A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume II Part 40

[* It gives me pleasure to say, that almost the whole of the American commanders were ready to accommodate the English prisoners who, from time to time, obtained leave to depart, and the greater number without any other expense than that of laying in provisions for themselves; some were received on board as officers for wages, and others had a table found for them without any specified duty being required. In most cases these were beneficent actions, for, as will readily be imagined, the greater part of the prisoners had no means of obtaining money in Mauritius; the military officers, however, and those who had money at their disposal, were required to pay for their pa.s.sages, and in some cases, dear enough.]

JUNE 1805

On June 4, a fortnight after Mr. Aken had sailed, captain Osborn again came off the island, with His Majesty's ships Tremendous, Grampus, Pitt, and Terpsich.o.r.e; and an embargo on all foreign vessels was, as usual, the immediate consequence. On the 23rd, the ship Thetis arrived from Bengal under cartel colours, having on board captain Bergeret, with such of his officers and people as had not been killed in the action he had sustained against our frigate the St. Fiorenzo. This arrival animated the spirits of all the prisoners in the island; and the return of my friend Bergeret even gave me some hopes, particularly after the reception of a note from him, promising to use his exertions to obtain a favourable change in my situation. Mr. Richardson, commander of the Thetis, informed us some days afterward [JULY 1805], that all the prisoners of war would be allowed to go to India in his ship, and that hopes were entertained of an application for me also being successful. Captain Bergeret did not call until the 3rd of July, after having used his promised endeavours in vain, as I had foreseen from the delay of his visit; for every good Frenchman has an invincible dislike to be the bearer of disagreeable intelligence.

On the 5th, a letter came from Mr. Lumsden, chief secretary of the government at Calcutta, acknowledging the receipt of mine addressed to the marquis Wellesley in May 1804; he said in reply, "that although the governor-general had felt the deepest regret at the circ.u.mstances of my detention and imprisonment, it had not been in His Excellency's power to remedy either before the present time. The ship Thetis," he added, "now proceeds to the Isle of France as a cartel; and I have the honour to transmit to you the annexed extract from the letter of the governor-general to His Excellency general De Caen, captain-general of the French establishments to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. The governor-general entertains no doubt that the captain-general of the Isle of France will release you immediately on receipt of that letter."

EXTRACT.--I avail myself of this opportunity to request your Excelleney's particular attention to the truly severe case of captain Flinders; and I earnestly request Your Excellency to release captain Flinders immediately, and to allow him either to take his pa.s.sage to India in the Thetis, or to return to India in the first neutral ship.

Mr. Lumsden's letter and the above extract were inclosed to me by the secretary of general De Caen, who at the same time said, "I wish with all my heart that the captain-general could accede to the request of His Excellency the marquis Wellesley; but the motives of your detention having been of a nature to be submitted to the French government, the captain-general cannot, before he has received an answer, change any thing in the measures which have been adopted on your account." Thus whatever hope had been entertained of liberation from the side of India was done away, but I did not feel less grat.i.tude to the n.o.ble marquis for his attempt; after eighteen months of indignities, this attention, and the previous arrival of the two relations of my friend Pitot, set at liberty by lord William Bentinck, were gratifying proofs that my situation was known and excited an interest in India.

An exchange of prisoners was soon afterwards agreed upon between commodore Osborn and colonel Monistrol, with the exception of post-captains and commanders in the navy and officers of similar rank in the army; it was not said that the exceptions had any reference to captain Bergeret or myself, the sole officers in Mauritius of the ranks specified, but it seemed probable.

On the 28th, the ship Prime arrived from Bombay with French prisoners, having on board lieutenant Blast of the Company's marine, as agent; admiral Linois had met the ship near Ceylon, and taken seventy-nine of the French seamen on board his squadron, notwithstanding the representation of Mr. Blast that no exchange had yet been settled. This proceeding was said to be disapproved by general De Caen; and afterwards to be the cause of the exchange being declared void by Sir Edward Pellew, then become commander in chief in the Indian seas.

AUGUST 1805

There was at this time an almost uncontrolled liberty to enter the Garden Prison, and I was favoured with frequent visits by Mr. Richardson of the Thetis, and by Messrs. Blast, Madegon, and Davies of the Prime; these gentlemen, finding they should be obliged to leave me behind and alone, rendered every service I could permit myself to receive at their hands, and made an impression by their kindness which will ever be retained.

From their conversation I learned what was the treatment of French prisoners at Bengal and Bombay; and the contrast it formed with that of English officers and seamen in Mauritius, both in the degree of liberty and allowance for subsistence, was indeed striking. Something has already been said upon this subject, and much more might be said; but it is a more agreeable task to bestow praise where it can with truth be given. It is therefore with pleasure, and with grat.i.tude on the part of my unfortunate countrymen to admiral Linois and the officers of his squadron, as also to the commanders of privateers, that I declare no one of the several prisoners I conversed with to have made any complaint of them; on the contrary, almost all acknowledged to have been treated with kindness _whilst on board_, and except sometimes a little pilfering by the sailors, to have lost nothing of what they had a right to keep by the received usages of war; the trunks of many were not searched, it being only required of the possessor to declare, that it was his private property and that no letters or journals were contained therein. When the Fly packet was taken by the privateer La Fortune, lieutenant Manwaring's table plate and time keeper were returned to him; and his treatment by M.

Lameme was altogether so liberal, when compared with the usual conduct of privateers in Europe, as to merit being cited.

In order to give some notion of the mischief done to British commerce in India, by ships from Mauritius, an abstract of all the captures made in the first sixteen months of the war, so far as they came to our knowledge in the Garden Prison, is subjoined. There are probably several omissions; and the supposed values annexed to them are the least that can be estimated, perhaps not exceeding two-thirds of the prime cost.

By admiral Linois' squadron, three Indiamen and five country ships mostly large, 505,000

By La Psyche privateer, one Indiaman and two private ships, 95,000 La Henriette, six ships and small vessels, 150,000 La Fortune, one packet, three ships, four small vessels, 103,000 Cutter commanded by Surcouf, four vessels, 75,000 L'Alfred, one ship, 10,000 Le Pariah, one ship, 10,000 -------- Brought into Port Louis, 948,000 Ships known to have been sent to France or Batavia, run on sh.o.r.e, or sunk at sea, 200,000 Mischief done at Bencoolen by admiral Linois' squadron, 800,000 -------- Estimated loss to British commerce in 16 months, 1948,000 --------

The sailing of the Thetis and Prime, and of a little brig named the Ariel which had brought prisoners from Ceylon, was delayed until the cruising squadron had left the island. On the 13th commodore Osborn took his departure, and my young friends Dale and Seymour quitted the Garden Prison; the first carrying for me a letter to Sir Edward Pellew, giving an account of my situation, and another to Mr. Lumsden, informing him of the little success attending the governor-general's request. In the evening of the same day the cartels sailed; and I remained with my servant, who refused to profit by the occasion of obtaining his liberty, and my lame seaman, the sole English prisoners at Mauritius.

Captain Bergeret informed me two days afterward, that the general was disposed to permit of my residence in the interior part of the island; and he advised a written application to be made, specifying the place of my choice. After consulting with M. Pitot, who had received several offers to accommodate me from different parts of the island, I wrote on the 17th, pointing out the plantation of Madame D'Arifat at Wilhems Plains; which being at some distance from the sea, seemed least liable to objection. On the 19th, a polite note from colonel Monistrol said that my request was granted; and he sent word next day, that I was at liberty to quit the Garden Prison, and pa.s.s two or three days in town previously to going into the country; and being importuned by my friend Pitot to spend the evening with him, immediate advantage was taken of the permission.

On taking leave of the old serjeant, who had behaved kindly to all the prisoners, and finding myself without side the iron gate, I felt that even a prison one has long inhabited is not quitted without some sentiment of regret, unless it be to receive liberty. Of the twenty months which my detention had now reached, more than sixteen had been pa.s.sed in the Garden Prison, sometimes rather lightly, but the greater part in bitterness; and my strength and appearance were so changed, that I felt to be scarcely recognisable for the same person who had supported so much fatigue in exploring the coasts of Terra Australis.

Various observations had been taken in the Garden Prison, both by Mr.

Aken and myself, princ.i.p.ally for our amus.e.m.e.nt and to exercise Messrs.

Dale and Seymour in the calculations. The corrected results of my observations were as follow:

_Lat.i.tude_ from eight meridian alt.i.tudes of the sun, taken with a s.e.xtant and artificial horizon, 20 9' 13.5" S.

_Longitude_ from twenty-seven sets of lunar distances, the particulars of which are given in Table IX. of the first Appendix to this volume, 57 30' 42" E.

_Variation_ of the theodolite from azimuths a.m. and p.m. 11 42' 30" W.

The middle of the town being nearly one mile south-west from the prison, its situation should be: Port Louis, lat.i.tude 20 9' 56" south, longitude 57 29' 57" east.

CHAPTER VI.

Parole given.

Journey into the interior of Mauritius.

The governor's country seat.

Residence at the Refuge, in that Part of Wilhems Plains called Vacouas.

Its situation and climate, with the mountains, rivers, cascades, and views near it.

The Mare aux Vacouas and Grand Ba.s.sin.

State of cultivation and produce of Vacouas; its black ebony, game, and wild fruits; and freedom from noxious insects.

[AT MAURITIUS. PORT LOUIS.]

AUGUST 1805

My first visit after being liberated from the Garden Prison, was to captain Bergeret, whose interposition I considered to have been the princ.i.p.al cause of this favourable change; he obligingly offered me the accommodation of his lodging whilst in town, but M. Pitot had previously engaged my residence with him. Next morning I accompanied captain Bergeret to the town major's office for the purpose of giving my parole, which colonel Monistrol proposed to take verbally; but to avoid all future misunderstanding, I desired that it might be taken in writing, and two days afterward it was made out as follows.

His Excellency the captain-general De Caen having given me permission to reside at Wilhems Plains, at the habitation of Madame D'Arifat, I do hereby promise, upon my parole of honour, not to go more than the distance of two leagues from the said habitation, without His Excellency's permission; and to conduct myself with that proper degree of reserve, becoming an officer residing in a country with which his nation is at war. I will also answer for the proper conduct of my two servants.

Town of Port North-west, Matthew Flinders.

August 23, 1805

The habitation, for so plantations are here called, which was to be my residence, belonged to a respectable widow with a large family; and was represented to be five French leagues, or twelve miles from the town, in a S. S. W. direction. The permission to range two leagues all round I considered to be an approach towards liberality; and a proof that, if general De Caen had ever really believed me to be a spy, he had ceased to think so; it was not indeed consistent with the reason alleged for my imprisonment, to grant a parole at all, but this it was no part of my business to point out. On the other hand, by signing this parole I cut myself off from the possibility of an escape; but it seemed incredible, after the various letters written and representations made both in England and France, that a favourable order should not arrive in six or eight months. I moreover entertained some hopes of Mauritius being attacked, for it was not to be imagined that either the East-India company or the government should quietly submit to such losses as it caused to British commerce; and if attacked with judgment, it appeared to me that a moderate force would carry it; upon this subject, however, an absolute silence was preserved in my letters, for although the pa.s.sport had been so violated by general De Caen, I was determined to adhere to it strictly.

During four days stay in the to town of Port Louis no restriction of any kind was imposed; I visited the theatre, and several families to whom my friends Pitot and Bergeret introduced me, and pa.s.sed the time as pleasantly as any one who spoke no French could do in such a situation. A young Englishman, who under the name of an American expected to sail immediately for Europe, took charge of a box containing letters and papers for the Admiralty and president of the Royal Society, one of which was upon the effect produced on the marine barometer by sea and land winds;* and on the 24th in the afternoon I set off with M. Pitot's family for their country house, which was four miles on the way to my intended residence.

[* This paper appeared in the Society's Transactions of 1806, Part II.]

[AT MAURITIUS. WILHEMS PLAINS.]

On the following day we visited the country seat of the governor, called the _Reduit_, about seven miles from the town, and at the edge of my limit of two leagues from the habitation at Wilhems Plains. It stands upon an elevated point of land between the Riviere de Mocha, which comes from the east, and an equally large stream which collects the waters of Wilhems Plains from the southward; their junction at this place forms the Grande Riviere, and the Reduit commands a view of its windings in the low land to the north, until it is discharged into the sea about a mile on the west side of Port Louis. There was little water in the two rivers at this time; but the extraordinary depth of their channels, which seemed to be not less than a hundred feet, and to have been cut through the solid rock, bespoke that the current must be immense during the hurricanes and heavy summer rains; and the views which the different falls of water amongst the overhanging woods will then present, cannot be otherwise than highly picturesque. At the Reduit the sides of these ravines were planted with the waving bamboo, and the road leading up to the house, with the gardens around it, were shaded by the mango and various other fruit trees; but all was in great disorder, having suffered more than neglect during the turbulent period of the French revolution. The house was said to be capable of containing thirty-five beds, and was at this time in a state of preparation for general De Caen; and when completed, and the gardens, alleys, fish ponds, and roads put into order, it would be an elegant residence for the governor of the island. Our inspection was confined to the gardens and prospects, from the house being shut up; we afterwards made a rural dinner under the shade of a banian tree, and my friend Pitot, with M. Bayard, a judge in the court of appeal, then separated from their families to conduct me onward to my asylum.

Instead of taking the direct road, they pursued a winding route more to the eastward, to pay a visit to M. Plumet, a friend of the judge; and we reached his habitation not much before sunset, though still four or five miles short of our destination. Thus far I found the country to be stony and not very fertile, the roads bad and irregular, with several places in them which must be impracticable in the heavy rains; here and there, however, we were gratified with the view of country houses, surrounded with fruit trees and well watered gardens; and once turned out of the road to see a water fall made by a considerable stream down a precipice of at least a hundred feet. The cultivated fields seemed to be generally planted either with sugar cane, maize, or manioc, but we were often in the shade of the primitive woods.

M. Plumet had pa.s.sed many years in India, in the service of Scindeah, the Mahratta chief, and spoke some English; he received us so kindly that we remained with him until the following afternoon, and his habitation being within my limits, he invited me to visit him afterwards. From the time of quitting the port we had been continually ascending; so that here the elevation was probably not less than a thousand feet, and the climate and productions were much altered. Coffee seemed to be a great object of attention, and there were some rising plantations of clove trees; I found also strawberries, and even a few young oaks of tolerable growth. A vast advantage, as well as ornament in this and many other parts of the island, is the abundance of never failing streams; by which the gardens are embellished with cascades and fish ponds, and their fruit trees and vegetables watered at little expense.

Quitting M. Plumet in the afternoon of the 26th, we rode in intricate paths and crossed various plantations to get into the direct road. In these, besides sugar cane, coffee, maize, and manioc, some fields were totally covered with a creeping plant bearing a heart-shaped leaf; this was the _patate_, or sweet potatoe, a root of great utility to the nourishment of the slaves; and in the higher parts of the island, where it succeeds best, is a favourite object of cultivation, being little subject to injury from the hurricanes. As we advanced the streams became smaller and more numerous, and the uncleared woods more extensive; the country was still partly covered with large stones; but I remarked with some surprise, that the productions of the stony land were generally the most vigorous.

Neither of my conductors were acquainted with the place of my retreat; they inquired of every black man on the road, as to the right path and the distance that yet remained; but often could get no answer--sometimes it was three-quarters, and sometimes two leagues; at length we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by wood, the road had diminished to a foot path, it was dark, and began to rain. It was then judged necessary to turn back and make for a light near the road, to obtain a guide; and it seemed odd that the person applied to should answer in English, that the plantation of Madame D'Arifat was just bye. He proved to be an Irishman named Druse, who had been settled more than twenty years in this distant island as a carpenter; he had known that an English officer was coming to reside here, and undertook to be our guide, seeming to be not a little pleased at again using his native language.

A black man who had charge of the plantation in the absence of the proprietor, had received orders to accommodate us; but not finding my servant and lame seaman who should have arrived the day before, we walked half a league to the habitation of M. de Chazal, a friend of M. Pitot who had the goodness to send out my baggage. Next morning we returned, and my abode was fixed in one of two little pavilions detached from the house, the other being appropriated to my two men; and M. Pitot having brought me acquainted with a family resident on an adjoining plantation, and made some inquiries and arrangements as to supplies of provisions, he and his companion M. Bayard then returned to the town.

SEPTEMBER 1805

My attention for the first several weeks was princ.i.p.ally directed to acquiring a knowledge of the surrounding country, its natural curiosities and romantic views; and as these are well worth notice, a description of the most remarkable objects, with an account of the cultivation and produce of this secluded part of Mauritius, may probably be acceptable to some readers.

The district or quarter called Wilhems Plains, occupies a considerable portion of the interior of the island; its northern extremity borders on the sea by the side of the district of Port Louis, from which it is separated by the Grande Riviere; and it extends southward from thence, rising gradually in elevation and increasing in breadth. The body of the quarter is bounded to the N. E. by the district of Mocha--to the S. E. by that of Port Bourbon or the Grand Port--to the south by the quarter of La Savanne--and to the west by the Plains of St. Pierre. Its length from the sea to the Grand Ba.s.sin at its southern extremity, is about five geographic leagues in a straight line, and mean breadth nearly two leagues; whence the superficial extent of this district should not be much less than ninety square miles. In the upper part is a lake called the _Mare aux Vacouas_, apparently so named from the number of panda.n.u.s trees, called vacouas, on its borders; and that part of Wilhems Plains by which the lake is surrounded, at the distance of a league, more or less, bears the appellation of Vacouas; in this part my residence was situate, in a country overspread with thick woods, a few plantations excepted, which had been mostly cleared within a few years.

In consequence of the elevation of Vacouas, the climate is as much different from that of the low parts of the island as if it were several degrees without the tropic; June, July, and August are the driest months at Port Louis, but here they are most rainy, and the thermometer stands from 7 to 12 lower upon an average throughout the year.* In a west direction, across that part of the Plains of St. Pierre called Le Tamarin, the sea is not more distant than six miles; the descent is therefore rapid, and is rendered more so from three-fourths of the s.p.a.ce being flat, low land; in comparison with Le Tamarin, Vacouas is in fact an irregular plain upon the top of the mountains, to which there is almost no other access than by making a circuit of four or five miles round by the lower part of Wilhems Plains. Three rugged peaks called the Trois Mamelles, and another, the Montagne du Rempart, all of them conspicuous at sea, are the highest points of a ridge somewhat elevated above this irregular plain, and bounding it to the westward; and the road forming the ordinary communication between the high and low land pa.s.ses round them. My retreat, which very appropriately to the circ.u.mstances of my situation bore the name of _The Refuge_, lay two or three miles to the south-east of the Trois Mamelles.

[* The mean height of the thermometer in July 1805, which is the middle of winter, was 67, and of the barometer in French inches and lines, 26.7; and during February 1806, the middle of summer. 76 and 26.5 were the mean heights. At M. Pitot's house in the town of Port Louis, the averages in the same February were 86 and 27.7. According to De Luc, the difference between the logarithms of the two heights of the barometer expresses very nearly the difference of elevation in thousand toises, when the thermometer stands at 70 in both places; and therefore the approximate elevation of Vacouas above M. Pitot's house, should be