Wilhems Plains .J TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
SIR, 
Yesterday at noon I had the honour of receiving your letter of the 1 st. 
inst. It is true that I have sometimes profited by the permission contained 
in the parole which I had given (que j’avais donnee) on Aug. 23 , 1805, by 
which I was allowed to go as far as two leagues from the plantation of 
Madame D’Arifat ; butsirice His Excellency the captain-general has thought 
good to make other regulations, I shall endeavour to conduct myself with so 
much prudence respecting the orders now given, that His Excellency will not 
have any just cause of complaint against me. 
I have the honour to be, &c. 
The two objects I had in view in giving this answer, were, to 
promise nothing in regard to my movements, and to avoid close im- 
prisonment if it couldbe done without dishonour; had it been demanded 
whether I still considered the parole to be in force, my answer was 
perfectly ready and very short, but no such question was asked. 
Many circumstances had given room to suspect, that the captain- 
general secretly desired I should attempt an escape ; and his view in 
it might either have been to some extraordinary severity, or in case 
his spies failed of giving timely information, to charging me with 
having broken parole and thus to throw a veil over his own injus- 
tice. Hence it might have been that he did not seek to know whether, 
being restricted to the plantation of Madame D’Arifat, I still admitted 
the obligatory part of the parole to be binding ; and that the expres- 
sion in my answer , — the parole which / had given, implying that it 
existed no longer, passed without question. However this might be, 
I thenceforward declined accepting any invitations beyond the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of the plantation ; and until the decisive mo- 
ment should arrive, amused by solitude with instructing the two 
younger sons of our good family in the elements of mathematical 
science, with inventing problems and calculating tables that might 
be useful to navigation, and in reading the most esteemed French 
authors. 
VOL. ii. 3 P 
4Y!> 
1809. 
October. 
