( 3*3 ) 



having already loft one two days before, fo that 

 we had only two remaining. So difcouraging a 

 circumftance gave us fome ferious thoughts, but 

 the youth and little experience of thofe, to whofe 

 management we were entrufted, occafioned us ftill 

 greater uneafinefs. 



The Adour is a very fine vefTel, three hundred 

 tons burthen, and left France extremely well man- 

 ned, under the direction of a captain well acquaint- 

 ed with his bufinefs, and a lieutenant who had an 

 exceeding good character. The latter was left fick 

 at St. Domingo, and the captain, having had a 

 difference with one of the directors of the compa- 

 ny, was by him turned out of his employment. 

 In order to fill up the room of thefe two principal 

 officers, they pitched upon a young Maloin, who had 

 come three years before to Louifiana, in quality of 

 a pilot or pilot's apprentice, and had in that time 

 got the command of a coafter in the road of Biloxi, 

 employed in carrying provifions, fometimes to the 

 Mobile, and fometimes to New Orleans. Hefeems 

 to have every thing requifite for forming an expert 

 feaman ; he loves and applies himfelf to his bufi- 

 nefs : but we mould be very well pleafed not to be 

 obliged to fee his apprenticeship, efpecially in a 

 navigation attended with fo many difficulties. 



He has for fecond, under him, an officer who 

 came from France in quality of an enfign, who is 

 ftiil a young man, and very proper to be a fubaltern 

 under experienced chiefs, who fhould leave him 

 nothing but the care of executing their orders. It 

 would be no eafy matter to find a hardier feaman in 

 ftormy weather, which he has braved from his in- 

 fancy in the Newfoundland fiftieries ; and two or 

 three fhip- wrecks, from which he has happily extri- 

 cated 



