446 
1806. 
March, 
April. 
A VOYAGE TO [At Mauritius 
is nearly in the centre of the island, and upon the road from Port 
Louis to Port Bourbon. It was here that the man lamented by the 
good and well informed of all nations, — whom science illumined, 
and humanity, joined to an honest ambition, conducted to the haunts 
of remote savages, — in this spot he once dwelt, perhaps little known 
to the world, but happy ; when he became celebrated he had ceased 
to exist. M. Airolles promised me to place three square blocks of 
stone, one upon the other, in the spot where the house of this la- 
mented navigator had stood ; and upon the uppermost stone facing 
the road, to engrave, La Perouse. 
My lame seaman having recovered from the accident of his 
broken leg, colonel Monistrol granted a permission for his depar- 
ture in the beginning of April ; and he was shipped on board 
the Telemaque — Clark, bound to Boston in America. His com- 
panion, the last of the Cumberland’s crew, had the same means 
offered of recovering his liberty ; but he still refused to leave me in 
Mauritius. 
On the 15th I sent away two packets of letters, one for the 
Admiralty and my friends in England, the other to France ; the last 
contained a second letter to M. de Fleurieu, and one to the French 
marine minister giving a short account of my voyage and detention ; 
it inclosed the extract from captain Baudin ( p. 399), and requested 
His Excellency would direct general De Caen either to set me at 
liberty, or send me to France with my books and papers for exami- 
nation. These letters were accompanied by duplicates of those 
written by my friend Pitot in March 180,5, to Messieurs De Bou- 
gainville, De la Lande, Chaptal, and Dupuis, and were sent away by 
two different conveyances. The Society of Emulation, formed in 
Mauritius the preceding year to promote literary and philosophical 
pursuits, but especially to advance the agriculture, navigation, and 
commerce of the two islands, wrote also to the National Institute 
in my favour ; and as its sentiments may be supposed analogous* 
to those of the most enlightened part of the inhabitants, I venture 
