SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 345 
fense, nor get an account of the merchandise of which they 
had defrauded him. Some time after he had sustained this 
loss, he bought a large boat, which he refitted at a considera- 
ble expense. He made the purchase in the hope of being 
able to traffic with the Portugese of the island of Cape Verd, 
but in vain ; the governor of the colony prohibited him from 
all communication with these islands. 
Such were the first misfortunes which we experienced at 
Senegal, and which were only the precursors of still greater 
to come. 
Beside all these, my father had much trouble and vexation 
to endure in the employment he followed. The bad state of 
the affairs of the colony, the poverty of the greater part of 
its inhabitants, occasioned to him all sorts of contradictions 
and disagreements. Debts Avere not paid, the ready-money 
sales did not go ofT; processes multiplied in a frightful man- 
ner; every day creditors came to the office soliciting actions 
against their debtors ; in a word, he was in a state of perpe- 
tual torment, either with his own personal matters, or with 
those of others. However, as he hoped soon to be at the 
head of the agricultural establishment projected at Senegal, 
he supported his difficulties with great courage. 
In the expedition which was to have taken place in 1815, 
the Count Trigant de Beaumont, whom the king had appointed 
governor of Senegal, had promised my father to reinstate him 
in the rank of captain of infantry, which he had held before 
the Revolution, and after that to appoint him to the command 
of the counting-house of Galam, dependent upon the govern- 
ment of Senegal. In 1816, my father again left Paris with 
that hope, for the employment of attorney did not suit his dis- 
position, which was peaceable and honest. He had the first 
gift of the documents concerning the countries where they 
were to found the agricultural establishments in Africa, and 
had proposed plans which were accepted of at the time by 
the President of the Council of State, and by the Minister of 
Marine, for the colonization' of Senegal ; but the unfortunate 
event of 1815 having overturned every thing, another gover- 
nor was nominated for that colony in place of Count Trigant 
de Beaumont. All his plans and proposed projects were in- 
stantly altered for the purpose of giving them the appearance 
of novelty; and my father found himself in a situation to ap- 
ply these lines of Virgil to himself: 
" Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores." 
These lines I made, another has the praise. 
