INTRODUCTION. 
19 
especially when we observed the generous zeal with which 
Messrs. Dupont and Dusseaiilt, who commanded there^ 
hastened to relieve us. We were treated with the kindest 
attention and supplied with refreshments of all sorts ; and 
our joy was at its height, when we saw Major Gray return, 
the negroes having released him as soon as they ascertain- 
ed that he could not serve them for an hostage to bring us 
back to them : nay more, their envoys, more tractable under 
the cannon of the fort of Bakel, restored to us part of the 
things which we had abandoned on our flight, and which 
they had picked up. 
The rainy season, upon which we were entering, shed 
its baleful influence over me as well as the others. I had 
the fever, which soon assumed so alarming a character that 
I quitted the expedition and embarked on the Senegal to 
descend to St. Louis. 1 hoped, by the aid of medicine and 
the effects of a more salubrious climate, to recover my 
health in that town ; but my disorder was so violent, that 
my convalescence was long and diffic\dt. To complete my 
recovery, I saw no other way but to return to France, and I 
sailed for L' Orient. 
There I learned that Major Gray, after making fresh 
purchases of goods at the Senegal for the purpose of con- 
tinuing his journey in the interior, had failed in all his at- 
tempts, not without injuring the French commerce, a species 
of success which can have made but poor amends for the 
enormous loss which he has occasioned to England : for his 
enterprize, and those of Peddie, Campbell, and Tucker, 
have, it is said, together cost England eighteen millions in 
French money (£750,000 sterling). 
In 1824, I returned to the Senegal to try my fortune 
with a small venture, for which M. Sourget, a merchant of 
distinguished merit, made advances for me : the paternal 
sentiments which he manifested for me I shall ever hold in 
grateful remembrance. 
c ^ 
