FEBRUARY 1804

This new proceeding seemed to bespeak the captain-general to have finally taken his resolution to keep us prisoners; and my disappointment at seeing it, instead of receiving back my books and papers and permission to depart, was extreme.  In the hope to obtain some information I wrote a note on the 3rd, to solicit of His Excellency the honour of an audience; and five days having elapsed without an answer, the interpreter was requested to deliver a message to the same effect.  He presently returned with the concise answer, No; but afterwards told me in conversation that the general had said, “captain Flinders might have known that I did not wish to see him, by not giving an answer to his note.  It is needless for me to see him, for the conversation will probably be such as to oblige me to send him to the tower.”

My intention in requesting the audience was to have offered certain proposals to the general’s consideration, and if possible to obtain some explanation of the reasons for a detention so extraordinary, and now protracted beyond six weeks; and being disappointed in this, a letter was written on the 12th, containing the following propositions.

1st.  If your Excellency will permit me to depart with my vessel, papers, etc., I will pledge my honour not to give any information of the Isle of France or any thing belonging to it, for a limited time, if it be thought that I can have gained any information; or if judged necessary, any other restrictions can be laid upon me.  If this will not be complied with, I request,

2nd, to be sent to France.

3rd.  But if it be indispensable to detain me here, I request that my officer and people may be permitted to depart in the schooner; as well for the purpose of informing the British Admiralty where I am, as to relieve our families and friends from the report which will be spread of the total loss of the Porpoise and Cato, with all on board.  Mr. Aken can be laid under what restrictions may be deemed requisite; and my honour shall be a security that nothing shall be transmitted by me, but what passes under the inspection of the officer who may be appointed for that purpose.

In case of refusing to adopt any of these modes, by which my voyage might proceed without possibility of injury to the Isle of France, I then reminded His Excellency that since the shipwreck of the Porpoise, six months before, my people as well as myself had been mostly confined either upon a small sand bank in the open sea, or in a boat, or otherwise on board the Cumberland where there was no room to walk, or been kept prisoners as at that time; and that I had not previously recovered from a scorbutic and very debilitated state, arising from eleven months exposure to great fatigue, bad climate, and salt provisions.  After noticing my scorbutic sores, and his refusal of the surgeon’s application for me to walk out, it was added—­The captain-general best knows whether my conduct has deserved, or the exigencies of his government require, that I should continue to be closely confined in this sickly town and cut off from society; but of no part of this letter was any notice taken.