and kind treatment of my wife and children, and at the same time to request a continuance thereof, not only to her and them but towards every other object you may meet with. "

General Lagrange, however, either did receive some letter putting a negative upon his demand, or so construed the one which has been published ; for, although General Ernouf from Guadaloupe had just arrived at Roseau, and offered to add a corps of grenadiers to the force under General Lagrange to enable him the more easily to reduce the fort, the latter decided, in preference, to evacuate the island. After dilapidating the batteries, embarking some guns, and spiking others, destroying the carriages, the ammunition, and the warehouses containing provisions, taking away such prisoners as were regulars, disarming the militia and putting them on their parole, and not omitting to levy a contribution, at first of 6000l. but at length of 5500l. sterling, upon the inhabitants, the general and his troops, on the 27th, at about 10 A.M., reembarked on board the squadron. At noon the latter set sail for Guadaloupe ; whither the Lynx had already convoyed the 22 English and colonial merchant vessels (nine or ten only square-rigged), which it had been her business, while the engagement was pending, to carry off from the road of Roseau ; but of which, or of the dismantlement of the batteries, not a word is there in the brigadier's letter to Sir William Myers.

Other good fortune, than that of escaping to the fort of Prince Rupert without scratch or bruise, attended Brigadier-general Prevost. He contrived to, what, in homely but intelligible language, is called, bamboozle the folks at home. The Annual Register, making no distinction between doing a thing and ordering it to be done, declares that the governor, not Major Nunn, " opposed with the small force under his command, the landing of the French inch by inch. " " Throughout the whole of this transaction, " proceeds the writer, " the highest praise is due to the conduct of the governor, and the British troops under his command. " The conduct of the latter was, indeed, entitled to every praise. But praise was not all that he or that they received. The committee of the Patriotic Fund, unable to make the proper discrimination, presented the governor of Dominique with a 100l. sword and a piece of plate, and gave a 50l. sword to each of the two officers, Major Nunn and Captain O'Connell, as well as sums of money to the wounded privates. With respect to General Lagrange, our decided opinion is, that he did not do his duty in so soon evacuating the island of Dominique. He should at least have made an attempt upon Prince-Rupert. So Napoléon thought, but, from some unexplained cause, included the admiral in the censure which he passed upon the general. However, as is too often the case in the minor concerns of life,

* Annual Register, for 1805, p. 220.

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