472 
180 !). 
September. 
October. 
A VOYAGE TO {At Mauritius. 
slaves, and the humane care of commodore Rowley and his cap- 
tains had alone prevented greater excesses; this intelligence put 
a stop to the raising of regiments of slaves for the defence of 
Mauritius, which the captain-general had commenced under the 
name of African battalions, much against the sense of the inha- 
bitants. These various circumstances, with the distress of the 
government for money, caused much agitation in the public mind , 
and it was to be apprehended that .general De Caen would scarcely 
suffer me to remain with , the usual degree of liberty, whilst all 
the other prisoners w r ere shut up. I endeavoured by gieat cir- 
cumspection to give no umbrage, in order to avoid the numberless 
inconveniences of a close imprisonment ; but in the beginning of 
October a letter came from colonel Monistrol, saying that “ His 
Excellency the captain-general having learned that I sometimes 
went to a considerable distance -from the habitation of Madame 
D’Arifat, had thought proper to restrain my permission to reside in 
the interior of the colony on parole, to the lands composing that habi- 
tation.” This order showed that the general had either no distinct 
idea of a parole of honour, or that his opinion of it differed widely 
from that commonly received ; a parole is usually thought to be a 
convention, whereby, in order to obtain a certain portion of liberty, 
an officer promises not to take any greater; but general De Caen 
seemed to expect me to be bound by the convention, whilst he with- 
drew such portion of the advantages as he thought proper, and this 
without troubling himself about my consent, if any doubts remained 
that the order of the French government had in strict justice liber- 
ated me from parole, this infraction by the captain-general was 
sufficient to do them away ; nevertheless the same reasons which 
had prevented me declaring this conviction long before, restrained 
the declaration at this time ; and I returned the following answer to 
colonel Monistrol, written in French that no pretext of bad translation 
might afterwards be alleged. 
