ARRIVAL IN BATAVIA ROADS. 
261 
Honourable Mr. Fendal, and Sir William Keir, Bart., commander of 
the British forces in Java, had not quitted the island, dispatched 
letters to them, and to the Dutch Governor, Baron Van der Capellan, 
stating our situation. Mr. Cooke, who carried them on shore, soon 
returned with intelligence that boats were coming off to take us to 
Batavia. An aide-de-camp also arrived from the Baron with an 
invitation to the Ambassador and gentlemen of his suite to his house, 
and the offer of every supply our necessities might require. The 
boats arrived at four o’clock, and took the Ambassador and his 
suite on shore, where carriages waited our arrival to convey us to 
the house of His Excellency the Dutch Governor, with whom we 
dined ; but through the active kindness of our English friends, did 
not find it necessary to accept of his proffered services to their full 
extent. 
I have now related all those circumstances of the unfortunate 
wreck of the Alceste of which I was a witness. For the following 
brief narrative of the occurrences on the island, after the departure 
of the Ambassador, I am indebted to the Journals kept there by the 
Hon. Mr. Abbot and Mr. Brown, and to conversations with several 
other officers of the ship. 
After the sailing of the Embassy on the evening of the 19th of 
February, provisions, baggage, and some water, were landed from the 
wreck, but the last in such small quantity that the utmost anxiety 
prevailed respecting the result of efforts then making to form a well 
at the bottom of the hill. But successive parties having toiled at 
it all night, Captain Maxwell was, before morning, cheered with 
the intelligence that water had begun to rise ; and on receiving a 
specimen found it, although slightly brackish, very drinkable. 
It becoming generally known at an early hour that water had risen 
to the height of three feet, a general rush was made to the well, 
and every thing capable of holding it put into requisition by the 
thirsty sufferers. They found the supply too small to afford them 
much relief, but received effectual succour in a heavy fall of rain, the 
same probably which had reached the barge. Every one being in 
