I did not answer your letter of the 21st December, Sir, because it was useless to commence a debate here between you and me, upon the motives well or ill founded from which I took upon myself to stop the Cumberland until further orders.  On the other hand, I should have had too much advantage in refuting your assertions, notwithstanding the reasonings and quotations with which you have adorned them.

I was still willing to attribute the unreserved tone you had used in that letter, to the ill humour produced by your present situation.  I was far from thinking that after having seriously reflected upon the causes and circumstances, you should take occasion from a silence so delicate to go still further; but your last letter no longer leaves me an alternative.

Your undertaking, as extraordinary as it was inconsiderate, to depart from Port Jackson in the Cumberland, more to give proof of an officious zeal, more for the private interests of Great Britain than for what had induced the French government to give you a passport, which I shall unfold at a proper opportunity, had already given me an idea of your character; but this letter overstepping all the bounds of civility, obliges me to tell you, until the general opinion judges of your faults or of mine, to cease all correspondence tending to demonstrate the justice of your cause; since you know so little how to preserve the rules of decorum.*

[The text of the letter, in French, was set out in the book, but is not set out in this ebook.]

The accusation of not preserving the rules of decorum, seemed not a little extraordinary from one who had kept me above two hours in the street when I had gone to wait upon him, and who had qualified me with the title of impostor without examination; but it seemed that any act of aggression on the part of the general was to meet only with submission and respect.  Embarrassment sheltering itself under despotic power, was evident in this letter; but it gave no further insight into the reasons for making me a prisoner, and consequently no opportunity of vindicating my innocence.  It therefore seemed wisest, seeing the kind of man with whom I had to deal, to follow his directions and leave the main subject to the operation of time; but to take off my mind from dwelling too intensely upon the circumstance of being arrested at such a conjuncture, I determined to employ it in forwarding my voyage, if an application for the necessary papers should be attended with success.

MONDAY 26 DECEMBER 1803

Having obtained a translation of the general’s letter from the interpreter, who came next morning in company with the surgeon, I wrote to request,

1st.  My printed books from the schooner.

2nd.  My private letters and papers out of the secretary’s office.