I have the honour to be, etc.

The two objects I had in view in giving this answer, were, to promise nothing in regard to my movements, and to avoid close imprisonment if it could be done without dishonour; had it been demanded whether I still considered the parole to be in force, my answer was perfectly ready and very short, but no such question was asked.  Many circumstances had given room to suspect, that the captain-general secretly desired I should attempt an escape; and his view in it might either have been to some extraordinary severity, or in case his spies failed of giving timely information, to charging me with having broken parole and thus to throw a veil over his own injustice.  Hence it might have been that he did not seek to know whether, being restricted to the plantation of Madame D’Arifat, I still admitted the obligatory part of the parole to be binding; and that the expression in my answer—­the parole which I had given, implying that it existed no longer, passed without question.  However this might be, I thenceforward declined accepting any invitations beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the plantation; and until the decisive moment should arrive, amused by solitude with instructing the two younger sons of our good family in the elements of mathematical science, with inventing problems and calculating tables that might be useful to navigation, and in reading the most esteemed French authors.

After the evacuation of the town and bay of St. Paul at Bourbon, the blockade of Mauritius was resumed by commodore Rowley with increased strictness.  The frigate La Canonniere and the prize formerly H. M. ship Laurel, which the want of a few thousand dollars had induced the government to let for freight to the merchants, were thus prevented sailing; and a cartel fitted long before to carry the English prisoners to the Cape of Good Hope, and waiting only, as was generally supposed, for the departure of these two ships, was delayed in consequence.  When captains Woolcombe and Lynne of the navy had been desired in August to keep themselves in readiness, I had committed to the obliging care of the latter many letters for England, and one for admiral Bertie at the Cape; but instead of being sent away, these officers with the others were put into close confinement, and their prospects retarded until the hurricane season, when it was expected the island would have a respite from our cruisers.

DECEMBER 1809

In the beginning of December, despatches were said to have arrived from France, and the marine minister having received my memorial in the early part of the year, full time had been given to send out a fresh order; but disappointment on such arrivals had been so constant during greater part of the six years to which my imprisonment was now prolonged, that I did not at this time think it worth asking a question on the subject.  A British cartel, the Harriet, arrived