376 
A VOYAGE TO 
[At Mauritius. 
1803. 
December. 
Sunday 25. 
Monday 26. 
under despotic power, was evident in this letter; but it gave no fur- 
ther insight into the reasons for making me a prisoner, and con- 
sequently no opportunity of vindicating my innocence. It therefore 
seemed wisest, seeing the kind of man with whom I had to deal, to 
follow his directions and leave the main subject to the operation of 
time ; but to take off my mind from dwelling too intensely upon the 
circumstance of being arrested at such a conjuncture, I determined to 
employ it in forwarding my voyage, if an application for the neces- 
sary papers should be attended with success. 
Having obtained a translation of the general’s letter from the 
interpreter, who came next morning in company with the surgeon, I 
wrote to request, 
ist. My printed books from the schooner. 
sd. My private letters and papers out of the secretary’s office. 
3rd. To have two or three charts and three or four manu- 
script books, for the purpose of finishing the chart of the Gulph of 
Carpentaria ; adding in explanation, that the parts wanting were 
mostly lost in the shipwreck, and I wished to replace them from my 
memory and remaining materials before it were too late. For these 
a receipt was offered, and my word that nothing in the books 
should be erased or destroyed ; but I wished to make additions to one 
or two of the books as well as to the charts, and would afterwards be 
ready to give up the whole. 
4th. I represented a complaint from my seamen, of being shut 
up at night in a place where not a breath of air could come to them ; 
which, in a climate like this, must be not only uncomfortable in the 
last degree, but very destructive to European constitutions. Also, 
that the people with whom they were placed were affected with that 
disagreeable and contagious disorder the itch ; and that their provi- 
sions were too scanty, except in the article of bread, the proportion of 
which was large, but of a bad quality. 
An answer was given on the same day by one of the general’s 
aides-de-camp, who said that orders had been given for the delivery 
