HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
171 
of Bourbon, of which near eighteen thousand are slaves; so that when the women, 
children, and old men are, deducted, there will not remain more than six thousand 
men capable of bearing arms. They had seven or eight hundred militia, sixty dra¬ 
goons, composed of the free inhabitants, two hundred European soldiers, and about 
fifty artillery'men. SuchiW^s the whole force of the island; and as it was dispersed 
in six different districts, it db^s.not appear that in any one place two thousand men 
could be;brought to oppose.the descent of an enemy; particularly when it is con¬ 
sidered, that there are a large body of runaway slaves, who would be ever ready to 
join an enemy, or to set fire to the plantations : so that a part of the militia must be 
employed to watch them and prevent their devastations, as well as to protect the women 
and children. When,) therefore, the real force of the isle is considered, with the little 
confidence that could be placed in the slaves, and the terror,which the English arms 
inspired, it may be presumed, if our fleet under Admiral Cornish, which cruised in 
1761 off Rodriguez, had.received orders to attack the Isle of Bourbon, he would 
baye experienced! very ditjtle resistance in obtaining that important conquest.” * 
Description of the Hurricanes in the Isles of Bourbon and France. 
“ 1768. The breeze, which comes always from the south-east, in the Isle of 
Bourbon, + rises at six in the morning, and ceases at ten at night. In November 
ij. remains day and night, and with equal violence. On the 1st of December, 1768, 
the wind ceased on a sudden, and at high tide such a vast swell broke on the shore, 
as, by its violence, to drive the centinel from his post; the summits of the moun¬ 
tains were covered with thick clouds, that appeared to be stationary; the wind blew 
a little from the south-east, while the sea rolled in from the west; the heavy swells 
succeeded to each other, and they were disstinguished along shore like three rolling 
hills, throwing up a kind of regular spray, which had the appearance of hair; and, 
as they dashed on the shore, their foam was forced upwards to the height of fifty feet. 
“ It was difficult to breathe; the air was oppressive and the sky gloomy: at the same 
* These reflections are very just; hut the author did not reflect, that when the English had 
got possession of this island, they would have found themselves in the same difficulties which had 
facilitated the conquest; because, as there was no port where ships of war could remain to defend 
the approach, that power alone which is in j.ossession of the ports of the Isle of France, can be 
certain of maintaining itself in the Isle of Bourbon. 
f St. Pierre. 
