Adieu, worthy Sir, may the winds be propitious, and may you never be reduced to the bitterness of sighing after justice in vain.

CHAPTER VIII.

Effects of repeated disappointment on the mind. 
Arrival of a cartel, and of letters from India. 
Letter of the French marine minister. 
Restitution of papers. 
Applications for liberty evasively answered. 
Attempted seizure of private letters. 
Memorial to the minister. 
Encroachments made at Paris on the Investigator’s discoveries. 
Expected attack on Mauritius produces an abridgment of Liberty. 
Strict blockade. 
Arrival of another cartel from India. 
State of the public finances in Mauritius. 
French cartel sails for the Cape of Good Hope.

[AT MAURITIUS.  WILHEMS PLAINS]

SEPTEMBER 1806

News of negotiations at Paris for peace formed the principal topic of conversation at Mauritius in September, and no one more than myself could desire that the efforts of Lord Lauderdale might be crowned with success; a return to England in consequence of such an event was of all things what I most desired, but the hope of peace, before national animosity and the means of carrying on war became diminished, was too feeble to admit of indulging in the anticipation.

NOVEMBER 1806

The state of incertitude in which I remained after nearly three years of anxiety, joined to the absence of my friends Bergeret and Pitot, brought on a dejection of spirits which might have proved fatal, had I not sought by constant occupation to force my mind from a subject so destructive to its repose; such an end to my detention would have given too much pleasure to the captain-general, and from a sort of perversity in human nature, this conviction even brought its share of support.  I reconstructed some of my charts on a larger scale, corrected and extended the explanatory memoir, and completed for the Admiralty an enlarged copy of the Investigator’s log book, so far as the materials in my hands could admit; the study of the French language was pursued with increased application, and many books in it, particularly voyages and travels, were read.  But what assisted most in dispelling this melancholy, was a packet of letters from England, bringing intelligence of my family and friends; and the satisfactory information that Mr. Aken had safely reached London, with all the charts, journals, letters and instruments committed to his charge.

JANUARY 1807