Port Louis. ] 
TERRA AUSTRALIS, 
385 
This letter was no more fortunate than the last, and it seemed that 
general De Caen had determined upon giving me no answer to any 
thing. 
The Admiral Aplin, an extra-indiaman outward bound, on 
board of which were several officers of the army and four ladies, 
had been brought in as a prize ; the ladies with their husbands were 
suffered to remain at a tavern in the town, at the instance of captain 
Eergeret, by whose privateer, La Psyche, they had been taken; the 
others were sent to a house at a little distance in the country, where 
' all the English officers had been a short time confined. I ventured 
to send my servant to the tavern, to inquire after my countrymen 
and women ; and they obligingly furnished me with magazines, 
newspapers, and a Steele’s list of the navy, up to August 1803, which 
in such a place, and after so long an ignorance of what was passing 
in England, were highly acceptable. 
On March 1, the interpreter made a personal application to 
general De Caen concerning the books -and charts mentioned in my 
last letter ; to which he received for answer, that so soon as the 
governor was a little freed from business he would attend to this 
request. I asked M. Bonnefoy to give me his opinion of what was 
likely to be done with us ? He replied that we should probably be 
kept prisoners so long as the war lasted, but might perhaps have per- 
mission to live in some interior part of the island, and liberty to take 
exercise within certain limits. This opinion surprised me; but I 
considered it to be that of a man unacquainted with the nature of a 
voyage of discovery, and the interest it excites in every nation of 
the civilised world, and not the least in France. To be liberated in 
an honourable manner by an order of the French government, so 
soon as it should be informed of my detention, appeared to be certain; 
for whatever colour general De Caen might give to his proceedings, 
it could not be disguised that he had arrested the commander of a 
voyage bearing a French passport, and had taken from him his 
charts, journals, and vessel ; but as yet I could not be persuaded that 
vol. 11. 3D 
1804 . 
February. 
March. 
