Off Mauritius.'] 
TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
487 
enced general De Caen to act so contrary to the passport of the first 
consul, and to the usages adopted towards voyages of discovery, 
may perhaps be felt by the reader; and he may therefore not be 
displeased to see the leading points in his conduct brought into one 
view, in order to deducing therefrom some reasonable conclusion. 
On arriving at Mauritius after the shipwreck, and producing 
my passport and commision, the captain-general accused me of being 
an impostor ; took possession of the Cumberland with the charts 
and journals of my voyage, and made me a close prisoner. On the 
following day, without any previous change of conduct or offering 
an explanation, he invited me to his table. 
All other books and papers were taken on the fourth day, and 
my imprisonment confirmed; the alleged cause for it being the 
expression in my journal of a desire to become acquainted with the 
periodical winds, the port, and present state of the colony, which it was 
asserted were contrary to the passport ; though it was not said that 
I knew of the war when the desire was expressed. 
After three months seclusion as a spy, I was admitted to join 
the prisoners of war, and in twenty months to go into the interior of 
the island, on parole ; I there had liberty to range two leagues all 
round, and was unrestricted either from seeing any person within 
those limits or writing to any part of the world. It might be thought, 
that the most certain way of counteracting my desire to gain inform- 
ation alleged to be contrary to the passport, would have been to 
send me from the island ; but general De Caen took the contrary me- 
thod, and kept me there above six years. 
His feeling for my situation, and desire to receive orders from 
the French marine minister had been more than once expressed, 
when at the end of three years and a half, he sent official information 
that the government granted my liberty and the restitution of the 
Cumberland ; and this was accompanied with the promise, that “ so 
“ soon as circumstances would permit, I should fully enjoy the favour 
“ which had been granted me by His Majesty the Emperor and 
1610. 
June. 
