But the horrors of the rainy season 

 were now at hand. If the hurricanes came, they 

 would be a stronger guard than chains of iron. Their 

 prison would be closed on them for six months, and 

 their death was all but inevitable. The governor 

 was evidently of the same opinion ; for he confined 

 his cares to merely keeping them fixed on the spot, 

 and refusing the sick the chances of his hospital. 

 Their deaths seem to have been even determined on ; 

 for on the occasional appearance of a ship in the 

 river, which they might conceive to be an English 

 one, and therefore likely to befriend them, their 

 lackey commandant's usual speech was, "Ah, you 

 reckon upon those English. You may think what 

 you please, but they shall never take you away 

 alive ! " 



At length a new idea suggested itself. Pichegru's 

 name was well known among the Dutch settlers in 

 Guiana, and some of them, in compassion to the 

 sufferings of a man who, in the conquest of their 



