A kind reception by the enemy--Our shipmates all prisoners--Consolations under misfortunes--Prisoners sent to the hospital at Brest--Robbery by a French seaman--Running the gauntlet--Dilemma of wearing or giving up a sword--Kindness of the French nuns--Orders to march into the Interior--Wounded pride and hard fare--Bad faith of the Minister of Marine--The march begins for Verdun--Arrival at Landernau--Aristocratic differences in rates of pay or allowances amongst republicans--Landiviziau--An illustration of equality--Morlaix to Rennes--Prisoners and vermin--Vitré--English dogs at a French inn--Laval--A spectacle for the mob--Alençon--Difficulties increased--Part of the crew separated from their officers--Our arrival at Rouen--An honest gaoler and his amiable wife--A moderate bill for gaol fare--_Bons garçons_ in a prison--Our arrival at Amiens--English sympathy for suffering countrymen.
I was not disappointed in my expectations, for I was received with the utmost civility. Every attention was paid to me, and I was provided with a suit of dry clothes. They got me instantly (of which I never before stood more in need) a warm draught, and gave each of my men a glass of liquor, and ordered breakfast for them, with everything else that was necessary to recruit exhausted nature, and to console them under their sufferings and misfortunes. The poor fellows were in a most deplorable state, shivering and shaking like aspen leaves; some of them were so worn out with fatigue, hunger, and the extreme severity of the weather that they could scarcely articulate when spoken to. The French officers informed me also, that the whole of the boats, except mine and one other, from the extreme violence of the weather, had been obliged to make for Brest, and had arrived in the night; whilst they added that they had been under the greatest apprehensions for our safety, as it was not supposed possible, from the size of the boats and the manner they were found, that they could exist through the severity of the night. Lieut. Barker, Mr. Nepean, a midshipman, and now a commander, and Mr. Carey, the boatswain (who afterwards died at Verdun), came on board, from the other French ships-of-war in which they were prisoners, to congratulate me on my extraordinary escape and safe arrival. We were, however, under the strongest and most painful apprehensions that Mr. Robert James Gordon, the midshipman who commanded the boat which had not yet arrived, had perished with his companions.