MARCH 1806

My proposed letter to general De Caen was then sent; and after pointing out the uncertainty of orders arriving, or even that the marine minister should find time to think of a prisoner in a distant island, I repeated for the third time my request to be sent to France; where a speedy punishment would put an end to my anxieties, if found culpable, or in the contrary case, a few days would restore me to my country, my family, and occupations.  Captain Bergeret had the goodness to deliver this letter, and to give it his support; but it was unsuccessful, the verbal answer being that nothing could be done until the orders of the government were received.  To a proposal of taking my parole to deliver myself up in France, should the ship be taken on the passage, the general would not listen; though my friend said he had read the letter with attention, and promised to repeat his request to the minister for orders.

A hurricane had desolated the island on the 20th and 21st of February; and on the 10th of this month a second came on, causing a repetition of mischief in the port and upon the plantations.  Several vessels were driven on shore or blown out to sea, and more than one lost; the fruit trees, sugar cane, maize, etc. were laid flat with the earth; the different streams swelled to an extraordinary size, carrying away the best of the vegetable soil from the higher habitations, mixed with all kinds of produce, branches and trunks of trees, and the wrecks of bridges torn away; and the huts of the slaves, magazines, and some houses were either unroofed or blown down.  All communication with the port was cut off from the distant quarters, and the intercourse between adjoining plantations rendered difficult; yet this chaotic derangement was said to be trifling in comparison with what was suffered in the first hurricane at Bourbon, where the vessels have no better shelter than open roadsteds, and the plantations of cloves, coffee and maize are so much more extensive.  Some American vessels were amongst the sufferers, but as domestic occurrences were not allowed to be published here, I learned only a very general account from the different reports:  happily for our cruisers the last had quitted the island in January.

In the evening of Feb. 20, when the first hurricane came on, the swift-passing clouds were tinged at sunset with a deep copper colour; but the moon not being near the full, it excited little apprehension at the Refuge.  The wind was fresh, and kept increasing until eleven o’clock, at which time it blew very hard; the rain fell in torrents, accompanied with loud claps of thunder and lightning, which at every instant imparted to one of the darkest nights the brightness of day.  The course of the wind was from south-west to south, south-east, east, and north-east, where it blew hardest between one and three in the morning, giving me an apprehension that the house,