So soon as the two gentlemen were gone, I took out my naval signal book from the trunk and tore it to pieces; the private signals had been lost in the shipwreck, so that my mind was now freed from apprehensions which had given much inquietude.

WEDNESDAY 28 DECEMBER 1803

On the 28th, M. Chapotin, the surgeon, called as usual with the interpreter.  He said that air and exercise were necessary to the re-establishment of my health, and that so soon as I should be able to walk out, it would be proper to apply to the general for a permission; and on my objecting to ask any thing like a personal favour, he promised with some degree of feeling to take the application on himself.

No mention was made this day of the books and papers, to be delivered from the sealed trunks; but next morning [THURSDAY 29 DECEMBER 1803] I was conducted to the government house, and took out all my private letters and papers, the journals of bearings and astronomical observations, two log books, and such charts as were necessary to completing the Gulph of Carpentaria; for which a receipt was required, without any obligation to return them.  The third log book, containing transactions and remarks in different vessels during the preceding six months, was important to me on many accounts, and especially for the observations it contained upon Torres’ Strait and the Gulph; but it was said to be in the hands of the general, who could not be disturbed, and two boxes of despatches from governor King and colonel Paterson had been taken away.  All the other books and papers, including my passport, commission, etc., with some accounts from the commissary of New South Wales and many private letters from individuals in that colony, were locked up in a trunk and sealed as before.

SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER 1803

On the 31st.  I sent to the town major’s office an open letter addressed to the secretary of the Admiralty, giving a short account of my embarkation and shipwreck in the Porpoise, voyage in the Cumberland, and situation in Mauritius; with two private letters, and a request that they might be forwarded by the first opportunity.  Next day [SUNDAY 1 JANUARY 1804] the receipt of them was acknowledged, and a promise given to inform me of the means by which they should be sent, and it was done accordingly; but not one of the letters, or of their duplicates, was ever received.

Having calculated with Mr. Aken the observations previously taken for the rate of the time keeper,* I now worked earnestly upon the chart of the Gulph of Carpentaria; and this employment served to divert my chagrin, and the indignation which, however useless it might be, I could not but feel at the author of our imprisonment.  The want of my log book, however, was a great obstacle to laying down the parts seen in the Cumberland; and nothing more having been said of it, a short letter was written to general De Caen on the 5th, reminding him that the log was necessary to the construction of my charts, and that only a small part of the printed books had yet been delivered.  A verbal answer was brought by the interpreter, and two days afterward the books came from the schooner; but respecting the log no answer was made.