Off Mauritius .] 
TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
491 
not, the general’s pleasure arose from more extended views and a 
more permanent source. If the island were attacked and he could 
repulse the English forces, distinction would follow ; if unsuccessful, 
a capitulation would restore him to France and the career of advance- 
ment. An attack was therefore desirable ; and as the captain-general 
probably imagined that an officer who had been six years a prisoner, 
and whose liberty had been so often* requested by the different 
authorities in India, would not only be anxious to forward it with all 
his might, but that his representations would be attended to, the pre- 
texts before alleged for my imprisonment and the answer from 
France were waved; and after passing six weeks in the town of Port 
Louis and five on board a ship in the harbour, from which I had be- 
fore been debarred, he suffered me to depart in a cartel bound to the 
place where the attack was publickly said to be in meditation. This 
is the sole motive which, upon a review of the general’s conduct, I 
can assign for being set at liberty so unexpectedly, and without any 
restriction upon my communications ; and if such a result to an attack 
upon Mauritius were foreseen by the present count De Caen, captain- 
general of Catalonia, events have proved that he was no mean cal- 
culator. But perhaps this, as well as the preceding conjectures on 
his motives may be erroneous ; if so, possibly the count himself, or 
some one on the part of the French government may give a more 
correct statement,— one which may not only reconcile the facts here 
brought together, but explain many lesser incidents which have 
been omitted from fear of tiring the patience of the reader. 
I thought it a happy concurrence of circumstances, that on the 
same day we quitted Port Louis in the cartel, the arrival of a frigate 
from India should require commodore Rowley to despatch the Otter 
to the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Tomkinson took his departure 
on the 1 4,th at nine in the evening, from Cape Brabant, with a 
fresh trade wind and squally weather ; at noon next day the island 
Bourbon was in sight, and the breakers on the south-east end dis- 
tinguishable from the deck; but thick clouds obscured all the hills. 
The winds from south-east and north-east carried us to the latitude 
1810 . 
June. 
