The winds, to our great astonishment, veered to the west, (a circumstance which the Admiral informed us was more common than we supposed) and this tended to favour his opinion. He abandoned the bad sailers of his squadron, in proportion as they lagged behind: and he determined on gaining the place of his destination with all possible speed.
A STORM.—EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN LIBELS UPON THE EMPEROR.—GENERAL REFLECTIONS.
14th-18th. After a few slight gales and several calms, we had on the 16th a considerable fall of rain, to the great joy of the crew. The heat was very moderate; it may, indeed, be said that, with the exception of the storm at Madeira, we had uniformly enjoyed mild weather. But water was very scarce on board the ship; and, for the sake of economy, the crew took advantage of the opportunity of collecting the rain water, of which each sailor laid by a little store for his own use. The rain fell heavily just as the Emperor had got upon deck to take his afternoon walk. But this did not disappoint him of his usual exercise; he merely called for his famous grey great coat, which the English regarded with deep interest. The Grand Marshal and I attended the Emperor in his walk. The rain descended heavily for upwards of an hour; when the Emperor left the deck, I had great difficulty in stripping off my wet clothes; almost every thing I wore was soaked through.
For several succeeding days the weather continued very rainy; this somewhat impeded my labours, for the damp penetrated into our wretched little cabin; and on the other hand, it was not very agreeable to walk on deck. This was the first time during our passage that we had had any thing like a continuance of wet weather; and it quite disconcerted us. I filled up the intervals, between my hours of occupation, in conversing with the officers of the ship. I was not on intimate terms with any of them; but I kept up a daily intercourse of civility and politeness to them all. They loved to talk with us on French affairs, and their ignorance of all that concerned France and the French people was almost incredible. We excited mutual astonishment in each other: they surprised us by their degenerate political principles, and we astonished them by our new ideas and manners, of which they had previously formed no conception. They certainly knew infinitely less of France than of China.