A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume II Part 42

Habitation of La Perouse.

Letters to the French marine minister, National Inst.i.tute, etc.

Letters from Sir Edward Pellew.

Caverns in the Plains of St. Pierre.

Visit to Port Louis.

Narrative transmitted to England.

Letter to captain Bergeret on his departure for France.

[AT MAURITIUS. WILHEMS PLAINS.]

SEPTEMBER 1805

The latter end of August and beginning of September appertain to the winter in the southern hemisphere, during which it rains frequently at Vacouas; in the first month after my arrival there were few days that continued fine throughout, and although all opportunities were taken to make excursions in the neighbourhood, a considerable part of the time was necessarily pa.s.sed within doors. Having sent away my charts and instruments, and most of the books and papers, no object of my voyage could be prosecuted until a further supply should be obtained from the captain-general De Caen; and this being the time, should it ever arrive, to which I had looked for gaining some knowledge of the French language, the study of it was now made a serious employment.

Amongst the princ.i.p.al habitations near the Refuge, the proprietor of one only was resident in the country; and the introduction of my friend Pitot having produced an invitation, I profited by it to spend there several evenings, which, besides being pa.s.sed agreeably, facilitated the study to which my attention was directed. There was living in the family an unemployed commander of a merchant ship, M. Murat, who had made the voyage with Etienne Marchand, the account of which is so ably written by M. de Fleurieu; he was obliging enough to accompany me in several excursions, and amongst them in a walk of five miles to the house of M.

Giblot, commandant of the quarter of Wilhems Plains, to whom it seemed proper to show myself and pay a visit of ceremony. The commandant was unacquainted with my residence in his district, which was so far gratifying that it showed I was not an object of suspicion in the eye of the government.

OCTOBER 1805

M. Pitot came to pa.s.s a day with me at the end of a month, as did captain Bergeret; and on the 9th of October, the proprietor of the Refuge arrived with two of her sons and three daughters, to take up their residence on the plantation. On the following day I received a proposal from Madame D'Arifat, as liberal as the terms in which it was couched were obliging, to partake of her table with the family, which after some necessary stipulations, was accepted; and in a short time I had the happiness to enumerate amongst my friends one of the most worthy families in the island. The arrival of two other proprietors from the town increased the number of our neighbours, and of those who sought by their hospitable kindness to make my time pa.s.s agreeably. To M. de Chazal I was indebted for sending out my baggage, and in the sequel for many acts of civility and service; this gentleman had pa.s.sed two years in England, during the tyranny of Robespierre, and consequently my want of knowledge in the French language, at first an obstacle to communication with others, was none to reaping the advantage of his information.

On the 22nd, a packet of letters brought intelligence from my family and friends in England, of whom I had not heard for more than three years; Mr. Robertson, my former companion in the Garden Prison, had found means to forward it to M. Pitot, by whom it was immediately sent to Vacouas. A letter from the president of the Royal Society informed me that the misunderstanding between the French and British governments was so great, that no communication existed between them; but that the president himself, having obtained the approbation of the ministry, had made an application in my behalf to the National Inst.i.tute, from which a favourable answer had been received; and there were strong hopes that so soon as the emperor Napoleon should return from Italy, an order for my liberation would be obtained. Our frigates, the Pitt and Terpsich.o.r.e, came to cruise off Mauritius a short time afterward [NOVEMBER 1805], for which I was as sorry on one account as any of the inhabitants; every week might produce the arrival of the expected order, but it would probably be thrown overboard if the vessel should be chased, or have an engagement with our ships.

FEBRUARY 1806

Three months thus pa.s.sed in fruitless expectation; at length an aide-de-camp of the general arrived, and gave a spur to my hopes; but after many days of anxiety to know the result, I learned from captain Bergeret that the despatches said nothing upon my imprisonment. This silence of the marine minister and the great events rising in Europe, admitted little hope of my situation being remembered; and I was thence led to entertain the project of once more requesting general De Caen to send me to France for trial; but the brother of the general and another officer being also expected, it was deferred at that time. In effect, M.

De Caen arrived on the 25th, in the frigate La Canonniere from Cherbourg, and excited a renewal of hope only to be again disappointed; the news of victories gained by the French over the Austrians seemed to occupy every attention, and threw a dark shade over all expectation of present liberty. I learned, however, and a prisoner's mind would not fail to speculate thereon, that my detention was well known in Paris, and thought to be hard; but it was also said, that I was considered in the same light as those persons who were arrested in France, as hostages for the vessels and men said to have been stopped by our ships before the declaration of war.

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 pa.s.sage, 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 repet.i.tion of mischief in the port and upon the plantations. Several vessels were driven on sh.o.r.e 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-pa.s.sing 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, pavilions, and all would be blown away together. At four o'clock the wind had got round to north and began to moderate, as did the rain which afterwards came only in squalls; at nine, the rain had nearly ceased, and the wind was no more than a common gale, and after pa.s.sing round to N. N. W. it died away. At the time the wind moderated at Mauritius its fury was most exerted at Bourbon, which it was said to have attacked with a degree of violence that any thing less solid than a mountain was scarcely able to resist. The lowest to which the mercury descended in the barometer at Vacouas. was 5 lines below the mean level of two days before and two days afterward; and this was at daybreak, when the wind and rain were subsiding.

Soon after the violence of the hurricane had abated, I went to the cascades of the R. du Tamarin, to enjoy the magnificent prospect which the fall of so considerable a body of water must afford; the path through the wood was strewed with the branches and trunks of trees, in the forest the gra.s.s and shrubs were so beaten down as to present the appearance of an army having pa.s.sed that way, and the river was full up to its banks.

Having seen the fall in the nearest of the two arms, I descended below their junction, to contemplate the cascade they formed when united, down the precipice of 120 feet; the noise of the fall was such that my own voice was scarcely audible, but a thick mist which rose up to the clouds from the abyss, admitted of a white foam only being distinguished.

During these hurricanes in Mauritius, the wind usually makes the whole tour of the compa.s.s; and as during this of February it made little more than half, the apprehension of a second hurricane was entertained, and became verified about a fortnight afterwards. The wind began at E. S. E.

with rainy weather, and continued there twenty-four hours, with increasing force; it then shifted quickly to north-east, north, north-west, and on the third evening was at W. S. W., where it gradually subsided. This was not so violent as the first hurricane, but the rain fell in torrents, and did great mischief to the land, besides destroying such remaining part of the crops as were at all in an advanced state: at Bourbon it did not do much injury, the former, it was said, having left little to destroy. The wind had now completed the half of the compa.s.s which it wanted in the first hurricane; and the unfortunate planters were left to repair their losses without further dread for this year: maize and manioc, upon which the slaves are princ.i.p.ally fed, rose two hundred per cent.

An opinion commonly entertained in Mauritius, that hurricanes are little to be apprehended except near the time of full moon, does not seem to be well founded. In 1805 indeed, there was a heavy gale on April 14 and 15, a few days after the full; but the first of the two hurricanes abovementioned took place a day or two before the new moon, and the middle of the second within twenty-four hours of the last quarter; whence it should appear that the hurricanes have no certain connexion with the state of this planet. January, February, and March are the months which excite the most dread, and December and April do not pa.s.s without apprehension; for several years, however, previously to 1805, no hurricane had been experienced; and the inhabitants began to hope, that if the clearing of the country caused a dearth of rain at some times of the year, it would also deliver them from these dreadful scourges; for it was to the destruction of the woods that the dryness of preceding years and the cessation of hurricanes were generally attributed.

On the 21st, His Majesty's ship Russel came off the island upon a cruise, and chased into Port Louis La Piemontaise, a French frigate which had sailed from Europe in December. By this opportunity a confirmation of some, and an account of other victories gained over the Austrians were received, as also of the great naval action off Cape Trafalgar; the bulletins of the former were inserted in the gazette of the island, but except a report from the officers of Le Redoubtable, not a word of the naval action; amidst such events as these, the misfortunes of an individual must be very striking to occupy even a thought.

In a visit to M. Plumet, and to M. Airolles, the proprietor of an extensive plantation called Menil, in his neighbourhood, I had an opportunity of seeing a rivulet, which for some distance runs under ground. The bed of this stream resembled a work of art, seeming to have been nicely cut out of the solid rock; and close by the side of it was a cavern, containing layers of a ferruginous stone like lava; their combined appearance excited an idea that the ca.n.a.l might have been once occupied by a vein of iron ore, which being melted by subterraneous fire, found an exit, and left a place for the future pa.s.sage of the waters.

About one mile from hence, and in a more elevated situation, is a large and deep hole, of a form nearly approaching to a perfect circle, and its upper part occupying, according to M. Airolles, the place of seventeen arpents of land; I judged it to be two hundred feet deep, and that the loose stones in its bottom formed a flat of four or five acres, the angle of descent being nearly equal on all sides. The stones around, and at the bottom of this vast pit are more honeycombed than is usual in other parts, and much resemble those of the Grand Ba.s.sin, of whose nature they seemed to partake in other respects.

Menil comprehends a smaller plantation, formerly occupied by the unfortunate La Perouse, who was some time an inhabitant of this island. I surveyed it with mixed sensations of pleasure and melancholy; the ruins of his house, the garden he had laid out, the still blooming hedge-rows of China roses--emblems of his reputation, every thing was an object of interest and curiosity. This spot is nearly in the centre of the island, and upon the road from Port Louis to Port Bourbon. It was here that the man lamented by the good and well informed of all nations--whom science illumined, and humanity, joined to an honest ambition, conducted to the haunts of remote savages--in this spot he once dwelt, perhaps little known to the world, but happy; when he became celebrated he had ceased to exist. M. Airolles promised me to place three square blocks of stone, one upon the other, in the spot where the house of this lamented navigator had stood; and upon the uppermost stone facing the road, to engrave, LA PeROUSE.

APRIL 1806

My lame seaman having recovered from the accident of his broken leg, colonel Monistrol granted a permission for his departure in the beginning of April; and he was shipped on board the Telemaque -- Clark, bound to Boston in America. His companion, the last of the c.u.mberland's crew, had the same means offered of recovering his liberty; but he still refused to leave me in Mauritius.

On the 15th I sent away two packets of letters, one for the Admiralty and my friends in England, the other to France; the last contained a second letter to M. de Fleurieu, and one to the French marine minister giving a short account of my voyage and detention; it inclosed the extract from captain Baudin (Chapter V., August.), and requested His Excellency would direct general De Caen either to set me at liberty, or send me to France with my books and papers for examination. These letters were accompanied by duplicates of those written by my friend Pitot in March 1805, to Messieurs De Bougainville, De la Lande, Chaptal, and Dupuis, and were sent away by two different conveyances. The Society of Emulation, formed in Mauritius the preceding year to promote literary and philosophical pursuits, but especially to advance the agriculture, navigation, and commerce of the two islands, wrote also to the National Inst.i.tute in my favour; and as its sentiments may be supposed a.n.a.logous to those of the most enlightened part of the inhabitants, I venture to give in the original French a copy of that letter in a note, to show what those sentiments were.*

[Not included in this ebook.]

MAY 1806

In May, my friend Pitot was accompanied in his monthly visit by M.

Baudin, an officer of the frigate last arrived from France, who had made the voyage in Le Geographe with his name sake; and with liberality of sentiment, possessed that ardent spirit of enterprise by which the best navigators have been distinguished. He informed me that M. de Fleurieu was acquainted with most of the circ.u.mstances attending my arrival in this island, and took an interest in my situation, as did many others in Paris; but could not say what might be the opinion or intentions of the government.

On the 6th, colonel Monistrol sent me two open letters from rear-admiral sir Edward Pellew, commander in chief in the East Indies; in the first of which it was said, "The circ.u.mstances of your situation have impressed themselves most strongly on my attention; and I feel every disposition to alleviate your anxiety, without, I fear, the means of affording you any present relief from your very unpleasant situation. I have transmitted your letter to the Admiralty, that steps may forthwith be taken for your release at home, by effecting your exchange for an officer of equivalent rank; under an impression that at least it may insure your return to Europe on parole, if that should be a necessary preliminary to your final liberation." To give an officer of equivalent rank was probably the most certain mode of obtaining my speedy release, but was not altogether agreeable to justice. It seemed to me, that the liberation of an officer employed on discovery, and bearing a pa.s.sport, ought to be granted as a matter of right, without any conditions; and accompanied with the rest.i.tution of every thing belonging to his mission and himself, if not with an atonement to the offended laws of good faith and humanity; but this was only the _just_, the views of sir Edward were directed to the _expedient_, and showed a better knowledge of mankind. His second letter, dated January 15, 1806, contained sentiments nearly similar to the first, without any new subject upon which to ground the hope of an early release; that my situation, however, should have excited the attention and interest of an officer of sir Edward Pellew's established character and merit, if it did not much increase the prospect of a speedy return to my country and occupations, was yet gratifying to the feelings, and a consolation under misfortune.

In compliance with an invitation from M. Curtat, a friend of our good family at the Refuge, I went to his plantation near the Baye du Tamarin, which was within my limits; and had an opportunity of seeing his sugar and cotton manufactories, as also the embouchure of the rivers du Tamarin and du Rempart. The bay into which they are discharged is no more than a sandy bight in the low land, partly filled up with coral; and it would soon be wholly so, did not the fresh stream from the rivers keep a channel open in the middle; it is however so shallow, that except in fine weather fishing boats even cannot enter without risk.

Upon a plantation in the Plains of St. Pierre, about one mile from the foot of the Montagne du Rempart, are some caverns which M. Curtat procured me the means of examining. In the entrance of one is a perpetual spring, from which a stream takes its course under ground, in a vaulted pa.s.sage; M. Ducas, the proprietor of the plantation, said he had traced it upon a raft, by the light of flambeaux, more than half a mile without finding its issue; but he supposed it to be in a small lake near the sea side. The other caverns had evidently been connected with the first, until the roof gave way in two places and separated them. The middle portion has a lofty arch, and might be formed into two s.p.a.cious apartments; its length is not many fathoms, but the third portion, though less s.p.a.cious, runs in a winding course of several hundred yards. From being unprovided with torches we did not pa.s.s the whole length of this third cavern; but at the two extremities, and as far within as could be distinguished, the roof admitted of standing upright, and the breadth was eight or ten yards from side to side.

About thirty years before, this part of the Plains de St. Pierre had been covered with wood, and the caverns inhabited by a set of maroon negroes, whose depredations and murders spread consternation in the neighbourhood.

Their main retreat in the third cavern was discovered by a man whom they had left for dead; but having watched them to their haunt, he gave information to the officers of justice, and troops were sent to take them. After securing the further outlet, the soldiers crept to the princ.i.p.al entrance, near which the maroons kept a sentinel with loaded musket in the top of a tree; he was found nodding on his post, and having shot him they rushed in a body to the mouth of the cavern. The poor wretches within started from their beds, for they slept in the day time, and flew to arms; a skirmish ensued, in which another of them was killed and two soldiers wounded; but at length, finding their retreat cut off, the sentinel, who happened to be their captain and chief instigator, killed, and the force opposed to them too great to be overcome, they yielded themselves prisoners to the number of fifty-one; and were marched off, with their hands tied, to head quarters, to the great joy of the district. Besides arms and a small quant.i.ty of ammunition, there was little else found in the cavern than a bag of dollars, a case of wine, some pieces of cloth, a slaughtered goat, and a small provision of maize not more than enough for one day. The skull of their captain, who was said to be possessed of much cunning and audacity, was at this time lying upon a stone at the entrance of the cavern; and for narrowness of front and large extent at the back part of the head, was the most singularly formed cranium I ever saw. Little oblong inclosures, formed with small stones by the sides of the cavern, once the sleeping places of these wretches, also existed, nearly in the state they had been left; owing apparently to the superst.i.tion of the black, and the policy and disgust of the white visitants to these excavations.

The stone here is mostly of an iron-grey colour, heavy, and porous; and there were marks upon the sides of the middle cavern which might have arisen either from a sulphureous substance yielded by the stone when in a state of ignition, or from an impregnated water draining through the roof during a succession of time; upon the whole, though it seemed probable that these caverns owe their origin to the same cause as the subterraneous ca.n.a.l at Menil, the marks of fire in them were neither distinct nor unequivocal. The position of these long, winding excavations, in a country nearly level and of small elevation, appeared to be the most extraordinary circ.u.mstance attending them; but in this island they are commonly so situate, particularly that remarkable one, of which a detailed account is given in Grant's _History of Mauritius_ from M. de St. Pierre.

Quitting Le Tamarin with M. Curtat, I went to the town of Port Louis, to take up my residence for a few days with my friend Pitot, the captain-general having granted a permission to that effect. One of the objects for which I had asked the permission, was to obtain a further one to visit La Poudre d'Or and Flacq, on the north-east side of the island; but my application was refused after two or three days consideration, and accompanied with an order to return immediately to Wilhems Plains. It appeared that general De Caen had received a letter of reproach from governor King of Port Jackson, inclosing, it was said, a copy of that I had written to the governor in August 1804, wherein my reception and treatment at Mauritius were described in colours not calculated to gratify the general's feelings; it was even considered, and perhaps was in him, a great act of forbearance that he did not order me to be closely confined in the tower.

During this short residence in town, the attentions of my friend Pitot, of captain Bergeret, and several other French inhabitants were such as bespoke a desire to indemnify me for the ill treatment of their governor, whose conduct seemed to be generally disapproved; my acquaintance with major Dunienville of La Savanne was renewed, as also with M. Boand, the good Swiss, whose anxiety to serve me when a prisoner in the Cafe Marengo, had not lost any thing of its ardour. At the Garden Prison, which I could not refrain from visiting, there was no one but the old serjeant, the six or eight Englishmen in the island being kept at the Grande Riviere. In returning to Wilhems Plains I made a tour by the district of Mocha, both to see that part of the island and to visit M.

Huet de Froberville, with whom his intimacy with the good family at the Refuge had brought me acquainted; this gentleman was nephew of Huetius, the celebrated bishop of Avranches, and author of _Sidner, or the dangers of imagination_, a little work published in Mauritius.

JUNE 1806

The usual season of arrivals from France expired with the month of May, and the time elapsed since my first detention, without being otherwise noticed by the French government than giving general De Caen its temporary approbation, had exceedingly weakened my confidence in its justice; it appeared moreover, that not only had no public application been made by our government for my liberty and the rest.i.tution of my charts and journals, but that the advancement I had been led to expect in consequence of the voyage, was stopped. This could not be from inattention, and therefore probably arose either from a want of information, or from some misconceived opinions at the Admiralty; to remove which, it seemed necessary to transmit an account of all the circ.u.mstances attending my imprisonment, accompanied with the letters to and from the captain-general, and such other pieces as were proper to the authentication of the narrative.

JULY 1806

I was occupied in writing this account when the Warren Hastings, richly laden from China, was taken by La Piemontaise and brought to Mauritius; and captain Larkins having obtained permission to return to England, he offered by letter to take charge of any thing I desired to transmit. The narrative, completed to the time of leaving the Garden Prison, was therefore conveyed to him; and in an accompanying letter to the Admiralty, my hopes were expressed that their Lordships would not suffer an imprisonment, contrary to every principle of justice and humanity, to continue without notice--without such steps being taken to obtain my release and the rest.i.tution of my remaining charts and papers, as in their wisdom should seem meet. Captain Larkins had ineffectually sought to obtain a permission to come to Wilhems Plains, and my request to go to the town for a day or two was refused; he therefore sailed [AUGUST 1806]

without my being able to see him or any of his officers; and his departure was preceded by that of my friend Pitot for Bourbon, and followed by the embarkation of captain Bergeret for France.

In consequence of the many kindnesses conferred by M. Pitot on several of our countrymen as well as myself, I had been induced to write some letters at his request to the commanders of His Majesty's ships; recommending to their favour, in case of being taken, such of his friends as had a claim to it, either from services rendered to prisoners or from their superior talents; and I did not let slip the occasion of his voyage to Bourbon, to testify in this manner my sense of his worth. To soften the rigour of confinement to deserving men, is a grateful task; I conceived that a war between two nations does not necessarily entrain personal enmity between each of their respective individuals, nor should prevent us from doing particular acts of kindness where merit and misfortune make the claim; and in the confidence that such were the general sentiments of officers in the navy, I had no hesitation in addressing myself to them. Possibly some would think these applications unadvisably made; but no--to distinguish merit and repay the debt of grat.i.tude contracted by unfortunate brother officers or countrymen, are too congenial to the hearts of Britons; to those who produced either, or both of these t.i.tles an English seaman could not be deaf, and on no other account was my suffrage obtained.

Captain Bergeret's name was too well known to need any recommendation from me; but I wished to express my grat.i.tude for his generous proceedings to many English prisoners, and to have the advantage of his influence in obtaining an order from his government for my liberty, or otherwise for being sent to France to be examined. The letter transmitted a short time before he sailed, expresses the state of a prisoner's mind when suffering under injustice and wearied with disappointment; on this account, the greater number of readers will be induced to excuse the insertion of the following pa.s.sages, which otherwise are without importance, and perhaps without interest.

I need not at this time call to your recollection what my situation is in this place. I have been so long pressed under the hand of injustice, and my confidence in the French government is so much exhausted, that I am reduced to asking as a favour what ought to be demanded as a right. On your arrival in France then, my dear Sir, forget not that I am here--that my prayer is, to be examined, to be tried, to be condemned, if I have in action, intention, or thought, done any thing whilst employed in my voyage of discovery, against the French nation or its allies--if in any way I have infringed upon the line of conduct prescribed by the pa.s.sport of the first consul of France. To have the best years of my life, the essence of my existence thus drained away without any examination into the affair; to have the fruits of my labours and risks thus ravished from me--my hopes of advancement and of reputation thus cruelly blasted, is almost beyond what I am able to support. Use then, I conjure you, Sir, your best endeavours with those men in France who have it in their power to forward my wish; with those men for whom a voyage of discovery, the preservation of national faith, and the exercise of humanity have still attractions. With such men, in spite of the neglect which my extraordinary situation here has undergone, now near three years, I will not believe but that the French empire abounds; a Fleurieu, a Bougainville, a Lalande, a Delambre, and numberless others--can such men be strangers to national honour and humanity? Has a man reduced to misfortune by his ardent zeal to advance geography and its kindred sciences, no claims upon men like these? It cannot be. However unworthy an instrument I am in the hands of our literary British worthies, my employment, if not my misfortunes, give me a claim upon their a.s.sistance in obtaining, at least, an examination into my crimes or my innocence; and this claim I now make. See these celebrated men, Sir, explain to them the circ.u.mstances of my situation, tell them the plain tale, and that it is towards them, though so distant, that my looks are directed; your own name will give you an introduction, and the cause you undertake will not disgrace it.

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.