The marine minister’s letter admits little doubt that general De Caen knew, on the return of his brother-in-law in January 1805, that the council of state at Paris, though approving of his conduct, proposed granting my liberty and the restitution of the Cumberland; and he must have expected by every vessel to receive orders to that effect; but punishment had not yet produced a sufficient degree of humiliation to make him execute such an order willingly.  When the exchange was made with commodore Osborn in the following August, it became convenient to let me quit the Garden Prison, in order to take away the sentinels; captain Bergeret also, who as a prisoner in India had been treated with distinction, strongly pressed my going into the country; these circumstances alone might possibly have induced the captain-general to take the parole of one who had been detained as a spy; but his subsequent conduct leaves a strong suspicion that he proposed to make the portion of liberty, thus granted as a favour, subservient to evading the expected order from France, should such a measure be then desirable.  At length the order arrived, and three years and a half of detention had not produced any very sensible effect on his prisoner; the execution of it was therefore suspended, until another reference should be made to the government and an answer returned.  What was the subject of this reference could not be known, but there existed in the island only one conjecture; that from having had such a degree of liberty during near two years, I had acquired a knowledge of the colony which made it unsafe to permit my departure.

Extensive wars were at this time carrying on in Europe, the French arms were victorious, and general De Caen saw his former companions becoming counts, dukes, and marshals of the empire, whilst he remained an untitled general of division; he and his officers, as one of them told me, then felt themselves little better circumstanced than myself—­than prisoners in an almost forgotten speck of the globe, with their promotion suspended.  Rumours of a premeditated attack at length reached the island, which it was said the captain-general heard with pleasure; and it was attributed to the prospect of making military levies on the inhabitants, and increasing his authority by the proclamation of martial law; but if I mistake not, the general’s pleasure arose from more extended views and a more permanent source.  If the island were attacked and he could repulse the English forces, distinction would follow; if unsuccessful, a capitulation would restore him to France and the career of advancement.  An attack was therefore desirable; and as the captain-general probably imagined that an officer who had been six years a prisoner, and whose liberty had been so often requested by the different authorities in India, would not only be anxious to forward it with all his might, but that his representations would be attended to, the pretexts before alleged for my imprisonment and